Build a Better Business Become a Marketing Maverick! What does he know about success that you don’t?
What does she know about success that you don’t?
What does he know about success that you don’t?
What does she know about success that you don’t?
Disclaimer Reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information presented in this book is accurate. However, the reader should understand that the information provided does not constitute legal, medical or professional advice of any kind. No Liability: this product is supplied “as is” and without warranties. All warranties, expressed or implied, are hereby disclaimed. Use of this product constitutes acceptance of the “No Liability” policy. If you do not agree with this policy, you are not permitted to use or distribute this product. Warrior Mind Books, its employees, associates, distributors, agents and affiliates shall not be liable for any losses or damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, consequential loss or damage) directly or indirectly arising from the use of this product.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 2
1. Background I’ve spent more than 25 years running management training courses helping organisations to unleash their potential and the potential of their people. There are a lot of fake management gurus – a bit like internet marketing gurus – but 6 writers are sound thinkers and have had a profound effect on me: Peter Drucker Jay Abraham Eli Goldratt Brian Tracy Richard Bandler Anthony Robbins The first 3 have taught me a lot about business while as a result of reading the last 3, I developed a deep fascination with the development of personal excellence in general, and hypnosis in particular. I’ve applied what I’ve learned in both my working life and when coaching field hockey. I’ve been blessed with being allowed to play hockey at international level, being part of the winning England side in the Over 40s World Cup in 1998. Further successes have happened on the coaching side, having coached winning teams in county, regional and national competitions. Sport has taught me an important lesson: often, those who succeed are not the most physically gifted. Success comes from how you think, in particular how you handle the stress of competition. Winners see stress as an enabler of performance, not a disabler. It’s how you think, not what you know, that determines success! I've recently turned my attention to Internet marketing and social media marketing and I'm dismayed at what I see. The best analogy I can think of is that it's like the Wild West – lots of snake oil sales people who promised the earth but deliver dust. Lots of prospectors and cowboys trying to stake their claim – and a fair few rustlers and hustlers to! There is also the honest pioneers who have come out West full of dreams of making it big -‐ some do, many fall prey to the hustlers, the rustlers and the snake oil peddlers. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 3
To push the metaphor a little further, the situation has been heavily influenced by a few earthquakes and other “natural disasters". The economic downturn has caused many to look online for secondary and even replacement incomes. Many silver surfers, the baby boomers who have now reached their 40s or older, have discovered that their pension funds had been plundered by their former directors or by politicians. They find that they have no pensions for their old age and need to build one quickly. In addition, there have been the regular tremors felt throughout certain parts of the Internet marketing industry whenever Google (the Sheriff, prosecutor, judge, jury and hangman all rolled into one) changes its algorithm. Hit particularly hard on those whose income depends on exploiting loopholes in the system and/or on black hat techniques (the card sharps of the online saloons, gaming the system). By the way, never buy any system based on a loophole as A. By the time the systems are released the loophole has usually been plugged and B. It's not the way to build a solid business. There’s something else about the Wild West. A few made their fortune in farming and mining. It was a tough, uncompromising environment. However, many more made much easier money by supplying the farmers and prospectors with the tools, equipment and supplies necessary for their livelihood. It was a far easier and much safer way to make money. So it is with online marketing – many make their money supplying the Internet marketers. Sometimes the suppliers are high-‐ quality; all too often, however, they are not fit for purpose – the tools break in the maps leads to fool's gold rather than to the real thing! Effluent floats while cream rises to the top -‐ the trouble in the online world is that it's often tough to spot the cream among all the crap! Just think about walking down a street in the Wild West, with open sewers, if you really want to push the metaphor -‐ I'm a hypnotist and I know that some people make very vivid internal pictures! © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 4
How You Think Matters! An important concept to grasp and one that I'll be returning to regularly, is that your success depends on how you think not on what you know. To illustrate this, most infopreneurs (entrepreneurs whose supply information products) only think tactically – they lack applying, a strategy. Because of this, they don't know what's relevant and what isn't. So they chase one silver bullet after another, hoping that this time they have the missing part of the puzzle. Let's use the Wild West analogy again ( for the last time, I promise!) Imagine your existing and potential clients as horses in a field. The field represents your niche. Your product is a high quality source of clean water. You can try to catch each horse individually and drag it to the water, or you can 1st build fences that leads to your water, putting hay and horse feed along the way to entice horses to the water. That's the difference between old-‐fashioned push marketing and Web 2.0 pull marketing. The 1st approach drags your clients to you, the 2nd entices them. And to those who say “you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink", I reply “the horse will drink when it's thirsty!" In order to achieve the above in your niche, you need 3 things: 1. A strategic marketing plan that includes clearly defined and measurable outputs. 2. Effective processes that include methods for measuring results. 3. Tactical plan to put your strategic plan into effect. You also need the flexibility and insight to know when a strategy is no longer serving you and needs to be changed. For example, there are only 2 ways to increase a business’s profits: Increase turnover while keeping costs at a lower percentage of sales than they were before, or keep turnover the same and reduce costs. Many companies did the second in the 80s but kept on cutting costs when they should have changed tack. The results? They went bust as they cut too far, and instead of trimming fat, they had amputated entire limbs! © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 5
You need to ask yourself a fundamental question, yet it’s one that most people don’t ask themselves: Why do you want to set up a business? What are you seeking to achieve – do you want to have a small business that supplements your main income, or do you want to be the next Facebook – or something in between? Do you need to make quick money and then move on? If that’s the case, and it can be done ethically, then good luck but that’s not what this report is about. The aim of this report is to build a sustainable and inclusive business (SIB) – sustainable as in being in it for the long term, inclusive as in putting the client at the centre of all that you do. By the way, whatever your motive for setting up a business, one thing’s for sure -‐ screwing your customers in the interests of your income… If that's your philosophy, and you won't be alone in adopting such an approach, this report is not for you! Web 2.0 relationships with clients is about 3 things: Connect – Engage – Share (CES). First you need to connect with potential clients, they need to engage them in conversation is about what's important to them, then you need to share valuable information with them. This will in turn deepen the connection, you engage more fully, and you continue sharing with them. It's the only way to build trust. Contrast this with the way many online and off-‐line businesses market themselves. Imagine you're going out on a date with your dream date. You pick a great restaurant, arrived together, sit down and spend the next hour telling them how great you are, why you're the perfect match for them, what your plans for them, etc! What's going to be the outcome of that encounter? Yet this is the marketing sales approach adopted by so many organisations! If you're new to the online world but our experience and off-‐line entrepreneur, understand that © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 6
only the setting is changed. The principles underpinning the building of an SIB are the same: 1. Most people need a good listening to, not a good talking to. I believe Jay Abraham said this first, a long time ago, and it's as true today as it was then. 2. Your success depends on how you think, not on what you know. Building an SIB means that you need to think strategically. 3. As Einstein said: “We cannot solve problems at the same level at which we created them.” Sometimes you’ve got to go against the grain, rejecting the approach the masses are taking. 4. Technology (hardware and software) is useful if, and only if, it can reduce or get rid of a constraint or limitation. Technology and social media, for example, are a means and not an end -‐ a tool, not the finished product. I was in Brussels, had a free day, and it was raining (Somehow, “rainy day in Brussels” is no match for Gladys Knight and “Rainy Night in Georgia”!). I decided to test out a hunch and what I found amazed and shocked me. I knew that I had spent a lot of money, mainly in Warrior Forum, on lots of “shiny toys”, products that promised me that they would show me how to make millions online.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 7
2. Scary Discovery! However, I found that over the last 3 years I had bought products in the following niches: Listbuilding and traffic generation Content creation including PLR and copywriting Affiliate building Business Building Market research Search Engine domination Product development Software development Site Building PPC, CPA etc. In addition, I’ve paid for 4 high-‐cost coaching programs, costing a total of over $10,000. I’m not going to name names but three of the four have been extremely beneficial as we’ll see in a while. Of course, each of these niches breaks down into sub-‐niches and I’ve bought products in many of those sub-‐niches. At a conservative estimate, I’ve spent at least another $7,000 on Warrior Forum Special Offers (WSOs) and similar products. It may bring a smile to Mike Lanz’s face (The Owner of Warrior Forum, who makes money from every WSO) but when I did the following simple analysis, I shuddered: Expenditure: At least $17,000 Revenue from implementing the contents of the WSOs: $1500 Net Loss: $15,500 And I’ll bet that not only am I by no means the only one in this situation, but also that others have spent a lot more and got even less income to show for it!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 8
3. A Cautionary Tale Let me start by asking you another question: “Are you living the lifestyle you envisaged when you 1st set up your own business?” Let me tell you a story. My wife was complaining that I was spending more time online than I was with her. My rationalisation was that I was trying to find the answer to building an effective online business. So I was spending hours each day in various forums, looking at the latest product that promised me success, and asking myself all the time the question “why had it become so hard to build a successful online business? “ I had a relatively successful off-‐line business, earning over $100,000 a year, but it meant that I was away from home a lot. I had got into the routine of working 16 hour days 5 days a week, coming home at weekends, and spending more time online as I tried frantically to find the solution. I was working hard, but I was not working smart! And I was neglecting the most important things in my life, including my wife and my health. Here’s a typical day: very little time was spent in socialising, most of each day was spent focusing on work. Ironically, I was ending each day feeling that I had achieved very little, or even nothing! So I grew increasingly uneasy and restless, found it more and more difficult to relax and was trying to cram even more hours in the day. Lunch was usually a sandwich grabbed during the break on a training course, and I'd eat it while working on my online business. I was becoming more and more impatient with people and with myself, finding that I was jumping from one task to another to yet another, without ever finishing the 1st one. I seemed to be flailing around while slowly sinking in the quicksand. When I allow myself to I can usually avoid negative thinking), I felt isolated, frustrated, overloaded by conflicting advice from all the different online “experts". I kept believing that if I looked hard I would find the one missing piece in the jigsaw. The problem is that it is so easy to confuse being busy with being effective and being efficient. If being effective means doing the right things, and being efficient means doing things in the right © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 9
way, I was neither! Ironically, as I have written elsewhere in this report, my “day job" was running training courses were quite often I was talking about time management, effectiveness and efficiency! I was certainly not walking my talk! In many ways, the dream of building an online business that could provide me with an income which would mean that I would travel less and spend more time with my wife, was fast becoming a nightmare! If this relates to you, don’t worry, this is why wrote this report, and why The Business Mavericks was founded! It’s so I can share what I have learned so that you don’t have to repeat my mistakes, or so that if you find yourself now where I was a few months ago, you can find your way out.
