You already know this, but I’m saying it anyways – Business is the game of numbers.

You need data!

As Mr. Drucker relentlessly reminded, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” 

Chief among the numbers to manage is profit.  When you’ve created your profit goals and you have the data, there are all types of levers to pull.

This weeks podcast is about pulling the levers of top line sales profit, and bottom line net profit.

When your business is focused on both, you have created something truly remarkable.  If after listening to this 20 minutes, you want even more, read on!

Here’s an invitation to a Free Plantscape Master Mind Jam Session

Maybe you’re thinking – “what the heck is that?”

To be exact, it’s a one hour Zoom meeting with a laser focus on

• Growing Your Plantscape Business

Growing your Top line sales and your Bottom line net
I’ll be leading the conversation – And you’ll hear from other industry professionals as well – you’ll experience the creative power of a Master Mind.

Smart people with sharp minds thinking together for the benefit of each other.

Sign up here: https://innovate.millermarketingandtraining.com/plantscapers-mastermind-jam-session

Highlights include:

• Marketing systems to get in front of your best prospects – without cold calls
• Selling systems for a powerful discovery and rapport appointment (we call this, the appointment where the sale is really made)
• Process creation strategies. And the elimination of waste: aka, inefficiency
• A Special guest EOS Integrator who is taking my company, Interior Plant Scapes, from great – to extraordinary. EOS is an Operating System that works in any type of business. If you want to learn more: https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos

This free 60-minute Master Mind session is your opportunity to share your conundrums and great-ideas with other Plantscape business owners with a growth mindset. We will meet via Zoom on May 29th & June 5th. Just choose your preferred time slot and you’re in!

Click the link below to choose your date.

Sign up here: https://innovate.millermarketingandtraining.com/plantscapers-mastermind-jam-session

PS  If you consider yourself a business owner with a growth-mindset, you’ll want to know about this business-forum exclusively for best-in-class Plantscapers.  It’s called Innovation & Marketing Mastermind for Plantscapers.

“Hitting paydirt” was the term in mining to celebrate finding gold after moving tons of “worthless” dirt.

Question…was all that dirt really worthless?

This short episode on personal growth is the reminder that in moving all the dirt of growing our business, there is huge reward.

The reward is, the person you are becoming – The best version of yourself!

Therefore, lean into the hard stuff.  It’s not worthless dirt.  Rather, it’s rich soil in the process of “Growing You and Growing Your Business” – (Whoa, that’s good, I’m going to use that).

Before you go listen to the show, here’s a gift of my very best systems and process.

Plantscaping Sales & Innovation Marketing Bundle

• Plantscape Prospecting Flowchart: Marketing begins by identifying your top/best prospects – this is the deep-dive process to reveal profitable Plantscape clients.
• Plantscape Selling System: An end-to-end 6 Module process for training Plantscape salespeople. Do you have any born salespeople? Of course you don’t – there’s no such thing. Selling is an acquired skill.
• Plantscape Business Process Checklist: Systems thinking changed my life because it changed my business. This checklist is a mini-SWOT analysis of your business and You as a systems thinker

Click here to learn more.

And here’s an invite to come to a Free Mastermind preview.

Join me, for a free Plantscaper Mastermind Jam Session.

Are you intrigued by the Innovation & Marketing Mastermind for Plantscapers, yet want to get an idea of what to expect?  This free session is for you!

This will be a Jam-Packed one-hour Zoom meeting with Plantscape business owners.

Are you a Plantscaper with a growth-mindset?  Yes?  Then you won’t want to miss this.

What will we talk about?  Click here to learn more

In the second episode of The Paydirt Podcast, we dig into (that’s funny right?) “Why I love Process”

Because of course…
“If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Thank you, Mr. Deming.

Deming’s second quote always stings a little.

“You’re systems are perfectly designed for the results you’re getting.”

So let me ask you, “do you like the results you’re getting?” And that applies to your life as well as your business.
If you’d like better results, the system is the solution.
It certainly was for my business and my life. Take a listen to, Why I love process.

Before you go listen to the show, here’s a gift of my very best systems and process.

Plantscaping Sales & Innovation Marketing Bundle

• Plantscape Prospecting Flowchart: Marketing begins by identifying your top/best prospects – this is the deep-dive process to reveal profitable Plantscape clients.
• Plantscape Selling System: An end-to-end 6 Module process for training Plantscape salespeople. Do you have any born salespeople? Of course you don’t – there’s no such thing. Selling is an acquired skill.
• Plantscape Business Process Checklist: Systems thinking changed my life because it changed my business. This checklist is a mini-SWOT analysis of your business and You as a systems thinker

Click here to learn more.

And here’s an invite to come to a Free Mastermind preview.

Join me, for a free Plantscaper Mastermind Jam Session.

Are you intrigued by the Innovation & Marketing Mastermind for Plantscapers, yet want to get an idea of what to expect?  This free session is for you!

This will be a Jam-Packed one-hour Zoom meeting with Plantscape business owners.

Are you a Plantscaper with a growth-mindset?  Yes?  Then you won’t want to miss this.

What will we talk about?  Click here to learn more

Here it is – the first episode of The Paydirt Podcast!

Today I’m talking about, “Why I love the Plantscape business”

You made a wise decision when you started, joined or bought a Plantscape business.

In no particular order…Plantscaping is,

1. Elegant.  Elegant in so many ways!
2. A business that can be standardized (what a beautiful word)
3. Not easily disruptable
4. About quality. (quality people, properties, prices, etc.)
5. A product that never goes out of style – Not just the plants, but what they create.
6. A recurring revenue business.  Ok, maybe there was some order here. I saved the best for last.

Before you go listen to the show, here’s an invite to come to a Free Mastermind preview.

Join me, for a free Plantscaper Mastermind Jam Session.

Are you intrigued by the Innovation & Marketing Mastermind for Plantscapers, yet want to get an idea of what to expect?  This free session is for you!

This will be a Jam-Packed one-hour Zoom meeting with Plantscape business owners.

Are you a Plantscaper with a growth-mindset?  Yes?  Then you won’t want to miss this.

What will we talk about?  Click here to learn more

Top Line = Total Sales or Revenue.  The first line on the income statement

There are three ways to Grow your business.

1. Increase the number of clients
2. Increase the average transaction value
3. Increase the frequency of repurchase

Selling is Growing Your Topline, Yes – and yet, it doesn’t always mean adding new customers

9 Ways to Grow your topline revenue

1. Acquire new customers.
2. Retain existing customers – customer retention. See Episode 102 Mastery of Keeping Clients and Coworkers – retain coworkers to retain clients
3. Optimize your pricing
4. Create a Membership or subscription program
5. Sell more to existing customers – more of the same product
6. Create new products – Line extensions and new products
7. Enter new markets – Expand your territory, your geographic reach
8. Extend the Value Chain – up or down
9. Business acquisition

Telling is not selling – Selling is asking questions

The Discovery Appointment is where you diagnose your prospect to find their pain.  You are learning how John Smith sees the world – and what keeps him up at night.

