I can relate one of my most significant steps forward in business to a late night discussion with a friend regarding hopes, dreams and desires in business and entrepreneurship. That one discussion triggered us to form a mastermind of other friends who put us into an environment of dreaming big, and for me it was one of the biggest motivating times that pushed me into business and entrepreneurship.

The 3 benefits I personally receive from a mastermind (and why I think you should use them as well):

1. To bounce ideas off

The people in your mastermind group generally come with a range of different experiences. Some had been where you are going, some are coming from where you’ve been, and others have created an entirely different map for themselves. It allows you to get a great quality of experience and the ability to bounce ideas off for wisdom and direction from this group.

2. It allows you to dream big in a safe environment

There are discussions I had within mastermind groups that I would be embarrassed to share publicly. They are dreams and aspirations that if I shared with a lot of people, well,  if they didn’t laugh they would at least smirk! These mastermind groups allowed me to share and to dream big in that safe environment.

3. It allows you to pool resources

I have built entire businesses from connections created within my mastermind groups.  We realized that one’s person’s strength is the perfect fit for another’s weakness; and therefore collaborating is the perfect outcome.

The reality is that the customer is not always right! But does that change the way that we deliver customer service? I believe the answer is no!

Even though the customer may be wrong, their opinion may not be relevant or their complaint warranted, the customer is still right. This is because the customer has a voice that promotes our business and talks about our product and service.

Think back to the last time that you heard somebody in your circle of friends or family talk about an amazing customer experience that they had. Now consider within the same circle of influence the last time (or the amount of times if you can count them) that you heard somebody discussing a poor customer experience.

Whilst the customer at times may be incorrect, we need to treat them as always being right. A customer who has had a bad experience is more likely to inform their circle of influence then if they had a good experience.

It was not that long ago that we were still communicating across country by telegram and methods of communication that took days to deliver in some cases. The threat of a customer when experiencing bad service is that they would “tell everybody” was not something that could make or break a business as it does today.

A bad customer experience today can be told to millions, and heard by a countless number of perfect strangers. It is an interesting thought to realize the power and influence that we have as consumers to drive change in products and services. But on the other hand, the importance of providing a great customer experience to anyone and everyone.

One of the first business ventures that I started with was importing consumer electronics into Australia. When I first began to research this I was looking at different eBooks and courses I could purchase online. At one stage, I purchased an eBook and it was only a nominal amount of money but it was advertised as the “get everything you need to know and start making money yesterday” philosophy to importing and drop shipping.

This situation just highlights to me how we live in an age and a culture of “we want it now and we want it upsized”. We look for the easy answer, the quick solution to our problem and it in this age of purchasing information; we still have trouble distinguishing between what is a need and what is a want.

When a customer is searching for our product or our service, they can often overlook the perfect solution because they are searching for the wants and not the need.

I have created some great information products previously, that in my opinion were gold in terms of content and what people needed to know to get started or to get producing. The interesting thing is that they often did not convert well; actually the truth is they did not convert. Selling an information product that tells people what they need and not what they want did not end up being a viable solution or product for my business.

Recently I have actually found more success in giving the product away for free and then selling a service that targets the “what people want”. As someone who enjoys creating content and producing this type of information and sharing the knowledge that I have gained, it actually pains me to put a lot of effort into creating an information document and then giving it away for free whilst throwing a simple solution together and producing an income off that.

But it is human nature; we will look for the path of least resistance. If we are offered in one hand a guide on how to write the perfect job description for your workers, and on the other hand we are offered the completed form where we simply needed to fill in a template, we would take that.

It might be what we want but it’s not what we need, as in most cases, we need to learn and understand what went into creating that template and not just ending up with the outcome.

Put human nature aside to help your products become more successful in converting, look to target what people want and include for free what they actually need.

Recently I have been landscaping around our home and putting in some gardens, plants and basically just doing whatever my wife tells me to do! The obvious advantage of having this list of chores is the opportunity to visit the hardware store more often and walk around looking at things that I do not need but I would definitely like.

When I think about the selling message and using either benefits or features, it reminds me of going to the hardware store to buy a shovel. There were literally scores of different shovels when I walked up the aisle but all had the same outcome – they dig a hole and what I am looking for is ultimately something that does exactly that.

So many brands were listing features; such as the quality of the steel, the length of the handle, the type of timber in the handle and a whole bunch of other useless facts. The brand that got my attention was the one that had a stick that unashamedly said “digs deep holes quickly”.

At the end of the day I do not mind what goes into making my shovel because a shovel just shovels. All I want to know is if it digs a hole deep and quickly.

Do not get too absorbed in selling the features of your product or service when your customers just really want to know the outcome.

I try hard to share from my experiences when I am posting on my blogs and writing content, or creating eBooks and courses. I just prefer to talk about my experiences and what I have been through, what I am going through, and not to promote myself as the only resource and the only expert in those different fields. I even reluctantly put my personal photo on some of my websites even though the marketing people tell me that I must.

Back to the Gurus… I once had an associate who was always very excited about a new opportunity that they had, and that opportunity generally always came back to some form of network marketing – the kind of network marketing that you do not want to be involved in.

I would often be invited to events and sent different links and resources by this friend. I would always hear him out and listen to the pitch, just for the sake of friendship. At one point I began to reply to his invitations asking if could tell me the amount of money he was making from this amazing get-rich scheme.

The question was often ignored, and I would continue to ask it anytime that I was approached about attending an event or signing for a new plan. The reason I asked is because I was looking at what they do and not what they say .This is a great key that I now use in my life when I am looking at ‘gurus’ and other sources of information.