Potential and Success Your business potential depends on your knowledge, skills and behaviour. Incidentally, depending on who you read, up to 90% of businesses fold as a result of the founder’s lack of knowledge. This is exacerbated because most businesses are like a web with the founder at the centre. Take the centre out of a web and it all unravels! One of the things I’m striving to do is to build myself out of my business. I’ve taken the first steps by learning to outsource! Your success depends on the way you think. And if you haven’t worked it out yet, the answer to the questions on the front cover, is that each of them has learned that success comes from how you think, not from what you know!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 10
4. Full Circle When I first started blogging online, Yaro Starak was one of the people whose blogs I discovered early and whose mailings I’ve continued to receive. Three years later, I became interested in membership sites and it so happens that Yaro had a free ebook on the subject. I’d come full circle, back to Yaro’s writings! In a further example of coming full circle, in his ebook, Yaro made a passing reference to Rich Schefren. I’d never heard of him but something made me Google him and I discovered 3 things about him that I found immediately attractive:
1. Like me, he has a background in hypnosis and NLP. 2. Like me, he has read and studies the works of the 6 authors I mentioned above! 3. He is the IM guru’s guru. When he writes, people read. When he speaks, people listen!
Rich is the author of The Internet Business Manifesto – a report that has turned the businesses of many IM gurus upside down! It bought me full circle and slapped me in the face. He was applying Peter Drucker’s, Jay Abraham’s and Eli Goldratt’s teachings to internet marketing – the very material that I use with clients on training courses all over the world! I had spent 25 years helping others to see clearly, yet I couldn’t see the dust in my own eyes! It’s made me revisit the books I’ve read before, but look at them from an online business perspective. I strongly recommend that at the very least you join Rich’s Founder’s Club. The reports Rich sends out are the best I’ve read! The key message running through all of Rich’s material is simple yet profound – almost everyone in Internet Marketing is chasing the silver bullet that will enable them to have millions of online passive income with minimal effort. That’s low level (what rich calls “operational”) thinking at its worse. What’s needed is strategic thinking. With a strategic plan, you know whether or not to buy the latest WSO as you will know whether or not it fits in with your plan. With a strategic plan, you will ensure consistency of purpose, consistency of message, consistency of offering and consistency of service. It gives you the common thread that will run through everything you say and everything you do in your market. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 11
Rich’s work is very, very strong ( I hope he’ll at least buy me coffee one day after such a glowing testimonial !). Not only does he take you through the thinking necessary to set up an effective, sustainable business, he tells you what to do as well (something so many business gurus refuse to do!) sharing his hard won insights with his clients. If there is a gap in his offering, it’s that he doesn’t give away much in his reports on how to implement things. For that, you need to sign up to one or more of his online coaching programmes. If you do, you won’t be alone – his client list reads like a who’s who of IM big hitters! More details of his programmes are in the annex of this report and in the interests of fair disclosure, the links are affiliate links. Internalising Rich’s material, re-‐reading the authors I’ve mentioned previously, opening my client files of all the courses, workshops and coaching events I’ve run over the last 27 years (I started in 1985) has bought everything together for me and has led to the creation of a new company, The Business Mavericks, dedicated to helping people to strengthen their existing online businesses. The principles will apply to start-‐ups, but implementation of the concepts may be delayed. What seems to be needed is sound help for existing businesses.
Thank You! I also need to thank a few other people who have influenced me. The Kenster for the Skype chats, the encouragement, the mentoring and most of all the fine. His Six Figure Alliance is helping to set the next generation of online marketers on the right path. And Lee McIntyre -‐ proof that the Brits can make it in Internet marketing, his products are always worth buying! In a very short time, Lee went from being a schoolteacher to making a 7 figure income online. Unusually, he's not afraid to admit to his mistakes and to explain to others so that we don't have to repeat them.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 12
Someone else I want to mention is Leon Jay. I recently rediscovered FusionHQ which Leon created and all I can say is “wow!" Built by Internet marketers, for Internet marketers, it's an all in 1 solution based on drag and drop technology that enables you to setup simple or complex sites, with simple or complex sales funnels, without needing to know any code at all. Leon has also written a book “Do Less Work, Make More Money", which is one of the best, no fluff books on online and Internet marketing. In my opinion, it's an essential read! There’s a story I heard a long time ago, in the late 70s. It concerns 2 sons who were left an old farm by their father when he died. The farm barely made enough money for one son to work, let alone two, so the eldest decided to travel and make his fortune elsewhere. He did relatively well and one day decided to return to the family farm to share his income with his brother, who he was certain would be in need of it and grateful for it. To his surprise, far from being poor, his brother was many times wealthier than he was. “How can this be?” he asked his younger sibling. “After you left, I was digging in the field and discovered a rich vein of gold running through our fields and under the house. We’d literally been sitting on a buried goldmine, all those years!” What I’ve discovered in working with clients and in chatting with people online, is that most of them are not mining the vein of gold in their current business. Or, if you prefer another metaphor, they are leaving money on the table! The aim of this report is to help you extract every ounce you can from that goldmine, without annoying your customers or, even worse, driving them away!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 13
5. Are You a Maverick Marketer? A quick look at an online dictionary sees a maverick described as “One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter" and "Being independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence." What does this mean in practical terms for infopreneurs? (Infopreneur is the term I use to describe the blend of entrepreneurs who build their business around providing information.) The word “Maverick”, applied to infopreneurs, means the following: • Mavericks go against the grain, challenging the status quo. • Mavericks are prepared to take risks, to push boundaries. • Mavericks know when to work alone, and when to involve others helping them achieve their goal. • Mavericks are extremely curious about the world around them, about people, about their market. • Mavericks are usually charismatic. • Mavericks have a vision that dictates the course of action, even if that course of action appears strange to other people. • Mavericks usually motivate others by their own enthusiasm and by the strength of their commitment to their vision. • Mavericks know their strengths and focus on those strengths. They realise that if they spend their time trying to overcome their weaknesses, all they end up with is marginally better weaknesses! • Mavericks know a marketing secret: if they want to make more money, they have to create more value. Longer term they know that more value creates more loyalty which can lead to higher prices and increased sales.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 14
So, does this apply to you? Why is it so important to be prepared to go against the grain? Well look at it this way most small businesses fail within the 1st 5 years. Of the 15 to 20% survive that period, 80% won't survive the next 5 years. So as Rich Schefren is fond of pointing out, why do what everybody else is doing if it almost always leads to failure? Another thing to understand is that traditional marketing has focused on pushing products and services onto customers. The whole essence of Web 2.0 and internet and social media marketing is that the old days of broadcasting your message to your clients are dead! The new way does not depend on pushing, but on pulling your clients to you. You have to draw prospective clients in by creating marketing messages that appeal to their unfulfilled needs. It took me a while to fully understand the implications of all of this but eventually I realized that:
Change in Focus in Web 3.0 Marketing
Web 1.0
Customers Focuses on transactions Focuses on profit received Focuses on being a salesperson Focuses on Product The owner being at the centre Inward focused (on “us”) Slow to react Focuses on activity Focuses on operational issues
Web 3.0
Clients Focuses on building relationships Focuses on value given Focuses on being a trusted adviser Focuses on Service Decentralisation Externally focused (on the client) Swift to react Focuses on effectiveness and efficiency Focuses on strategic issues
Treat everyone who buys from you as a client, not a customer! © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 15