Imagine you go to the Doctor, and tell him about a pain in your stomach.  Then, without asking any questions, he says, you have cancer, we need to operate. Ridiculous of course!

Just like a medical doctor asks a patient, where does it hurt, as a sales professional, we ask questions to learn about our prospects pain points.
Pain points are our focus because that’s where we can provide the most value.

Asking questions is The Discovery Appointment.

Prescription without Diagnosis is Malpractice

What is the difference?

Sales person vs Order taker

Professional Salespeople know how to make it rain, order takers wait for the rain to come

• Reactive vs Proactive
• Makes things happen vs Waits for things to happen
• Waits for the phone to ring vs Making other peoples phone ring
• Going after new sales vs Waiting for sales to come to you

Professional Salesperson or Order taker

Professional salespeople know how to grow the topline revenue.

Cold calls are so…um, COLD

Two episodes ago – Selling is a System

Systems have steps – the steps are

Interrupt, Engage, Educate, Offer, Close

We’re talking about that first Step – the Interrupt

Is it going to be a cold interrupt or a warm interrupt?

Listen this is HUGE…

AN ANNOYING INTERRUPT – OR A WELCOME ONE?

ARE YOU GOING TO ARRIVE AS AN ANNOYING PEST? OR A WELCOME GUEST?

3 Ways how not to make a Cold Call

1. Networking
   • Chambers
   • Association meeting
   • Trade shows

2. Referral from a client that you love and loves you

3. Proverbs 18:16 a man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.

“Wait what Brad?  Of course I know what I sell.”

• I sell insurance
• I sell kitchen remodels
• I sell landscape services
• I sell web design

We have a section in our sales training manual – a separate module – “What Exactly Do We Sell”

We are a Plantscape Company – – – you would think we sell Plants and Planters.  If you think that – you would not be very successful selling at IPS

What do we sell?  A Living Ambiance Program

That’s Good right – that’s better than we sell plants and planters – BUT that is still missing the Key Ingredient: WHY They Buy

To know what you sell – you have to Know What You Sell – and Why People Buy it

What is your Value Proposition?  Don’t sell the thing, sell what the thing does.

Do you know what you sell?

Don’t Sell people based on your reasons of Why YOU think they should have it – sell it from THEIR Point of View.

The John Smith question: “You can’t sell John Smith what John Smith buys, until you can see the world through John Smith’s eyes.”  In sales, you want John Smith’s point of view.

How do you learn how John Smith sees the world?

Wait for it…YOU ASK him

The salesperson assumes that the prospect Knows what he’s selling.  NO!  1000 times NO!

You have to connect the dots for the prospects

Ask, your version of, The Key Question

Does The Thing that you sell have more than one Feature?  Of Course it does.

WARNING – The Problem is…You’ve Heard This Before!

Features and Benefits Selling.

People don’t buy the steak the buy the sizzle

People don’t want a 1/4-inch drill, they want 1/4-inch hole

People don’t buy what you sell – they buy it, for how it will make them feel

If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process – you don’t know what you’re doing – Deming

There is a selling system – that is the same exact as the marketing system, but with different words

5 Step Marketing system

Interrupt, Engage, Educate, Offer, Close

The Five Great Rules of Selling

1) attention, 2) interest, 3) conviction, 4) desire, 5) close.

You’ve heard this before.

Why is that a problem?

When your mind hears something you’ve heard before…

• It shuts down
• It says, “oh that” and it wanders off

PROBLEM is… you think that because you’ve heard it before – you Think you’re doing it.

• You think that the amazing truth is actually transforming your life – but it’s not

The problem is…

• The things you hear again and again ARE Truth and Profound – that’s why you hear them again and again.

The Problem is… the thing you’ve heard before could be the most amazing Truth of the universe – the Exact truth you need in the moment, but your brain tricks you and shuts off.

Warning:  I am starting a series on The Little Big Things of Selling – and you may have heard these before.  You may have heard them, but they are the little big things that’ll help you succeed in sales and growing your business.  For example:

• Sales is Follow Up
• SELLING IS A system – you need a process
• Never Make a Cold Call
• Selling is person to person – never Business to Business
• And a lot more

Have you ever had a new idea or a goal that excites you… but not enough time to execute it?

Get the book by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Entrepreneurs and business owners and creatives will always have more ideas than time.  That can create overwhelm unless, you learn to ask, Who Not How

Have you ever had a new idea or a goal that excites you… but not enough time to execute it?

What about a goal you really want to accomplish…but can’t because instead of taking action, you procrastinate? Do you feel like the only way things are going to get done is if you do them? But what if it wasn’t that way? What if you had a team of people around you that helped you accomplish your goals (while you helped them accomplish theirs)?

When we want something done, we’ve been trained to ask ourselves: “How can I do this?” Well, there is a better question to ask. One that unlocks a whole new world of ease and accomplishment. Expert coach Dan Sullivan knows the question we should ask instead: “Who can do this for me?”

This book will teach you how to make this essential paradigm-shift so you can:

• Build a successful business effectively while not killing yourself
• Immediately free-up 1,000+ hours of work that you shouldn’t be doing anyway
• Increase your vision in all areas of life and build teams of WHOs to support you in that vision* Build a life where everything you do is your choice–how you spend your time, how much money you make, the quality of your relationships, and the type of work you do

Making this shift involves retraining your brain to stop limiting your potential based on what you solely can do and instead focus on the nearly infinite and endless connections between yourself and other people as well as the limitless transformation possible through those connections.

It’s the Marketing of the “work” that creates success & life transformation and not just the creation and the doing of the work

The transformation is for the creator and doer of the Work, And for the recipient of the work.

• The seller and the buyer
• The teacher and the student
• The author and the reader

There’s no transformation in the book that you Don’t read!
How to get people to read the book?

That’s the work of marketing.

It is Marketing and Selling.

Marketing is the work of interrupt and engage.
Selling is the hard work of Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up…

It all starts with marketing and Marketing is Everything.

The Power of Full Engagement.

Managing Energy, not time, is the key to peak performance and Personal Renewal

The power of full engagement

• This is true: we all have the same 24 hours in a day
• This is not true: we all bring the same amount of energy to the day

Yes, time management is important.
Energy management is more important.

You cannot create more time, but you Can Create more energy.