Do they do what they say? Do they get the results they talk about? If they’re selling a get-rich-quick scheme, are they wealthy themselves!? If they are telling me on how to reduce the amount that they work, are they living that lifestyle?

Ask yourself that simple question. Do they walk the walk or only talk the talk?

“It is not the customers job to know what they want”

I remember the first MP3 player that I ever purchased, ordered off eBay for a low price and certainly it reinforced the old saying, “you pay for what you get”. It was clunky, hard to use, unreliable, and it did not last very long. I am sure that there are many younger people in the world today who do not even realize that MP3 players existed well before the iPod hit the market ten years ago!

I have a distant memory of the Sony Walkman being launched. In a similar way to how the iPod has taken over the language of what we used to call an MP3 player, many of the Walkman’s competitors were still referred to as a “Walkman”. If you are reading this and you have no idea what a Walkman is, then you are probably in the same category of people who think that the iPod was the first ever MP3 player.

There are not many companies in the world that can launch a brand new product like Apple can and have people line up for days just to be the first in the world to buy it. It is so interesting to hear that the same company publicly admits that they do not do product research, because as Steve Jobs said, “it is not the customers’ responsibility to decide what they need”.

I don’t believe that any customer research for the initial iPod would have returned the concepts of ‘click wheels’ and iTunes syncing.

I have made the mistake many times in the past of listening to customers and spending time and resource on product research. Whilst it is an important consideration, our business vision and direction should not be influenced by the loud voices of a few.

Imagine how the world would be today if Apple had listened to negative feedback from a prototype iPod over ten years ago. Analyzing the trend of our customers, looking at purchasing patterns and studying the demographic is an important part. However, we do need to balance whether we open our products and services up to public criticisms and scrutiny, or whether we trust our judgment, our research, and our understanding of our target market.

One great aspect about winter for me, is that my responsibilities outside with the lawn and the gardens drastically slow down – things just don’t seemed to grow well in winter. If you do have a green thumb and you enjoy spending time outside in your gardens, you would know that the best advice during winter is to prune back your shrubs and your trees preparing them for the fresh growth that will come in spring.

This is not an article about gardening but rather an example of how we need to treat our lives as well. Winter time is really an analogy for when things are not growing in our life, maybe even a depressed time, a cold time, a dark time. Just like my grass, winter time can be used to describe a situation where your business, your projects or any area of your life stops growing or slows down. But just like we get those hints of spring days, the same also occurs in other areas in our lives and we need to be prepared for that time.

If you are going through one of these seasons, then begin to prune back those areas that are not growing or that are restricting growth. Winter is the time to do that, so that when spring hits you can experience exceptional growth.

The other friend accused him of ‘stealing an idea’, and a very interesting conversation evolved from that one statement. To cut a long story short, that one conversation made me realize something about producing products and services in business.

We either have two options:

1. Generate a brand new idea and build a product or service around that

-or-

2. Look for an existing idea and improve on it.

I am sure many of you will have reacted the same way as my second friend – ‘but isn’t that stealing an idea, why can’t you create something for yourself?’. When I considered it, I realized that as I drive around there are countless manufacturers of cars on the road. Did each of those companies invent the concept of the ‘motor vehicle’ at the same exact moment? Of course not, one person invented the motor vehicle and other companies determined (or believed) that they can do better or differently.

It is not necessary and critical for you to find a brand new idea when it comes to starting a business related to a product or a service. You can analyse what is already in the market, or filling the need for a target audience, and determine if you can improve what is already existing.

I found myself dissatisfied with what was conventional and traditional in terms of working. I did not want to work a 9 to 5 for the rest of my life. I wanted the freedom that a business brought, I wanted the flexibility and I wanted the potential and resource that having a business in my hands allowed me to do.

I challenge anybody to ensure that hey have a quick answer to the question of ‘why’ regarding any area of your life.

There are three questions that I believe that you need to ask yourself before starting business or any project or major area of your life.

1. What do I want to achieve?

What is the purpose of you getting into business and starting this project? The answer to this question is not always money. Many people start something because they are passionate about it, because they enjoy it, or for any other benefit that they can list.

I have actually started projects and the outcome that I have wanted is to have a business that I could give someone and potentially create an income for them.

Everything we do in life needs goals and it doesn’t have to be a formal document dozens of pages long, that outlines exactly what you are trying to achieve. Sometimes it comes down to a single statement.

I have a friend who started a business and the simple goal that he wanted to achieve was to pay his mortgage payment every month through this additional income source.

He wasn’t trying to rule the world of business, but rather just produce enough income to ensure that his mortgage payment was covered every month by this extra business that he started.

2. What are the key milestones?

Whilst your motivation can be summed up in a single sentence as to why you started the business, I believe it is equally as important to list key milestones to ensure that you are on that path. These could be financial milestones of income levels you’d like to achieve each month, they could be listed as the amount of sales by a certain timeframe, or the completion of key parts of a project.

Setting milestones in a business or project for me is like eating an elephant one bite at a time. I want to be able to measure steps that I am taking and also be able to celebrate as I reach these key points in the development.

I personally often find the development of a new project or business to be a long drawn-out process without much reward and the reality is that this is often the case. Setting minor milestones to achieve helps me to keep motivated and moving towards that initial goal.

3. What is your exit plan?

Stephen Covey says that one of the seven habits of a highly effective person is to begin with the end in mind. I don’t believe it is pessimistic to create an exit plan for your business or project before you even begin working on it.

Your exit plan may be to sell the business, or it could be to automate parts of it to remove you from the equation or even to employ a full-time manager to take over the business so you can begin on another project.

It’s not a pessimistic plan of demise for your business or project. It is rather an optimistic approach to what level you reach when you call this business a success.

Three questions to ask and with those three answers you are ready to start.