What does that last sentence mean? If we focus on customers, emphasis is on the transaction and the value of the transaction. If we think of people as clients, then part of our responsibility is to always act in their best interests. This is something that J Abraham writes about in many of his books (see resources section at the end). However, we need to recognise that existing and potential buyers have different needs. Some buyers only value price, always looking out for the cheapest product, trying to get as much as they can for the least expenditure. They don't appreciate and don't want added value, nor are they bothered about customer service as long as they get what they asked for as quickly as possible. These people will buy from you today if you are the cheapest, and will go to one of your competitors tomorrow should they then be the cheapest. They have minimal loyalty towards supplier or brand and in my experience of working with large organisations in many different countries, sales teams often waste a lot of time trying to keep these customers – a futile and frustrating exercise! By the way, if you decide to employ salespeople, the quickest way to demotivate them is to criticise them for the churn rate among this group of buyers! You have to accept that a high turnover among this group of buyers is inevitable. Other buyers are prepared to pay a little more in exchange for added value and for the sense that they are part of an ongoing relationship. These are the people you want to nourish, cherish and look after. Incidentally, in the table on the previous page, you’ll notice I refer to “Web 3.0”. In my mind, Web 2.0 was about connecting people. Web 3.0 takes this further and in Mitch Joe’s concept of 6 Pixels of Separation, it recognises that we are all connected, that reach is impossible to estimate. You may speak at a conference, in the past, your audience was those in front of you. Now, some of your audience will be Tweeting what you say into their Twitter Stream, some of their stream will retweet etc etc. You’ll never know your reach! Web 3.0 also recognises that Social Media is a means, not an end, a tool not the destination. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 16
The Stairway to Heaven
“The stairway to heaven” -‐ competitive advantage
Implementation Processes Tactics Strategy Vision Values
If you want to succeed, you need to be able to lead your existing and potential clients up the stairway drawn above. Your business has to be able to deliver on each step along the way. However, as I’ve mentioned before, Business Mavericks know that the route to sanity (and to having fun) is to leverage your strengths. One infopreneur might be good at the strategic aspect of things (e.g. Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren). Others might be better at the implementation and tactical side of things (e.g. Jay Levinson and Mitch Meyerson of Guerilla Marketing fame). In the next section, we’ll look at 4 different types of infopreneurs, to help you to work out where you fit in.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 17
6. What Kind of Infopreneur Are You? The ATIS Model There are 4 types of infopreneur, each with its own strengths and weaknesses: 1. The Architect, great at building strong, sustainable businesses. 2. The Trailblazer, makes money quickly by being in the right place at the right time. 3. The Inventor, creates products and services that make huge impact. 4. The Servant Leader, focuses on excellent value and service. If you look at these types, it should be apparent that each of us is our own unique combination of these. We may be very strong in one area, in two, in three or have a balanced profile. Whatever the case is for you, by knowing your strengths, if a weaker area is a constraint on your growth, you know you need to add someone with your missing strength to your team. When we first start out, delegating or out-‐tasking is not an option – we can’t afford it! So play to your strengths, perhaps joint venturing with someone in your niche who can compensate for your weaknesses. Alternatively, build a reputation for providing high quality content for free, with a paid-‐for back end, so that you can generate the income necessary to build the kind of team that can create value and make money by delivering top of the class products and services, backed by top of the class customer service and can build a strong sustainable business. Where does your strength lie? Turn the page and begin to read a more in-‐depth description of each of the 4 types.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 18
ATIS Type 1 – The Architect Strengths: • Building strong sustainable businesses. • Building business robust systems and processes. • Working on (rather than in) their business. • Consistent and congruent. Great at building a coherent brand. • They take ownership of what they do. • Perfectionists. Weaknesses • Perfectionists! Product launches can be delayed until the product is perfect. Architects also become frustrated with those who don’t perform to their standards. • Their desire for perfection can lead to them working very long hours, putting work/life balance out of kilter and threatening personal relationships. • They find it extremely difficult to delegate as they believe nobody can do it as well as they do. • They find it hard to ask for help or to retreat from an argument. • Tends to encourage and reward personal supporters. Can be manipulative, doing whatever is necessary to get the job done.
Opportunities: • Focus on your key relationships and nurture them. Reject any temptation to manipulate people, especially those close to you. • Surround yourself with people who are there because of their knowledge, skills and expertise not because they are quick to say yes to you.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 19
ATIS Type 2 – The Trailblazer Strengths • Let’s Do it! And while they are keen on something, they’ll be totally focused on it, until the next fresh field comes into sight. • Enthusiastic, energetic, keen to embrace the new. • Positive, overcoming disappointments easily. • Keen to learn from the best. Will often be a member of several coaching and mastermind groups. • Pragmatic – easily sees what will work and will exploit the opportunities provided. • Adaptable. • Happy to invest money to get results. • Good talkers. Weaknesses • Spends money easily on the latest novelty. • Hates doing research. • Multi-‐tasking at its worse. They get bored easily so will flit from project to project. They need someone to finish things off for them. • Can’t cope with anyone they perceive as being negative. • Their adaptability will sometimes lead others to see them as erratic. • Poor listeners. • Relationships suffer as they are chasing their latest, greatest dream. Opportunities: • Find someone you trust who will rein in your desire to rush into the next enticing field. • Find something you are passionate about and set yourself a deadline for completing it before moving on to the next thing (see The Perils of Multi-‐Tasking, later on in this report).
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 20
ATIS Type 3 – The Inventor Strengths • Can easily invent several different solutions to a problem. • They build fan bases because they are fanatical about quality and seeing things from the clients’ perspective. • If they build a track record of innovations that work, they find it easy to build a brand. • Product quality is more important than revenue and return on effort. Weaknesses • In the quest to invent the ideal solution, they may delay product launches, seemingly forever. The product may be beaten to the market by an inferior product, developed by a trailblazer, and the opportunity is then lost. • They focus on building the solution with all the bells and whistles they can think of, building a Rolls Royce solution for a Mini problem. • They’d much rather focus on product development than on running a business. • Poor people and business managers. Opportunities: • Give yourself a deadline for a new product launch. • Give yourself time off to develop a strategic overview so that new products are consistent with your strategic direction.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 21
ATIS Type 4 – The Servant Leader Strengths • Takes a long-‐term perspective. • Risk Averse. • Focuses on building strong relationships with clients. • Focuses on building strong relationships with staff. • Experts on their niche – happy to invest in their education so that they can keep their expertise up to date. • Good listeners. • “Slow and steady wins the race.” • Great networkers. • Have referral systems in place. • Dislike selling. Weaknesses • Unaware of what works in markets and industries outside of their niche. • Not good at differentiating themselves, their offering and their business. • Take it personally when staff leave them. • Risk averse so unlikely to embrace new, game-‐changing strategies. They are much more comfortable with established, proven methods. • May leave it too late to make radical change when it’s required. • “Slow and steady wins the race.” • Dislike selling. Opportunities: Think out of your box/comfort zone. For example: • Find what works in other industries/niches and bring it into your own. • Take a (small) calculated risk.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 22
A Note on Trailblazers Just as an observation on the ATIS model, mot people I come across in Online Marketing are Trailblazers. There’s nothing wrong with that if either: • You want to make money through a pile it high and sell it cheap mentality, hard selling one product or service before moving onto the next. However, accept that it will be tiring as there’s no long-‐term strategy so you are committed to product launch after launch after launch. • Your buyers fall into the category of buying the cheapest available today and have no loyalty to you. If your intuition is sound and you can tell what the next great thing is going to be, you can make a lot of money selling to these people, but its cut throat and you can expect more than your fair share of refund requests.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 23
7. The Perils of Multi Tasking When I first read this simple explanation in Eli Goldratt’s “The Goal”, it made so much sense to me – it really was a light bulb coming on, “aha” moment. Unfortunately, it’s taken me a while to realise that I’ve been slipping back into this in trying to establish an online business. Imagine you have 5 activities and for sake of simplicity, each one will take 4 days to complete. So I take on task A and see it through from beginning to end. Clearly, the time taken is 4 days.