The 4 Types of Energy

1. Physical Energy
2. Mental Energy
3. Emotional Energy
4. Spiritual Energy

“This is the true Joy of life! The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one….the being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Here is the last element of your franchise prototype operation.

You, the business owner are consistently working ON the business, not in it.

Working ON the business for you should be a Blast!

Your business is known for excellence – you are making money and your company culture is healthy – you are healthy.

And now your work is to consistently work ON it to make it better and better.

There are many metaphors for this:

1. You are the Captain of the ship – you can not be a sailor or a hired hand, or else the ship will go off course.

OR

2. You are the designer creating the Blue Prints – you don’t have a tool belt on.

If you are working IN it – you likely won’t have time to work ON it.

In this last episode of this series, I hope you’ll really get the vision, the importance – the urgency even of working ON your business.

If you don’t do it – it’s not going to happen.  If you’re not working ON your business – it’ll never become everything if was created to be.

Here’s why.

The most important thing you as the business owner can do is – THINK.

Yes.  THINK.

Most people don’t know how to do this – and they don’t have an appreciation for the people that do.  They think those people are goofing off – being lazy.  They’re wrong.

Thinking is the hardest work you’ll do.

Put a sign on your office wall.  THINK.

“The sole purpose of business is to CREATE and KEEP customers.” – – Peter Drucker

I like how he says – sole – the sole purpose.  It is the most important thing

You heard it last week when I talked about marketing and new customer acquisition.

The week, the tenth element of a Franchise Prototype business is – mastery of keeping clients and coworkers

Yes you need brilliant marketing to “create” customers, but if your business depends on you always creating new customer – that is not a sustainable business!

You have to KEEP your customers!

You want to create a relationship that lasts decades or even a lifetime, and then multi-generational if you so choose.

This only happens with an intentional vision and strategy

One of my favorite Business books is, Thou Shall Prosper – by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

Early on in the book he does a masterful job of making the point that all business is about, People and Relationships.

Say that again – all business is about People and Relationships

That my friend is what this element of a Franchise Prototype business is about – the Mastery of Keeping Clients and Coworkers

And these two – clients and coworkers – have a one-to-one relationship!  Keeping Clients and Coworkers are Inextricably Linked.

Client retention and your staff retention – are completely dependent.

Employee turnover is death to a business.  If you have a staff turnover problem, you will have a client turnover problem.  You can’t fix one, without fixing the other.

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“The sole purpose of business is to CREATE and KEEP customers.” – Peter Drucker

I learned a lot about business from Dan Kennedy – and his specialty was marketing.  He would make some very strong statements, and one of my favorites was,

“You are not in the _________ business, you are in the marketing business.”

And this one too,

“If you don’t have a system to continuously bring in a steady stream of people that want to do business with you – you can’t control your business.”

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The Big Idea:  Business Growth and Personal Growth are  inextricably linked (in a way that’s impossible to separate)

• As you work hard to grow your business, you can not help but grow yourself.  Your bigger business forces you to become a bigger person.

Or

• As you work hard to grow your self – your bigger self creates capacity and confidence to take on more business.

It is a beautiful phenomenon and I have watched this happen in my own life for almost 40 years.

Early in my business startup someone recommended the book, Growing A Business, by Paul Hawken of Smith and Hawkins

That was the first time I was exposed to this idea…Growing a business, grows you.

“Being in business is not about making money, it is a way to become who you are.”  – Paul Hawken, Growing a Business

I wrote this quote on an index card – 31 years ago.  I was looking for something special for episode 100 – and I found it in my own work – that has been my tag line all along.

Growing You, Growing Your Business.

“It is a way to become who you are,” – think about that in terms of your potential.

You have this potential in you – but you need a way to get it out, some kind of outside force.  Business is A Way to get it out – a business gets the potential in you, out of you, and you GROW.

Jim Rohn said something very similar to Paul Hawkin,  “Make it your goal to earn a million dollars, not for the money, but for the person you have to become that can earn a million dollars.”

The key word here is differentiation.

You are not just different – you are strategically different – and you have gained a unique place in the market.

A strategic competitive advantage.

It’s called a USP – a Unique Selling Proposition

To be competitive and stay competitive – you have to continually innovate.

Shaun White, is the dominant snow boarder in the world.  He’s an olympic gold medalist because he’s always innovating.

He even have a signature move – the 1280 McTwist!
It’s a snowboard move that he created.

What’s the equivalent in your business – what’s your 1280 McTwist?

The crowd goes wild when they see Shaun White perform his move.

The same can be true in business.

Walt Disney said,  “Do what you do so well, that people want to come back and bring their friends.”

That is going to require some thinking – and then some working it out and testing it.

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Why is a predictable customer experience so important to creating a successful franchise prototype business?

Because…
You want people to keep coming Back

A Franchise Prototype is – a Predictable Business
That means…

• You have steady flow of income

• You have eliminated the feast or famine roller Coaster

Therefore, the way to create a predictable business – is to create a predictable customer experience.

If people love your business and can trust it – and depend on it – they will keep coming back.

Peter Drucker said, “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

If you want to be successful and prosperous…and rich, as a business owner – keep your customers coming back

People keep coming back to your business for one reason – they know what to expect and they have a great experience every time.

It doesn’t have to be a Ritz Carlton experience – simply a predictable experience.

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The best in class companies all have one thing in common – a Robust Training Program.

For our discussion today, that may be going too far too fast – how about we start with a Training Program.

Most businesses don’t have a training program – and the ones that don’t – stay small, or go out of business

This podcast is…Growing You, Growing Your Business.  You are listening because you want to grow your business.

The only way to Grow your business is to create a team.  Staff.  Employees.  Coworkers.  That team of people need clear expectations and know—how to do their work with excellence.  That only comes with training.

Standardization is a framework of agreements to which all relevant parties in an industry or organization must adhere to ensure that all processes associated with the creation of a good or performance of a service are performed within set guidelines.

Standardization requires some hard work of invention

This is perfect: a framework of agreements to which all relevant parties, in a Company, adhere to.

A healthy and prosperous company has a Framework of Agreements

Standardization must begin as a personal ethos – a personal agreement with yourself, that you will agree to the standards of your company.

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking” – Henry Ford

The tragedy of most small business: finally inventing the Best Way – through years and years of trial and error, but then never documenting the Best Way

We say, “if it’s not documented, it’s not a system.”

Documenting your business is getting your business out of your head.  And even more important, getting your business out of your employee’s head.

The Best Way is Your Invention of your Business, or better said, your inventions of your business.
A Business is a collection of inventions integrated into an amazing whole.

You have differentiated your business so that it is unique and in a class all by itself.

Invention is what happens when you work ON your business – and not just IN it

Your goal as the inventor of your business – Elegant and Simple Systems

Process creates Order!

Order is one of the most powerful words for life and business.

Order is what creates and sustains life.

• Look at the impeccable order of the Universe
• Now imagine Impeccable order in your business

Process Creates Order!
Process creates Predictability.

The opposite of process is one-off.

Process antonyms:
halt, backwash, failure, decline, stoppage, remain, neglect, inactivity, immobility, inaction, cessation, ignorance, idleness, about-face, decrease, ignore

These are terrible words – words you don’t want to describe your business.

Process is such a beautiful word for business:
Synonyms…

• Progress
• Action
• Activity
• Efficiency

Elements of a Process:
The desired outcome – what will this look like when it is done?

1. Target time – how long will this take
2. Frequency – how often does this need to be done
3. Checklists – lots of them
4. Steps – break it down, then break it down again
5. Order – what must come first, then second
6. Ownership – Accountability

You have a clear Vision – of the business and life you desire.

Quote from Heroic Leadership – Chris Lowney:

“The person who knows what he or she wants can pursue it energetically.  No one becomes a great teacher, parent, violinist, or corporate executive by accident”

“There is no news in those statements.  Yet as obvious as they are, few people make the personal investment to benefit from the”

You have to know what you want!

• You need the blueprints – the finished version of the home you want to build,
• and all the supporting details of how to build it.
• What will it look like and feel like?

Check out Episode 3
Getting Super Practical about Your Business Vision.

Vision AND Systems HAVE to go together!  You need equal parts of both.

A vision without a task is but a dream.   A task without a vision is drudgery.  A vision and a task are the hope of the world.

“Write the Vision and make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.” – Habakkuk 2:2

“Without a Vision, the people perish.” – Proverbs 29:18

…they cast off restraint

…they lose heart

The Top Five Benefits of Investing in Your Vision Work

1. A vision is creating your preferred future. Decide upon the life you want…and then create a business that makes that life possible.
2. A vision creates Clarity –
   • You know exactly who you are as a business
3. A vision makes your business scalable.
   • When you’re able to articulate precisely what it is you do and how you do – you can add people that share your vision.
   • The Best Visions require other people for their completion
4. A Vision is the FIRST step to creating Extraordinary Systems!
5. A Vision creates Hope – without it you perish.
   • A vision keeps your spirits up.
   • Without a Vision work is just Same Ol, Same Ol

11 Elements of a Franchise Prototype Business – And Why it’s worth pursuing

What does that mean, Franchise Prototype Business – and Why should you want it?

It originates with Michael Gerber, “build your own business as if you were going to create a 100 more just like it, even if you only have one.”

What would have to happen in your business if you wanted it to be a Prototype?

Prototype:

1 : an original model on which something is patterned
2: an individual that exhibits the essential features of a later type
3: a standard
4: a first full-scale model and functional form of a new design  (such as an airplane)

Why Should you want to pursue the prototype model?

Because you can have a Business And a Life
Most small business owners don’t.
They have a small business – but not a life.
Their business is all-consuming.
Even when they are present – they are not!

The Opposite of a Franchise Prototype is

• random and one-off
• It is owner-operator
• You play Whack a mole all day
• The new problem Du Jour – of the day
• The new policy Du Jour

The 11 Key Elements of Your Franchise Operation:

1. A Clear Vision of the business and life you desire
2. Everything is a process
3. Discovery of The Best Way
4. The Best Way is documented
5. A robust training program
6. Ruthless Standardization, that is enforced
7. A predictable customer experience
8. Continuous innovation of your Product and/or your Service
9. Mastery of new customer acquisition – marketing and sales
10. Mastery of Creating and Keeping your Clients and Coworkers
11. You, the business owner, are consistently working on the business, not in it

Your prices are too high…and that’s a good thing.

Let me clarify by saying it a different way…

If your prospects are not saying:

Your prices are too high
or
We got a better price from another company

Then, your prices are not high enough!

Being the lowest price in your market is a bad place to be

Many businesses only know how to compete on price

The best description of too much focus on low price is…
“a race to the bottom.”

The Position you want is – Premier Provider with Premier Pricing.

This does not mean price Gouging – that is a bad business practice and lacks integrity.

• Premier pricing is Being the Best at what you do and having the confidence to charge for it

Have you ever went to buy something and you could not believe how low the price was?

• What is your next thought?
  • What’s wrong with it? What am I missing?

If you are never hearing that your price is too high – then your prices are too low.

Here’s how to fix that

1. To Fix your prices – Fix your mindset. Your pricing is first of all a Limiting Belief
2. STOP thinking dollars per hour to set your pricing
   • Most new business owners compare their pricing to their previous job and what they made per hour.
3. FIX Your Business strategy
   In the Shark tank, the question they always ask, “What does it cost to make?  What is your price?”

• • If you don’t have some type of pricing advantage – You really don’t have a business opportunity
  • Your strategy can be fixed on two fronts – lower your costs of production or service Operation.

4. Many times a higher price is more strategic –
   • A higher price creates more value

5. Pricing is an Emotional response
   • Pricing does not follow some kind of formula
   • Fixed Pricing…there’s no such thing.
     • The clearance rack is simply someone’s whim

6. Don’t be afraid of being told your Price is too high – that is the title of the podcast – and if you are never being told that…raise your prices
   • When you do hear, simply smile with confidence and know you have arrived at the Professional Level – Premier Pricing as a Premier Provider

7. IF you want to compete on Price…
   • It is a strategy
   • But only if your operation is Super Tight in every other way
     • You know your numbers – labor, shipping, shrinkage
     • You have a Buying strategy – you make your money when you buy
     • You have Efficiency to the max

First before I give it to you, what is the purpose of small business?

To serve people with your work, and make a profit.

Those two are intrinsically linked bc you cannot have one without the other.

You cannot make a profit it you are not serving people well
You cannot serve people if you are not making a profit.

They are both important, but I think the making a profit one takes precedence.

• If you are making a profit, you have the ability to fix any service issues you may have – and you will have them.
• BUT if you are not making a profit – as in Money – you don’t have the opportunity to work on your business to make it better.

Business is like Monopoly, when you run out of money – it’s game over.  All the pieces go back in the box

Here then is the lesson – and the Dumbest mistake…

Business owners don’t make getting paid a high priority

Ignoring Accounts Receivable

Not having an Accounts Receivable system…is the dumbest mistake…

• Not sending out invoices in a timely manner
  • Timely, as in before the work is even complete
  • Asking for a deposit
  • Don’t be the banker
• Choose your customers based on their ability and MINDSET to pay you
  • All business is not good business – people that don’t pay you on time should not be your customers

• Not creating ownership of the Accounts Receivable process

How to make Accounts Receivable a priority:

1. BE OK to Talk about money.
2. Talk about payment terms in advance
3. Invoice Timely – when you deliver the goods – Invoice upfront when possible – or ask for a deposit
4. Create Recurring Revenue if at all possible – THEN make it automatic
5. Get help – if you are not the bookkeeper type – Pay someone to help you
6. Assign the Accounts Receivable so that someone OWNS it – SOMEONE MUST OWN THE Accounts Receivable WORK
7. Be Kind – but be persistent

Let’s start with the metaphor of a train – as in locomotive.