A 4 Days
B 4 Days
C 4 days
D 4 Days
E 4 Days
However, we live in the Interruption Age where lots of things distract us and interrupt what we are doing. So, instead of seeing A through from start to finish, let’s keep the maths simple and say that I do half of A, then get distracted to B, do half of B before moving on to C, do half of C before moving on to D and do half of D before moving on to E. This multi-‐tasking may be of my own doing (to stave off boredom) or to keep other people happy, if each activity is owned by someone else. We multi-‐task to keep everyone happy!
A 4 Days 2
B 4 Days 2
C 4 days 2
D 4 Days 2
E 4 Days 2
Can you see where this is taking us? Because of multi-‐tasking, it will now take us 12 days instead of 2 to carry out task 1! If we only had the 5 tasks to do, things wouldn’t be too bad. Yes it would take use 12 days to carry out task A but the total time for doing the 5 will be the same whether we do them one after the other or in parallel – 20 days. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 24
However, and it’s a big however. What often happens is that when we get to E the first time, having spent 2 days on each of the other 4 activities, we do half of E and before we can get back to A, other things happen to distract us and get added onto the end. The result? A (and the others) never get finished! You want a simple proof? How many Online Business infopreneurs never get their businesses up and running?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 25
8. The Infopreneur’s Biggest Constraint. Another key part of Goldratt’s book ”The Goal” is the idea of constraints – indeed, it gave its name to his whole body of work! In the book, he’s talking about processes in a production line (but it applies to any linked series of processes) and states that there will always be a constraint, or bottleneck that holds up throughput. It’s the weakest link in the chain and just like a chain, there can only be one weakest link, one constraint. Too often, people confuse symptoms with root causes and try to fix a problem by addressing root causes. A simple example: a manager finds the work in her office disrupted because of the noise resulting from a personality clash between two of her staff that sit near each other. To stop the constant bickering, she decides on an office reshuffle, moving people to new desks. It stops the noise but now she has a host of new problems – workflow has been disrupted, people are frustrated because they were happy sitting where they were etc. The noise was obviously a symptom, not the root cause. She should have got the two team members together and sorted out their dispute. Goldratt was focusing on systems when he said that there will always be a constraint that reduces that system to a less than optimal state. With infopreneurs, I’d take this up a level and say that in most cases, the constraint is found in the way we think. Unless we sort that out, anything we do will be at a symptom level!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 26
9. Who’s Driving the Bus? Who is in control of your life? Did you know that your life is largely controlled by your unconscious mind? And that this means that what often determines your action is a past memory or collection of memories, of which you may no longer even be aware. Why? Because the mind works by association. When you are faced with a new situation, at an unconscious level you will look for the nearest equivalent event. The problem is that our memory of that event isn’t always objective or accurate. Let’s take a look at why we respond to events in the way that we do.
The trigger may be any event – it may be the event itself, like the death of a loved one, or it may be the perception or interpretation of that event. For example, your boss asks you to come into her office and you immediately interpret it as “Oh, oh, I must have done something wrong.” The end result may be an emotion, a physical sensation or a behavioural response – in isolation or as a reinforcing cycle.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 27
This second diagram more accurately depicts the self-‐reinforcing cycle, and to clarify further: Thoughts These include attitudes, beliefs, demands we make on ourselves, demands we feel are made on us by others, our perceptions, rules, self-‐limiting beliefs, self-‐limiting fears. Emotions and Behaviours The emotions and the behaviours may be empowering or disempowering (if that is the antonym!) So let’s have a look at some of the faulty thinking patterns we often engage in that can lead to a response other than the one we wanted: Exaggeration There are two elements to this: Firstly, magnifying small events into major disasters; the person who makes a drama out of a small event. For example, at breakfast, they spill something into their lap and say “Oh no, now I have to change my clothes… my whole day is ruined!”
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 28
If you are prone to this form of exaggeration then one way to deal with this is to ask yourself whether, a week from now, what happened to you will matter. Secondly, generalising from the specific; an extreme example of this is that many people with phobias, acquired the phobia on the basis of a one-‐off experience! Some are acquired after several unhappy experiences, others develop after one incident; the walker who was walking along a path, came unexpectedly upon a snake sunning itself on the path. The snake moved quickly away from the path but at an unconscious level, the walker is worried about what might have happened if that snake had moved quickly towards them. They fear that they cannot move quickly enough to get out of the way of the snake, internalise all of this and develop a phobia of snakes. Listen to the language you and others use; how often do we hear people say “ I always mess this up”, or “You never tell me you love me!” these generalisations are examples of exaggeration. And they are easy to get back into context if you can find exceptions to the generalisation.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 29
10. Unleashing Your Potential Regardless of the talents you were born with, the family you were born into, your schooling, your track record at work, your love-‐life, your age, the money you have made and lost, difficulties or lucky breaks in life you are not your history! You can always change and nothing can get you to where you want to be quicker than understanding your full potential. The people who succeed are the people who learn how to make the most of their strengths. The first step is discovering just what this is. For some this is an instinctive process, often helped by a watchful parent or teacher who spotted something in us from an early age and helped it reach fruition. For others, it’s a struggle to identify as it can lie deeply hidden within us. As children we often knew what we wanted to do with our lives. We had dreams! In some cases these were torn from us or squashed by parental disapproval or expectations that didn’t match our own natural talents. For instance you may have been naturally artistic, loved to draw and paint and put designs together. Your parents, on the other hand, may have been successful accountants and business owners and from when you were very young they heaped pressure on you to be a part of the family business. They actively discouraged anything that took your focus away from the dreams they had for you. Other people held on to their dreams and ambitions until well into their twenties and then had to sacrifice them for reasons such as starting a family at a relatively young age.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 30
Lack of opportunity can also play a part. We often find out what we are good at by trial and error – the more things we can try, the more likely we are to find the thing we are good at. If you grew up in an environment where there were few opportunities for this kind of discovery then you would be less likely to discover what you were good at as opposed to someone who grew up in an environment that was rich in opportunities. Too often our self-‐limiting beliefs get in the way. For example Jenny was a talented and creative designer who loved to put concepts together. However she was raised in a poor family and had experienced that embarrassing feeling of frequently being the only kid in her class without cool shoes or the latest gadgets. While she loved design she told herself it couldn’t make her money so she went for the more traditional methods such as finance and accounting. No matter how hard she persevered she found herself stressed, unhappy and even worse, she was poor as she couldn’t seem to climb up the ladder to success. Finally, in desperation, Jenny started to do some designing for friends on the side just to keep her sane. At first it was a free thing, but as her designs were shown to others, people started to offer to pay her. She discovered that she could actually do something she loved AND get paid for it. Her only regret was that she wished she had discovered that a lot earlier. Our potential can also be cut short by circumstance. If you are struggling to meet your financial obligations every week and you have a family to support among other responsibilities then it can be difficult to see a way out in order to unlock that missing key and find success in the things you were born to do. Whatever the reason(s) that have brought you to want to unlock your potential the most important thing from here on in is that none of that has to matter. For every situation that has caused you to struggle, to feel stressed that you’ll never find your passion and be able to use it, there is a person who has found a way to. If they can do it then you can too! © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 31
11. More About Your Mind As we’ve seen, our mind can be our greatest asset or our greatest constraint! I’d like you to stop reading for a moment, close your eyes and count to five. When you’ve done that, open your eyes and turn to the next page.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 32
While you had your eyes closed: • you lost and replaced 15 million red blood cells; • some 500,000 chemical reactions took place in every one of the 100 to 200 trillion cells of which your body is comprised; • 50 million cells died and were replaced… without you being consciously aware of it or doing anything about it! In addition: • your heart pumps over 100 gallons every hour; • each blood cell completes a circuit of your body in between half a minute and a minute; • your pancreas regenerates itself each day; • your kidneys filter your blood, help to create red blood cells, release hormones, help maintain blood pressure etc.; • your mind maintains more than 500 liver functions ; • your mind manages the many functions essential for maintaining homeostasis; • your body releases just the right enzymes to digest the food you consume; • your body radiates about the same amount of energy as an electric light bulb, every day. All this, and much more, your unconscious mind does without any interference from your conscious mind! In fact, if you had to consciously control even one of these functions, you’d probably go mad. I remember as a small child taking conscious control of my rate and depth of breathing. After only about 30 seconds, I began worrying about what would happen if I had to exert conscious control fro the rest of my life! My point for mentioning the above is this – if the mind can do this without any prompting, what else can it do if we unleash its power? Let’s look at just one area: Language often conceals deep truths in everyday expressions – we've all used the expression “mind over matter”, usually describing someone's persistence (or stubbornness, take your pick) and refusal to give in. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 33
But doctors and other professionals miss the point of this. Any healing that can't be explained by their scientific model is dismissed as the “Placebo Effect” as though this is a bad thing. Most complementary therapists have a drawer in their local physician's filing cabinet; it's called “spontaneous remission”. In other words, healing that happened that the medical world cannot explain. The weird thing is that most doctors treat each incident as an isolated case because these cases contradict their training and their model of reality. A more fruitful approach would be to ask questions like: “How are these people able to heal themselves?” “How can they heal themselves when medicine has failed?”, “If they are able to heal themselves, what caused the original illness/disease?”, and most importantly “How can we learn and teach these self-‐healing processes?” In over 25 years of work focusing on the mental side of personal development, I've come to understand that there are 5 pillars to these self-‐healing situations: 1. An understanding that Descartes was wrong – there is no mind/body split. Our thoughts affect our physical state (and our physiology affects our mental state too!). 2. A belief that the power than created and runs the being can heal the being. 3. A belief that “If others can do it, I can do it!” 4. We can become a new being. 5. A clear picture of the healed state and an unshakeable belief that it can be attained. It’s not the purpose of this e-‐book to look at the placebo effect in detail. My point is a simple one: If your mind can heal you from illness and disease, how much easier is it for the mind to help you to achieve your wildest dreams?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 34
12. Master Your Thoughts Individuals have survived prison camps by mastering how they thought and how they felt. Mankind has defied great physical pain and dreadful conditions with little more than a centred purpose. On a less spectacular scale, you have probably used the might of directed thought in your own life to cope with pain. Have you noticed how pain levels appear reduced when we focus our minds elsewhere?