Training keeps the Train on the Tracks.  The train is your business – the tracks are the training and the narrow path to progress and prosperity.

If you veer off the tracks, you get stuck in the mud and make no progress.

The tracks are a Blessing to be celebrated!

The tracks are not a burden – the tracks are freedom!

TRAINING:
When I say Training – I want you to think of That Metaphor.  A Train moving fast – productively moving forward on the tracks – that Train is Your Business.  Your amazing lifestyle business that is moving forward without you working in the day-to-day activities.

Why is the language of training a part of the language of the self-managed business?

Because it is through Training that you are able to get free of the work of the business.

There are some mental roadblocks you have to get over first –
These will DERAIL – Your Training
Have you ever thought this – or even said them…

1. Only I can do this work
2. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself
3. You just cant hire good people these days

THOSE are Limiting Beliefs – you cannot move forward in business with those beliefs

Here’s the truth:  You can create a system – think, Step By Step process for almost anything.

What does an Intentional Training program include?

1. A trainer – a Certified Trainer…as in you know she’s good and she knows the standards. The Trainer should also be a Good teacher.
   Huge lesson learned:  Your Best team member – technician/sales person/ whatever – is Not necessarily a good trainer.
   You need a Train-the-Trainer program as well – So that you know they not only know how to Do the work – they know how to TEACH the work! 
2. STO = Strategic Training Objectives
   Not just a TASK – an STO is a task on Red Bull.
   It is connected to vision
   It is thought about
   It is trained – Training is Transfer – a transfer of information and techniqueIt has a clear objective
   ALSO: A Training Manual – it includes all of your STO’s in a binder of some kind – paper or digital or both 
3. A Training Schedule – Training takes time! Give the training the time it needs.

This podcast was inspired by two Jim Rohn quotes:

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job”

“ Make it your goal to earn $1 million, not for the money – but for the kind of person you become in the process”

Because you may be in the business world – the For-Profit world – here is the rest of the quote:

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job, you could make a living. If you work hard on yourself, you could make a fortune. Income seldom exceeds personal development.”  ~Jim Rohn

This was the absolute game changer for me.

It is THE central idea of a self-managed business.  If you don’t understand this principle, you will never have a self-managed business.

Simple definition:  Working in your business is the order fulfillment part, and everything that must be done to get the orders out.

Working On your business is the work of creating the systems that make the Order fulfillment work better.

Working on the business is slowing down to think about all of the work and how to do it better, rather than working harder and harder to get it all done.

Working ON…
…is taking all of your vision, all of your systems, and all of your innovations and integrating them into a beautiful masterpiece – called your work.

Get excited about the results of working On your business

Use the amazing gift of your Imagination:

• What would it look like if I didn’t have to come to the office first thing?
• What if most of the Key Frustrations of doing your work went away?
• What if you could delegate confidently all of the parts of the business that you don’t do well, or like
• What if most of your work was done with zero defects?

The Language of Working On:

1. Don’t Micromanage your people, Micromanage the systems creation process
2. Leverage your ordinary people with extraordinary systems
3. Can we create a checklist for that?
4. How can this work be described as a step-by-step process?
5. How can I get this work out of my head, and documented on paper?
6. How can I standardize this work and make it simpler?
7. How can I make this work easy and elegant?
8. How can I eliminate this frustration – and make it a joy?
9. How can we eliminate waste from this work: Waste of time, steps in the process, physical walking steps, waste of supplies and materials, Waste of All kinds?
10. How can this work be completed without me doing the work?

It is an important and essential part of every self-managed business

Because of the nature of business, it has two and only two functions, marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation make money, everything else is a cost.   ~Peter Drucker

Innovation.

First, let’s define it.

Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.

And here are some others

“Innovation is the creation of something that improves the way we live our lives”  ~Barack Obama.

“Innovation is something fresh (new, original, or improved) that creates value.”  ~Jeff Dance.

“Innovation is any idea that adds value.”  ~Baxter Healthcare – Australia

“Innovation is significant positive change”.  ~Scott Berkun

“Innovation is change that creates a new dimension of performance.”  ~Peter Drucker.

“I define innovation as executing new ideas to create value.”  ~Tim Kastelle

“Innovation is the commercialization of creativity.”  ~Anonymous

“Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.”  ~Government of New Zealand

“Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas.”  ~UK Department of Innovation and Skills

“Innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization.”  ~Professor Teresa Amabile

And this is my own:

It is about Doing Your Best Work the best way.

Let me say that again…It is about Doing Your Best Work the best way.

Your Systems flow from your Vision

Your Vision flows from your Imagination

Your Imagination is a Beautiful and Miraculous Gift from God that enables you to see something that does not exist.

Our imagination is an essential part of our systems creation – because we can see into the future A Preferred method.

Right now, we are doing something that is hard or clunky or outdated.

Maybe our business has grown and what used to work – does not work any longer

What is Not working as good as it could?
What is Hard?
What is just plain Dumb?
What is Frustrating?

It was Michael Gerber who taught me that all successful businesses are Systems:

All extraordinarily successful businesses are systems – Totally integrated systems which work in a logical and consistent manner – a manner which can be described, systems which can be duplicated.   ~Michael Gerber

We are talking about Vision in the context of Growing a Self-Managed business

As you just heard in my podcast intro:
You’re at the right place to, get a bigger vision of Your Life AND Your Business, and THEN, learn how to make that vision a reality.

Vision can mean a lot of different things, but for a business it is an essential part of your strategy for leadership and growth

It is an overly used word that loses its meaning – its Impact.

• Oh I’ve heard all that before.
• Or, yeah we did that – we wrote a vision statement for our company.

No!  Guard against that.

Vision is HUGELY important for your success.

Vision answers the questions:

• What do you really want?
• What do you want to become? Not just what do you want to do
• What do I want my life to look like?
• How would you describe your ideal Lifestyle?

Visioning is Dreaming – and thinking BIG!

If you are the Owner of the business, then your personal vision and business vision must integrate – they must fit together elegantly.

Here’s why…

• We are talking about work life balance
• What will it profit you if you build a thriving business and lose all the other things that make life beautiful? Your family, your health, your peace of mind and ability to enjoy your prosperity
• If you’re listening to my podcast I talk about how to build a Lifestyle Business – how to have a business and a life
  • This is the language of a Self-Managed business
  • AND by SELF I don’t mean you by yourself – I mean the Business manages itself with the talented trained people using finely tuned systems

Horst Shultz, co-founder of The Ritz Carlton talks about interviewing potential candidates for a GM or other leadership position and he asks them, “What is your vision for your life?”

IF they start talking about how to raise occupancy or improve the hotel – he knows that they don’t get it
NO!  What is your vision for your life?

Create the Vision for your life, Then go to work on your business to make that Vision a reality

You’re at the right place to, get a bigger vision of Your Life AND Your Business, and THEN, learn how to make that vision a reality.

Know exactly what you want. Have a big vision that is crystal clear.

Painter Agnes Martin on the one thing you have to know in life:
“There are so many people who don’t know what they want. And I think that, in this world, that’s the only thing you have to know — exactly what you want.”

THIS is exactly why Vision is so important – If you know what you want – you will likely get it.
Then you have to ask – will I like it when I get it.

“Be Careful of the success you desire – bc you will likely get it”

Knowing your Vision gives you clarity in your work

Know your vision before you go to work OR you will likely work on the wrong things.

You as the leader of the Business Must not only Know the Vision and be able to clearly state it for yourself – you must be able to communicate to your team in a memorable and consistent way!

I am going to give you 3 quotes that have been a Guiding force as I built my business:

They all speak to Vision without using the word vision:

1. Efficiency is Doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.
2. It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and then do your best.
3. Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things

Every one of these quotes is about Vision!

Vision is effectiveness – Doing the RIGHT thing
Vision is knowing what to do – choosing from all the possible ways to invest your day and choosing the highest and best
Lastly, Vision is leadership.  Management is important, but leaders set the Vision for the managers to follow.

I have seen this in my own company many times.

Wonderfully capable staff, working hard – On the wrong things.

AND as the leader, that’s my fault.

Here’s another quote by Deming:  “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that does not need doing.”

Ouch that one hurt if you’re a leader.

FOCUS On One Thing

Where the FOCUS Goes the Energy Flows

Keep the Vision in front of you – or else you are chasing Shiny object and Squirrels

Andy Stanley – Making Vision Stick

“Vision is about what could be and should be.  As important as we believe it is for people in our organizations to embrace our pictures of the future – – – their lives are consumed with the present life –  about deadlines and decisions and problem-solving, about the house and the bills and the yard.  To get people to sit still long enough to understand your vision is a challenge.

We need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how can I make the vision clear, simpler and more accessible?
What can I do to make it stick?   How do I drive this Vision down into every level of the organization?”

The 13 Essential Questions of Prospecting 

1. What is unique about your product/service and how it is used? Understand your product or service and how it’s used today.

2. How does your product serve people at the deepest level? Define your product or services specialty.

3. Why do your customers continue to use our service year after year? Analyze your current customers and why they buy.

4. Describe your ideal customer in as much detail as possible.

5. Why would someone want to stop buying from you or cancel your service? Anticipate weaknesses your prospect may find with your product or service.  What frustrations would a prospect have with our service?

6. What industries are aligned with our Unique Selling Proposition. List customer segments that benefit most from your specialization –

7. Define how your product or service is different

8. Analyze your competitors advantages and why their customers buy

9. Which markets are not buying your product or service category

10. Identify what your prospects must believe to buy from you

11. Evaluate your prospects good characteristics

12. Evaluate your prospects for poor characteristics

13. Then…Focus your energy on your best prospects

Sales professionals learn how to Optimize and Maximize their – Golden Hours of Selling

And there is some language that needs to be defined.

There is Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

Last week covered the first five:

1. The Golden hours of selling
2. Lead conversion
3. Sales funnel
4. Prospecting
5. Selling the appointment
6. Discovery and Rapport
7. Proposals
8. Presentation
9. Close
10. Follow Up

6. Discovery and Rapport

You have a very specific agenda for your Discovery and Rapport appointment.

YOU are the Driver!

This is exactly what you are doing:  Discovering needs and building Rapport

Rapport begins the second you great the prospect.
Rapport includes your grooming
Your clothes
Your countenance
Your energy
Your sales materials
Your greeting
The first words out of your mouth

Then you ask, “is there someplace we can sit down”. That was a game changer.

Get to know the prospect – Rapport, AND find out how you can best serve them – Discovery.

How do you find out how to best serve them?  ASK them.

We call it the key question.

This is the most important part of Discovery because they will tell you how to sell them.

“There are many different benefits of a live plant program – From YOUR perspective as a Country Club GM, what’s the most important benefit to YOU?”

Then when you begin to create your proposal, you make sure you are including that answer

7. Proposals

Begin with the end in mind when creating your proposal – You have to Present this to the prospect.  How to make sure the presentation is a win

There are two big problems with creating proposals – and they are opposites ends of the same stick

1. 1. You spend too much time
   2. You spend too little time.

The second one first:
Many salespeople treat the proposal as a Generic activity and quickly put any thing together.

A winning proposal has considered the unique needs and desires of THIS prospect and When they present it – the prospect knows it.  The language of the presentation is obviously connected to your Discovery process.

Spend the time customizing and tailoring it.
You are responding to their answer to the key question

The other problem is spending too much time – comes from not having a Process for creating proposals.

There are a lot of elements in the proposal writing activity that can become a process.
Pricing charts
Proposal templates
Design recipes
Standardized take offs

Not only these, but even more – the Realization that you only have so many quarters today – how many quarters are you going to spend creating a proposal?

If you’re spending too much time creating proposals – ask yourself, “am I doing this bc I don’t want to do the other work of prospecting and phone calls?”

And, “Am I busy being busy?”

8. Presentation

The presentation is the time you are pitching your big ideas – with the Expectation you are going to get a Yes!

Zig Ziglar – “you have to plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win.”

If you go into the presentation and expecting them to say, “well… let me think about it”

Here are the key words I think of for presentation:

• • Enthusiasm – you have to be excited. Not fake enthusiasm, but based on your personality and your genuine desire to help your prospect
  • Energy – enthusiasm and energy are contagious. Don’t be sleepy – be alive.
  • Engaged – even if this is the 1000th time you have presented this product or service – keep the passion high!
  • Communication Skills – some of it memorized.

Those are the Soft Skills of presentation

The hard skills are the order and neatness of your sales materials

• • You have your iPad loaded
  • You have all your documents in order
  • You have a pen – So that they can sign
  • All the little details of looking like a pro

9. Most sales don’t close bc the salesperson does not ask for it

You have to have some type of closing question – or questions

The close happens smoothly when you have done all the other sales activities

• • All the way back to prospecting

10. Follow Up

Not every sale will close on the first attempt.