This simple illustration can be applied to explore the true power of thought, and particularly the might of positive thinking. Your power to bring about the life you want starts with the simple direction of your day-‐to-‐day thoughts and feelings. While there's some value in humility, I believe we're at a point in human evolution where it's essential to recognize our greatness. You can only do that by focusing on your strengths, not on your weaknesses. You're the master of your reality and of your circumstances. However, and it’s a big however, I'm going to say something now that will annoy a lot of people – change requires effort! You can't just sit on the sofa thinking positive thoughts and expect you heart's desires to materialise! Do you want to know the missing part of The Secret and of The Law of Attraction? It's easy! There's an ancient tradition that teachers only imparted part of their wisdom to their students. Giving them everything made it too easy and would mean that the student didn't appreciate the value of what they had been taught. So, the teacher would let the students work out the missing parts for themselves, often leaving clues in main site. In this case, the clue was in the word “Attraction”. It's made up of 2 words “Attract” and “Action”. So the formula is Attraction = Attract + Action. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 35
To put it another way – just add effort! The trouble is that “effort” is not a popular word these days! People want instant, effortless, success! The effort has to be made up of doing the right things at the right time – this report is based on the premise that your success depends on how you think, not what you know. It uses the findings from the latest neurological research into how we can benefit from neuroplasticity and overcome its opposite, neurorigidity, which we see in so many people today. Regardless of what people tell you, (including psychologists, psychiatrists, life-‐coaches and psychotherapists who want to keep you dependent on them so that they can depend on your regular payment to them,) you have a far greater ability to rewire your brain than was thought possible even 20 years ago. And if you can rewire your brain, you can alter your perception of situations, your beliefs, your behaviour and ultimately, your life! It means that if you eliminate the constraints in your thinking, you can be the infopreneur you’ve been dreaming of being! How cool is that! Never think that when you set about something that it will end in failure. If you believe so then that idea or doubt will be translated as a 'failure' picture in your mind. Your unconscious will direct your activity according to that 'failure picture' which of course will end in failure. Alternatively, if you picture those thoughts positively, they will be translated into the picture of success and automatically your unconscious will bring the end result of success. It's the secret of nature. You are able to reap only what you sow. If you want a bouquet of roses, plant roses,
not tulips! Thoughts, images, and action all have a close fundamental interaction with one another. They can't disagree. When Gandhi’s wife was asked about the reasons for his success, she quietly pointed to the congruency of his every thought, word and deed! © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 36
13. How do You Measure Your Worth? Some tough questions! What is your personal currency? In other words, how do you measure your self-‐worth? What do you feel you have to offer to the world? And is that offer given the value and respect it merits? Are you happy?
When you judge yourself, as we all do sometimes, how do you measure up? Are you an appreciated part of society? Are you predictable? Do you ever feel compromised in any way? Who are you comparing yourself with, when you judge yourself?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 37
14. Achieving Your Potential Genuine personal knowledge is known as "insight." Many people don’t take the time for this self re-‐discovery as thinking takes effort. Yet this is a deep, intuitive realizing of yourself that fortifies your core -‐ the place inside of you that yoga teachers discussed. Your core calls for being both resilient – as an infopreneur there are times when you will need all of the inner strength that you can muster! Start your process of self-‐evaluation today by spending some person-‐ to-‐person time yourself. Find a calm corner and apportion some cherished time to discovering yourself. Try for half-‐hour a day, even 15 minutes will get you going. Let yourself gaze into space, think,
daydream, meditate... You might think I'm crazy. Who has the luxury of additional, disposable time? It's true that a lot of us have overscheduled ourselves to the point of debilitation, leaving very little time in our lives for gazing into space and contemplation. The time we give ourselves is special time that not only do we require but that we merit. Whatever you do, even if you simply hide in your bathroom for 10 minutes a day, breathe deeply and give yourself the gift of positive reflection. Consider yourself in the best imaginable way and choose to do whatever you are able to do to raise the quality of your life today. The following exercise can help you to focus your thinking:
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 38
Exercise Statements to complete and reflect on: I feel worthwhile once I _________________________. I am competent and successful in my__________________. I am most pleased when I _________________________. My accomplishments make me feel worthwhile as_________. I feel most secure when I ________________________ My positive mind-‐set for my future includes_____________. My acquaintances and relatives appreciate me for my_______. I admire myself because I'm________________________. I feel satisfied and positive when_____________________. Take time to really think these through – as you’ll discover in a moment, the last question is particularly important when first you discover your passion and then align it with your purpose.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 39
15. The Importance of Passion “Life is not tried it is merely survived if you’re standing outside the fire.” Garth Brooks. By investing in time to unlock your own potential you give yourself the opportunity to discover all that you were created to be. Part of that process is identifying what your purpose is. And to do that, you need to look at what makes you feel passionate. Look at it another way – there’s little point trying to build a business around something you don’t feel passionate about. That passion will help you through some of the inevitable tough times. Furthermore, if you don’t feel passionate about your business, your clients will soon spot it – you won’t be authentic or congruent and nobody likes a fake! Some people seem to instinctively live a life of passion. They seem to know the direction they want to go in almost from birth and everything always seems to fall into place for them. They are like a cat falling from a height-‐ no matter what they always seem to land on their feet. For others, it takes a sharp change! A crystal clear moment or a long journey of learning to find that same direction which can be learnt and you can discover it by spending some time investigating your own history. If you want to succeed in life, you first must find your passion, then harness it and use it to focus your dreams and vision. The more you follow the path your passion leads you down, the more drive you will have to help you to achieve the goals, and ultimately the life, you desire. Without passion, it’s a lot harder to make any changes we need to make to ourselves – there will be no motivation to change. While not everything we do is directly related to our passion (It’s hard to explain the link of doing the dishes with being an infopreneur, for example), if we are assured in our passion, we do all those extra tasks a bit more gladly, knowing that passion will drive us through those moments we find hard and less enjoyable. That is one of the secrets of living a life where you meet your full potential. While you’ll still need to do something every now and again that may not be enjoyable, the passion gained from doing the things you love will help carry you through. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 40
An additional benefit is its infectiousness. People want to be around someone with direction. It’s like a drug. Finding your passion and purpose will affect everyone else in your life-‐ without you even planning on it. Ask yourself: What Am I Aiming at? The key is to be as specific as you can about what your actual purpose is. For example many infopreneurs think their purpose or passion is to become rich when in fact it is to initiate, develop and create new ideas that address their market’s needs. The wealth is just one of the measurements of that success.
Furthermore, the money is only a tool -‐ ask yourself why you want it. Is your chief goal to create a museum of your belongings? Is it to provide for your family? Or is it to have the freedom to spend your life serving a cause you believe in? All of these indicate a vastly different purpose even if all require a large sum of money. It’s easy to lose track of our purpose, and get caught in the treadmill of life. We live in an age characterised by interruptions. But it’s when we lose sight of our purpose that we risk burning ourselves out. We take short cuts or we start looking at ways that are not aligned with our central purpose to get us out of horrible and unrewarding situations. If your purpose seems completely unrelated to making money don’t worry at all! Finding purpose isn’t just about finding wealth. Dave was in a successful position as a banker. He was rising through the chain and he was finding some success. But he was unhappy. He spent some time looking at what he wanted to follow for his purpose and shocked everyone when he went for a pretty major career change. He’s now working as an orderly at a local hospital while he studies to become a nurse. He’s found that the purpose he wanted to live for most was to work alongside people suffering from chronic illness and shut away in hospital rooms. It might not pay as well but he managed to pick up a fair few tips during his banking times so his investments are going well and he’s waking every morning happy to go to work. He’s living life according to the purpose he was created for. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 41
Not everyone is wired to make money as part of their purpose; just think of Mother Theresa. Whatever your purpose, it may not be the same as anyone else in your family or among your friends. This is about what you want to do, what you want to achieve. Allow yourself to dream your own dreams and reach your own goals. Are the dreams you have any better or worse than another’s? No! All each of us should do is live our live by the purpose we hold deep inside us. Imagine how different the world would be if that was what everyone did. What an exciting and fulfilling way to live.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 42
16. How Do You Find Your Purpose? One way is to answer some simple questions:
What am I doing when I feel the most inspired, loving and grateful?
What am I most passionate about?
What am I really good at?
What can I do for hours and not notice time passing by?
If success was guaranteed, what one great thing would I do?
If I could design my ideal life, what service would I be giving to mankind?
Remember, you are an individual! Your passion is never going to be exactly the same as someone else’s. Your general answers may be the same as other people but the specifics will be unique to you. So just in case you are tempted, don't look at someone else’s purpose and compare your own unfavourably! You can only be yourself and you can only bring your own knowledge, talents and skills to achieve your purpose. No one will do it quite like you and that is ok! As I said before, people will soon spot if you are trying to be someone else! Learning positive things from other people is clever. I’m a member of several mastermind and coaching groups because I want to learn. And if you are going to do the same thing, take a tip from me – go to the top, learn from the best but check out their track record as a host of such programmes first. I wasted a lot of money on a VIP group run by a very successful internet marketer without checking it out fully first. His coaching was nowhere near as good as his track record in internet marketing! What isn’t sensible is making negative judgments about ourselves by comparing ourselves with other people. If you allow these comparisons to begin to influence you negatively, there's a big danger that fear will creep in and before long your fear will distract you from your purpose.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 43
The importance of gratitude. I strongly believe that being thankful every day for where you are now and where you are going keeps your thoughts on track. If you can’t be thankful for any aspect of your life then it is likely that you are living a life that is not consistent with the purpose you were designed for. If you have lost that ability to be thankful, you need to start to create it to give yourself the strength to move out of that negative situation. Start the day by being thankful. Before you get up in the morning you should say some thank yous. If you have a faith, this is like praying. The concept works regardless-‐ it’s just acknowledging the things in your life you love or care about. It may be people, situations or possessions. At the end of the day, just before going to bed, repeat the exercise. Then you start and end the day on a positive note. It doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s a good way to create a circle of thankfulness to start and end your day on. You’ll know that you are living a life where your passion and purpose are aligned because every morning you'll leap out of bed thinking “I love my life!” (It's ok if you don’t some mornings; I struggle with that a bit, too!) A life lived with passion is a life lived fully.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 44
17. Combining Purpose and Passion Once you have established what your purpose is you need to combine it with your passion. The following exercises are designed to ask you some tough questions but the result will be a clear statement of where you want to be going and why. First some important questions: • Why is this a good time for you to find your purpose and to make a commitment to achieving your goals? • What would happen if you didn’t change anything at all? • What’s missing from your life at the moment? • What is holding you back? For most of us, if we are absolutely honest, the answer to the 4th question is “Me!” So if that was your answer don't worry as you are not alone (and it's ok if you want to add that answer now)! If your answer to the 4th question is “Fear”, look at section 19.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 45
18. Future Visioning This is one of the most important parts of this report – it really starts to focus you on how you think! Creating your ideal future will help you to decide what’s important and what isn’t; what to focus on and what to discard.
Exercise 1: Design your ideal lifestyle Overall:
1. What kind of accommodation do you live in and where is it geographically? 2. What hobbies do you have, who else is involved and how often do you do them? 3. Who do you spend your time with? (Describe your relationship with your partner and family.) 4. How many holidays a year do you take? i) Where do you go? ii) Who do you go with? iii) What do you do?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 46
Exercise 2: Your ideal work life 1. What is your work? i) What niche are you in? Why that niche? What value do you provide to your clients? ii) Do you work for yourself or for someone else?
2. What is Your Ideal work week? i) Do you have a lazy morning and then work in the afternoon for a few hours or do you work in the morning and do other things in the afternoon? ii) When do you work, how many hours a day do you work? What are your main responsibilities? 3. What is your work environment like? 4. Who do you work with? 5. What makes you proud about your work? 6. Who are your customers? 7. Who are your suppliers?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 47
Exercise 3: My Offering There are four key questions you need to ask yourself when moving from strategy to delivery: 1. What is my niche and why have I chosen it? 2. What are their needs, wants and expectations? 3. What is my offering? 4. How does my offering address my market’s needs, wants and expectations better (cheaper, faster, higher quality etc) than my competitors’ offering?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 48
19. The Fears That Hold us Back It may seem a little strange to be talk about the fears and blockages that prevent us from living our dream, but there is a reason. As we examine some of these obstacles, some people find it illuminating, perhaps understanding for the first time why they can’t get the results they are seeking. Others gain comfort when they realise that they are not alone in
experiencing these constraints on their growth.
These fears can cause us to be confused – we want one thing but do something that is counterproductive, giving in to the fear. Here , in no particular order, is a list of the top ten fears and blockages that Spectators and No-‐Shows (see section 12) suffer from and that prevent them from achieving and living their dream:
1. Fear of Failure Do you hold yourself back from doing what you really want to do because you’re afraid of failing? If so, ask yourself a simple question – how do you know you will fail? If you really feel a calling to do it, whatever ‘it’ might be, then know that you are supported in your efforts, you are not alone. And anyway, in the unlikely event that things didn’t turn out as you had hoped, what would be the cost of failing? Often it’s just time and perhaps a loss of face – another tip for you:
Reframe ‘Failure’ as feedback and look for the positive As many people know, Eddison took over 10,000 attempts before successfully inventing the light bulb and saw each ‘failed’ attempt as having discovered one more way that didn’t work. Anthony Robbins went bankrupt before reinventing himself and becoming possibly the most successful inspirational speaker on the planet. Study the biographies of people like Joe Vitale, Richard Branson, Amitabh Bachchan, Pat O’Bryan, Oprah Winfrey and many others; you’ll find that in most cases, they suffered setbacks on the way. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 49
Incidentally, reframing is a very useful technique to develop. Put simply, it’s looking for the silver lining in the cloud, looking for the positive in a seemingly negative situation. Sometimes people have difficulty changing behaviours that no longer appeal to them or serve them. Behaviours that are hard to change are often labelled ‘habits’. Being able to change any behaviour you choose, when you choose, is a prerequisite to successful living. One effective way of changing behaviour is through Reframing. Anytime we ‘draw our map’ of the world, we create a particular frame of reference. Reframing is about changing the different components of your map, as well as changing the way you look at our map. Remember, the map is not the territory! For example, imagine you’re stuck in traffic and you’re becoming more and more frustrated. The frame of reference you’re applying is that you should be in motion, driving, getting to your destination as quick as possible. Hence your frustration. But, if your frame of reference is that being stationary will give you some uninterrupted time to think about any subject you like, or listen to recordings of empowering speakers or your favourite music, then the experience is no longer frustrating, it’s empowering. Alternatively, it’s interesting to see how people’s attitudes to being stuck in a traffic jam changes once they learn that the cause is a serious accident and that as a result, someone has died. They move from being frustrated or angry at being late to realising how lucky they are not to be in the accident and feeling sympathy for the relatives and friends of the dead and seriously injured. Those in the traffic tailback see their delay in a different light. That too is reframing in action. Reframing is not denial. Remember, there is no one definitive map. You create your own reality, based upon your perception. That’s another way of saying that you choose what an event means to you. You’ll be finding out more about perception in a later chapter.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 50
All too often, we feel a loss of control or believe that we have no choices. That’s partly because we see things in a single frame of reference, but by reframing, we re-‐affirm to ourselves that we have options and choices, that we have some control over our lives. One of the big differences between successful and unsuccessful people is the ability of the successful to reframe negative situations. While the ‘average’ person looks at the undesirable result as failure, the successful person looks at it simply as an outcome, then tries something else and ultimately produces their desired result.