You have to have a follow up process.

Follow up also applies to the First sale – selling the appointment

“do not underestimate the amount of effort it takes to close a sale”

The appointment OR the sale.

It is phone calls
And emails
And voicemails
And creative ways to get in front of them again
It is a lot of phone calls – attempts and dials

There is a balance:  You are a welcomed Guest – Not an annoying pest.

With this Language and this kind of approach to your Selling Activities – all of your prospects will be in one of those stages – and the Best part – you’ll know which one

This episode is about the Language of Sales and Selling.

Let me start right here and define these words:

• Sales:  Sales is the result of selling.  It is a noun.
• Selling:  The activities you engage in to make a sale.  It is a Verb.

Selling is a much more powerful word.  Verbs are action words.  Sales requires a lot of Selling activity.

That’s what we will focus on.

Innovating your selling activities So That you can achieve more sales in the limited time you have.

Sales professionals learn how to Optimize and Maximize their – Golden Hours of Selling

And there is some language that needs to be defined.  We will start with that one – and here are the 9 others…

Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

1. The Golden hours of selling
2. Lead conversion
3. Sales funnel
4. Prospecting
5. Selling the appointment
6. Discovery and Rapport
7. Proposals
8. Presentation
9. Close
10. Follow Up

Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

1. The Golden Hours of selling
The metaphor of the Quarters – Each quarter equals a quarter hour.

Every day you get 32 quarters, every week you get 160 quarters
You have to spend them.  Or better – you have to invest them.
Every quarter Expires every 15 minutes – You can Not save them!

How you use your quarters today, this week determines your success.

Stop being busy being busy and Get to Work Selling!

Work on the Best Work you can do!
The best work a salesperson can do is be in front of a great prospect.

Don’t get bogged down in miscellaneous busy work – and get to work On the selling activities

This language is also the Best Activity of selling.

2. Lead conversion –
marketing is…lead generation – selling is taking those leads home

Marketing is Positioning You and your company as the best option.
It is softening the beaches
Marketing’s job is to Generate Leads

Selling is taking those great leads and converting them to a new customer.

“Someone has to separate the customer from his money” – and that is Your job as a salesperson

Every else is Busy work.  Your job is to make sales to create customers!

How do you do that?  With a sales funnel

3. Sales funnel

A sales funnel is all the steps of taking a good warm prospect – all the way to becoming your next customer.

Like a funnel it is wide on one end and narrow at the other – bc as you take prospects through the steps many will fall out.

That’s not bad or sad – it is the reality of selling.

Tom Hopkins – “Some will, some won’t, so what, next!”

You have to have a funnel so that you know where your prospects are in the sale.

The sales funnel starts with prospecting.

Prospecting is where marketing and selling cross-pollinate

4. Prospecting

Prospecting gets its own podcast – BECAUSE it’s that important.

Here’s why!  You want to invest your 32 quarters today with the best prospects.

Everyone is Not your prospect!  And you need to know why they are not

Not all business is good business – see episode 77

Tune in 2 weeks for deep Dive in prospecting

5. Selling the appointment – Language!

We say, the first sale you make is the appointment.

You have to sell the appointment So That you can begin selling.

If you get yourself in front of a quality prospect – there’s a very high probability of selling them.

But getting in front of a prospect is hard – it requires a strategy and a lot of work.

Selling the appointment is ASKing for it!

Sales is Asking!

One tip from Steve Shiffman in his book:  Cold Calling Techniques. That really work

Your variation of this:  “the reason I’m calling is to ask for an appointment to show you what we’ve done for other companies like yours to…”

Selling the appointment is ASKing for it!

Then when you get the appointment it’s your opportunity for Discovery and Rapport

The language of Selling is so important it requires two episodes.

Here’s my favorite way to start a conversation about marketing – and it’s why it is the first topic of creating a shared language….

“Marketing is the business you are really in”

Thank you to Dan Kennedy

Why are you in the Marketing Business?

Marketing is the lifeblood of any business – because it is the source of a continuous flow of new prospects who are interested in doing business with you.

AND without customers – (a continuous Flow of customers) you don’t have a business.

Businesses Fail because of a lack of customers!  Period.

• If you have customers – you can fix everything else!

That’s why you must Fix the customer acquisition problem before you do anything else.

Actually – you should fix the customer acquisition problem Before you even start the business – that’s how important Marketing is.

The Sole Purpose of Business (Episode 76) is to Create and Keep Customers.

A key word there is CREATE!
You don’t get customers
You don’t find them
Much more powerful is CREATE!

Marketing is about how to Create Customers

Today we are going to talk about- The Language of Marketing

With a better language, a bigger language – you can Then have bigger and better ideas!

First:   Marketing is Lead Generation – Sales is Lead Conversion

Your marketing creates the qualified leads – Your selling Converts them to Customers

Second:  Marketing is not selling and Selling is not marketing.

Creating quality leads is the job of marketing
Closing the lead is the job of sales

Don’t be selling when you should be Marketing AND…Don’t be marketing when you should be selling – – –
You have to know when to be marketing and When to be selling.

Good friend in Senior Living sales would always say:
“Someone has to separate the customer from his money.”  Until you do that – you have not sold anything.  Getting the prospect to Yes!  Getting them to sign.  That is selling.

Marketing is Setting up the sale for success
Marketing is Softening the Beaches – for the sales troops to come in

This is what I mean by that…

• You want Your Reputation to precede you – if you are in sales!

If you are in sales and show up you want to hear – “Oh yes, I have heard of your company.”

That’s the job of marketing – Your Reputation Precedes you – IN THE BEST WAY!

But before sales is marketing – or lead Generation – OR Customer Acquisition.
Until you have a Customer Acquisition process – a system that works over and over again – you don’t have a business.

Great quote:  “Anytime you can solve the customer acquisition, financing conundrum in any business, you can get fabulously rich”

Here’s a new belief system or language to try on:  “There is more value in the process devised for marketing and selling the “thing” than there is in the thing itself.”

The thing of course being your product or service – the core deliverable of your business.

Focus on this:  more value in the process devised for marketing the thing.

That’s what we want to focus on – The marketing Process!

Your marketing process, once you have Created it and Fine-tuned it is a valuable Asset!  An asset you can sell – and an asset that can make you Fabulously rich

Another Word in our marketing language is Process.
Successful marketing is a process – a logical step by step process to take the prospect from NO information or awareness about You and Your business – to having to click or call for more information.