2. Fear of Success/It takes so much energy to succeed. Whilst some people are afraid of failure, others are afraid of the success, or of their perception of the price that they will have to pay for their success. Self-‐Sabotaging Programs Typically, people with such fears undermine the possibility of success with self-‐sabotage programs. In psychology, self-‐sabotage programs are any thoughts or behaviours that undermine a person’s therapy, healing or success in reaching their goals. This is because an unconscious state or ‘force’ dominates all the conscious efforts they make. It often reflects circular logic or self-‐fulfilling prophecies confirming the person’s self-‐defeat. This is not what they are about though; these programs were often originally intended by the unconscious to protect us at a time when it thought our survival was in jeopardy. Unfortunately, often many years later, that same program is still running when not only is there is no longer any need for it, but it now hinders our development. We need to understand that the sabotage is not deliberate; it is not a manifestation of a lack of desire, skills, knowledge or effort. Rather, there’s something inside us that is stronger than our conscious desire to heal and it sabotages our efforts. Sabotage Programs can affect every dimension of a person’s being, physical, mental, emotional or Spiritual. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 51
Self-‐Sabotage behaviours are most recognizable as an internal ‘tug-‐of-‐war’. An example is the client who wishes to lose weight but rewards each loss with a chocolate binge! Self-‐Sabotage behaviour can leave the person feeling very frustrated; they feel trapped in a situation they desperately want to change, but can’t. Some give up trying, saying that theirs’ is a special case. In other cases, during a balance, a client’s body offers up symptoms for healing that appear to be credible, whilst the real issue remains concealed. We all have Sabotage Programs and when we are behaving based on one
of these programs that are rooted in attitudes and beliefs that are false or distorted, we often feel that it is not ‘our self’ that is responsible for
our sabotaging actions. We feel betrayed by this emotional defence system, not understanding why we are undermining ourselves so actively
3. Poverty or Scarcity Consciousness Most of us were told when we were growing up that we should not be greedy or selfish. We may also have been brought up to believe that the world has only a limited amount of resources, that there’s not enough to go round so we’re being selfish if we succeed. John Kehoe (1992) summed it up when writing: “Imprint these 4 prosperity beliefs into your unconscious mind: 1. It’s an abundant Universe 2. Life is Fun and rewarding 3. Staggering opportunities exist for me in every aspect of my life 4. Having lots of money is good. It is my responsibility to be successful. “ © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 52
There is nothing greedy or unspiritual about having money; it’s what you do with it that matters. The negative aspect is greed, keeping it all for yourself, wanting money for money’s sake. The positive is all the good you can do with the money you earn -‐ it’s difficult to make a difference in the world without earning the money first.
4. Life is hard with little reward You are wealthy right now! We all have riches, whether family, friends, place of worship, financial wealth, work, organisations we belong to etc. The thing is, only financial wealth pays the bills. You can choose to build your riches, including your financial wealth, or you can undermine yourself with poverty consciousness and believing you are unworthy to have money. It’s up to you! Yes you have to put the effort in, and the reward is commensurate with the effectiveness of the effort you put in. Note the subtle difference – I didn’t write that the ‘reward is commensurate with the effort you put in’, but with the ‘effectiveness of the effort.’ There’s a huge difference! The distinction is simple – effectiveness means doing the right things (as opposed to efficiency which means doing things in the best way), so are you being effective? In other words, is everything you do aimed at living your dream? If the answer is ‘no!’, then yes, life can appear to be hard with little reward. I have been told by two different people that had I ignored Mathilda’s message and changed the way I was working to embrace the spiritual, I would at the least have become seriously ill; one ventured the opinion that it could even have killed me! And in case that gives a misleading impression, let me add that illness or death would not have been the ‘revenge’ of some fearsome God, but merely the consequence of mind, body and soul being out of alignment. © http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 53
True success never diminishes someone else, is never selfish. Make sure that you never allow yourself to be jealous of someone else’s success. Instead, see it as proof that if they can succeed, so can you! As well as the direct benefits your service provides, there are also the indirect benefits; you spend the fruits of your success, creating profit for others, contributing to the economy as those people in turn spend their greater profits and so on. I learned the downside of this equation in the early 1980’s when the local naval dockyard was closed by the government. Not only was there direct unemployment as a result of the decision but many small local suppliers, for example taxi companies and local shops of all types, suffered as a result of the decision, with the unfortunate consequence that many ceased to trade.
5. Having a closed mind This is typified by phrases such as ‘There are already so many books out there’, ‘That won’t work for me because...’, ‘It won’t work in the current economic climate’, ‘That might work for most people, but I’m different/my situation is different’, and so on. A
closed mind is another way of saying that ‘My perception of the world is right and is the only valid one.’ It actually becomes a self-‐reinforcing, vicious circle; your perception is your reality, as we will see later. If you continue to believe that it’s ‘Your way or the highway’, then you are right, it won’t work for you; A closed mind closes down its options. Another sign of a closed mind is frequently saying “I already know that”. As the Japanese saying says, a beginners mind has many possibilities, an expert’s mind has few!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 54
6. Money is Unspiritual You can be spiritually rich and financially prosperous – spirit and matter are not separate. Indeed, one of the reasons that you are here on earth is to live your dream to the benefit of everyone, including you! Think of it this way. As you reap the rewards of your success, think about all of the causes you’ll then be free to support, to invest in! The more money you make, the greater the causes you can invest in! Money is unspiritual if we allow it to manage us. However, if we manage it, and use it to enjoy life and to fund great causes, it becomes a spiritual tool. To put it another way – how can you donate to worthwhile causes if you don’t have the money with which to donate?
7. I am Unworthy/Nothing Good Ever Happens to Me This is one I can really identify with; for a long time, due do an overheard conversation that I misunderstood, I believed that my younger brother was more intelligent than me and that nothing good every happened, or would happen, to me. I guess that this was exacerbated by my mother’s death, which served to reinforce the belief that only bad things happen to me. It’s a dangerous mindset to have, because anything to the contrary is discounted or ignored. Of course, lots of good things happened to me, but because that didn’t fit my model of the world, I ignored them or found an excuse to invalidate them.
8. Nothing I do is good enough No-‐shows, or Spectators that have developed from a No-‐show past (see section 12) often believe this. If this applies to you, my question for you is what are you using as your comparison? Good enough compared to what or whom? And look at your belief…nothing? Have you never produced a good result at anything? At some stage in your life, you must have succeeded at something. So you can get good results. Which means that the belief is false. Time to reprogram yourself!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 55
9. My failure is a result of bad karma from a past life If you believe that you carry ‘bad karma’ into this life from a past life, think of this: it can’t have been that bad as you were allowed to incarnate here so think of it as being given a second chance to take whatever actions are necessary to succeed. And part of that second chance may well be to cancel any ‘negative karmic energy’ that you believe you carry by giving. Make it a regular practice to give money to whoever inspires you, or whoever you consider to be worthy of it and you will find that any karmic residue will be dissolved and that you will attract more money, a proportion of which you can give away and so on. Get more, give more, get even more, give even more and so it goes on!
10. God will provide so I don’t need to do anything I believe (And it’s cool if you don’t), that God/the Universe/Spirit are available to help you if asked, but they won’t do it for you; as I’ve said before, you have to play your part. My wife has a great expression “Trust God but lock the car doors when you park.”
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 56
11. Why is This So Important? Your ability to get to where you want to be, to live a life of purpose is in direct proportion to your ability to exercise mind control. The ideas and activities in this report help your mind lock onto the purpose you are heading towards. It helps you to place your goals inside your subconscious, and then the process becomes a lot easier. The ability to harness your mind and control your thought processes is one that successful people through the ages have used. It’s the common denominator of all successful people whether they are business owners or world class athletes. I was lucky enough to play international hockey. Was I the best in my position? Not in terms of physical ability. But one thing I was able to do was turn the stress of competition into an enabling and not a disabling element. One study by Australian psychologist Allen Richardson showed that when basketball players were asked to not practice but to just mentally rehearse a successful shooting practice for twenty minutes a day they were as successful as the control group who had actually physically practiced their shooting every day for twenty minutes. Many people believe that when we begin to take control of our own minds and focus on our goals we affect the environment we live in. Exciting things begin to happen. Doors that seemed so heavily wedged shut suddenly open or new opportunities spring out of nowhere. These are situations that begin to work in your favour once you get your focus right. There’s nothing mystical or new age about this. If we align our thoughts and our behaviour with our passion and purpose and take action, things are bound to happen.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 57
12. The Games People Play Think of the world as a sports arena, or a theatre stage. There is a lot of information in the table below, which identifies three types of people. As you read each one, put a circle around which behaviour applies most to you. When you’ve read the whole table, look to see which column had most circles in it. Player In Control Act Influence the outcome
Take responsibility Passionate about what they do Set goals and take direct action Sees failure as feedback – tries something else Seeks and gains fulfilment Has a mission
Spectator
No-‐Shows
Watch
Unaware
React
Wonder what happened
Turn up but have very Don’t turn up limited influence on the outcome Surrender responsibility to Blames others others Motivated by what they Do what is necessary to do get by Set goals and hopes the Doesn’t set goals situation works out Sees failure as the result of their actions and may become despondent Hopes for fulfilment
Sees failure as inevitable – “I knew it wouldn’t work!” Gets by
Has a career
Has a job Hero worships others and Says “That’s the way I am wishes they were like their and I can’t do anything heroes about it.”
Knows who they want to be and are prepared to change themselves Success comes form giving Success comes from to others, from adding getting what I want value Focused approach Scattered approach
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Success comes from surviving Ad hoc approach Build a Better Business Page 58
Has an ‘elevator pitch’.
Waffled and vague story – takes a long time to tell Can articulate their value Can’t articulate their USP add and their ‘edge’ (USP) – describes it in terms of job process and content Never retires “Exit Retires reluctantly strategies are for passengers, not pilots!” Does not feel threatened Are envious of and dreams by the expertise of others of achieving the expertise levels of others Focuses on solutions and Focuses on solutions and benefits features Focuses on what they Focuses on what they want don’t want Focuses on ‘making a Focuses on having a difference” career Does it with love and passion Believes in themselves, their mission and their team Happiness from giving
Does it for the money and for prestige
Emphasis is on what they want to achieve
Dreams about what they want but doesn’t follow through, or does so erratically
Their job is their story Focuses purely on job content Can’t wait to retire
Feels threatened by the expertise of others Focuses on problem state No clear focus Focuses on keeping their job Does it to survive
Wants to believe
Cynical/weary
Happiness from receiving
Happiness from getting by Emphasises what they don’t want
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 59
Focuses on who they want to be Achieves effectiveness and efficiency Thinks big Proactive
Focuses on meeting other people’s images of them Achieves efficiency
Focuses on who they feel obliged to be
Thinks small
Thinks it’s impossible
Reactive
Robotic Asleep Blames their past
Awakened
Half asleep
Learns from their past
Repeats mistakes of their past Seeks happiness externally; ‘goes to Tibet to find themselves’
Knows happiness and fulfilment comes from within
Operates by necessity
Is unhappy; may seek temporary happiness in alcohol, drugs etc
There are many kinds of players, not just the obvious star(s). In a music, theatrical or sporting performance there are the stars, but there I also the support cast on and off stage whose role as players is found in supporting and enabling the performance of the stars. In one respect all Players are enablers – they achieve success by giving, not by taking. But this is not what I’m talking about here. What I’m referring to is the composer; without their work the star can’t shine, but the composer is no less a Player; the coach, manager, physiotherapist who give direction and support to the Player. It all depends upon their reason for being in a support role. Some are embittered or unfulfilled Spectators; others are Players because they have a passion for what they do and achieve fulfilment through it. So : Which are you? What kind of situations force you out of player mode? What can you do about it?
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 60
13. Your 7 day program If you want to unleash the power of your mind, here's a 7 day program to get you started. Take between 30 minutes and an hour to work on the day's task and... good luck!
Day 1 Take passionate action towards living your life by design. It's your life and your design – don't waste it living it to somebody else's design, no matter how well-‐intentioned they appear to be. If you haven't done the three exercises in part 1, now would be a good time! Then pick something from the list and ask yourself “What would be the first concrete step towards reaching my goal?” Then do it!
Day 2 Commit to yourself, as well as to those you love, to create a life you can love. Instead of reacting, rather create from your heart and soul, out of love rather than fear. The American Dream will always be there, but a dream will still be a dream without motion. Be amazed as the transformation begins. Answer these questions: (a) “What will it mean for your life/business/career if you don’t....?” (b) “What will be different when you have your solution?” (c) “What will be different about the way you see yourself if you...?”
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 61
Day 3 Recognise and embrace the thought that each moment is perfect regardless of its outcome. Every time you hit on something that may appear too extreme why not give it a shot and see if it will work. You will be surprised to see there are other ways to get the task done in time. If you are not pleased with the outcome, decide to use that moment to learn from and make the appropriate shift. Pause every hour and, whatever you are doing, ask yourself the following question: (a) “What in this situation can you find to be grateful for? “
Day 4 Dwell completely in a place of gratitude. Learn to utilize what you have in your hands and make use of it in the most constructive way. Slipping into neediness will become less of a habit when you repeatedly shift towards gratitude and away from poverty consciousness. Every night, before going to sleep, ask yourself: (a) “What happened today that I am grateful for?” Give thanks to God, the Universe or Spirit according to your belief. If you don't believe in these, just smile and say a quiet “Thank You!” Your unconscious mind will respond.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 62
Day 5 Use a Passion Formula of Recognize/Revaluate/Restore in place of the Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda whirlwind. The former is based on increased knowledge and abundance while the latter focuses on scarcity and lack. As you face people or tasks that may seem harder than scaling the summit of the Himalayas, allow yourself to realize that the task is just as important as giving out orders to your subordinates. You would rather be richly passionate! It's not what you know but how you think, that will determine your success. Look at something you need to do and ask yourself: (a) “What major fear will I be addressing if I...?” Acknowledge the fear, then do it!
Day 6 Keep humour at the forefront of your thoughts, laughing at and with yourself when possible. You may find yourself quite entertaining when you loosen up! I am yet to see a comedian ever go hungry even though his jokes are as 'old as great-‐grandma'. Life has too much to offer to allow you to mope around in self pity. Humour is very attractive, very passionate and life-‐giving. Laugh at everything. Find things you can laugh at wholeheartedly, not just a tight little half-‐ chuckle! Set yourself a challenge for a whole hearted laugh every hour.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 63
Day 7 Believe that you are the architect of your destiny. No one can take your passionate future from you except you! Create your life authentically. As long as there's still breath in your body there is no end to how much you can accomplish in a lifetime. The concept of thinking big is all about enjoying your work which will lead to celebrate a discovery that is born within your hands. Watch everything flow into place with perfect, passionate precision. Take control of your life. Think about 7 things you believe to be true about yourself. For each of them, ask yourself if they are demonstrably true, or beliefs. If they are beliefs, and they are holding you back, know that you can change them for more empowering beliefs. That’s it for now – good luck with the exercises and with building your Sustainable Inclusive Business! And remember, as those on the front cover all know: Your success is determined by how you think, not what you know!
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 64
15. Resources 1. Theory of Constraints Eli Goldratt, the developer of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), has written a number of text books on the subject – most of which need a PhD to interpret! However, he has written 4 business novels that cover his material in a much more accessible way: The Goal – about workflow management. Although set in a manufacturing company, there’s a lot that applies to workflow management in general and process management in particular. It’s Not Luck – applying the TOC to sales and marketing. Critical Chain – in my opinion, one of the best books about project management. Necessary but Not Sufficient -‐ How to change and implement ERP to give real TOC improvements. I can’t comment on this one as I haven’t read it yet. It’s Goldratt’s latest novel yet is not available for Kindle!
If you want non-‐fiction books about TOC, I’d suggest either the books by William Dettmer (Goldratt's Theory of Constraints: A Systems Approach to Continuous Improvement) or by Lisa Scheinkopf (Thinking for a Change: Putting the TOC Thinking Processes to Use).
Audio Book However, my favourite TOC resource is Beyond the Goal: Theory of Constraints (Your Coach
in a Box) an 8 CD compilation of Eli Goldratt speaking for over 6 hours on the TOC.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 65
2. Top Quality Internet Resources I’ve already mentioned Rich Schefren and I believe he’s one of the best Internet Marketing coaches around. There is more sense in the free reports he’s produced than is contained in many “courses” costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds. His client list reads like a Who’s Who of the top names in Internet Marketing, so he must be good! I would recommend that you start either with his Founder’s Club, from which he issues monthly reports that are read by all of the top names in the industry, or his Business Growth System, the coaching programme I enrolled on that has been instrumental in changing my approach. I’d also suggest downloading the report that started it all for him, The Internet Business Manifesto. There are also two programmes of Lee McIntyre’s I’d recommend. Firstly his Internet Automation Plan . Not only will this show you step by step how to automate your business to the point where you only need to work 1-‐2 hours per day maximum... ...but it also shows you how Lee grew his business from $20K to over $100K per month very quickly. Secondly his Instant Internet Lifestyle program. His approach is similar to mine, which is why I’m happy to recommend his program. He’ll show you exactly what's been holding back your success online, and how to turn it all around on a dime. Please note: In the interest of fair disclosure, the links in Resources Section 2 are all affiliate links.
© http://howtobuildabetterbusiness.com
Build a Better Business Page 66