“Your Systems are perfectly designed for the Results You’re Getting” – Deming

Language that is part of Creating your marketing process:

Prospects or Prospecting

Everyone is not a good customer for your work – You want the BEST customers

Prospecting Will Be its own podcast

• The Language of Prospecting

The Marketing Equation

The marketing equation – is a PROCESS

Been around for a Very Very long time.  Another term is funnel.

Marketing funnel – are the steps in the process.  Like a funnel it is wide on one end and it captures a lot of leads – then it gets smaller as leads go through the steps and Qualify themselves as a good lead or not.

Interrupt

Lead magnet – the lead magnet is your offer – it engages them and offers the promise of learning more – educating.  A special report. A free book.
For us it’s a Gift plant that we drop off.

Then:

• Engage
• Educate
• Offer

Then,

• Close – but that leads into sales.

Tune in next week – for the language of sales and selling.

A great definition of a Self-Managed business – thanks to Dan Sullivan:

At Strategic Coach, we define a Self-Managing Company as a business that manages itself to greater growth. It’s a company that can run smoothly and effectively — and even grow! — when the entrepreneur isn’t there.

Creating this kind of company frees you up to focus on being the visionary and innovator rather than managing cash flow and the day-to-day activities in your business.

When your company runs itself, you have the freedom to pursue worthwhile interests outside your business and to participate only in the areas of your business that you love.

What I want to do in this podcast series is provide a definition of terms for the Key concepts you will need to Grow Your Business.

To create a shared language for these key words:

1. Entrepreneur
2. Marketing
3. Sales and Selling
4. Vision
5. Systems
6. Innovation
7. Working on your business
8. Working on your self
9. Positivity
10. Training

I am not saying that my definitions are the only right ones – Most words have more than one meaning.

The word RUN for example – has over 100 different meanings.

But for my Work – my work of MMT – and growing You and growing your business – I want to dig into the Precise Meaning of several important words.

The goal is to Expand our Thinking – a bigger Vision – get rid of limiting beliefs and mental lies that are holding us back.

To Dream bigger – you have to think bigger – to think bigger, you have to think Better!

We all have some old limiting beliefs – or Wrong mindsets.

And to have those beliefs transformed – we have to renew our minds with New Ideas.

Thank you for being a part of the MMT community – And for you to get the most value from anything you hear – you need to know what I mean.

I am creating A Shared Language

Entrepreneur:

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

Wrong ideas of Entrepreneur:

• A risk taker
• A business owner or a job owner –
• Sole proprietor
• Self-employed
• Self-employed professional

My Test:  these 2

1. If you’re not making money when you are not working – you are not an E 
2. If you have to be involved in the order fulfillment of the work – you are not an E

Now of course there are seasons and phases of all business

• In the startup, you are in it all the time
  • But you have a goal, a vision of a business in the future that works without you
• During times of crisis – like a pandemic – your leadership may be critical
• During growth spurts

 Solopreneur has been around for quite some time. Macmillan dictionary defines Solopreneur as a business owner who works and runs their business alone.

An Entrepreneur – for our Shared Language – the language of MMT

• A business owner – not a job owner. You are not self-employed
• The business leader – not an employee – – – that is the goal, even if it is not the present reality
• You as the owner business are apart FROM the business, not a part of it
• Your business runs without you
• Your business is Self-Managed with systems, process, checklists etc. AND trained people that run them
• You are the Inventor, the Creator, the Intelligent designer of the business
• You work On the business – doing the work this work – not in the business as an employee
• My personal Bent: You are a marketer and a sales professional.  You can have the Best idea in the world – you have Absolutely made the Better mousetrap – But if you don’t know how to sell it…. It will flop
• Dan Sullivan: You are free to focus on being the visionary and innovator rather than managing cash flow and the day-to-day activities in your business.

• • • And you have the freedom to pursue worthwhile interests outside your business and to participate only in the areas of your business that you love.

That my friends is an Entrepreneur – and a Worth Goal

Next week:  The Language of Marketing

Starts with your prospecting – –

Perfectly Picky Prospecting – 061 – episode

Don’t complain about your customers – You picked them

Don’t Complain:

DK – no one held a gun to your head and said, you have to do business with me.

Not all customers are good customers

AND…

Not all business is good business

Not all of your Product Lines are good business –

• Some are way more profitable
• Some are a lot easier to deliver
• Some are in more demand

Our job as the leader – the Chief Innovator – The Intelligent Designer is…

…to Find the Very Best business – and simplify it, systemize it, and Innovate it – so that it has Crazy and Outrageous Profit Margins – and people gladly pay your prices bc they Love your company and love the service or thing you provide!

Replay that again – it is the master key to wealth as a business owner.

You are the Inventor

EVEN more You are the LEADER of your business and your job is not to work IN the business as an employee – your job as the leader is to Think about the business, Simplify the business, Innovate the business SO THAT… and here’s the key – so that you can Choose The Best Business.

Again, this is about BOTH Customer Types AND Business Line

My contractor friend – He is super talented and there’s nothing he can’t do

– He’s a General Contractor

That’s his problem – he’s a General Contractor

The big money – and the Lifestyle business is Being a SPECIFIC Contractor

WOW That’s Good!

You see my friend is Very good at most aspects of residential construction – BUT that could be a problem.

“Jack of all trades…

Many people think that is a compliment

It’s not, bc here is the rest of the story

…and master of none”

I have challenged him to PICK ONE – or Two – or Maybe even Three

BECOME A SPECIFIC CONTRACTOR – and Dominate that space

Devon – door guy

General:

adjective

affecting or concerning all or most people, places, or things; widespread.
“books of general interest”

Specific:

adjective: specific

clearly defined or identified.

• precise and clear in making statements or issuing instructions.
  “when ordering goods be specific”
  – belonging or relating uniquely to a particular subject.
  “information needs are often very specific to companies and individuals”

Examples of Bad business and Bad customers

No restaurants

No event rentals

No poinsettias

And Firing customers bc they are not a good fit – mean to our staff – or beyond our ability to satisfy

You don’t have to keep Pain in the Butt clients – You can choose not to do business with them

Not all business is Good business.  Hopefully you are saying No to some And some people think your prices are too high – but that’s another podcast.

Business photo created by diloka107

On Episode O67 began, The Sole Purpose of Business

Create and Keep Customers – listen to 067 first – then come for this expanded version.  Another way to Think about Creating and Keeping customers

Learned this from Rich Harshaw from MYM

I went to a marketing seminar – over 20 years ago.

Inside Reality – is how you show up to serve people with your work

• What is it really like to do business with you and your company?
  • As you Grow . . . It is more about doing business with your company than with you. Meaning you can’t control everything like you used to when you were smaller
  • Is the experience the same now that you are bigger?
• Inside Reality is asking – What is the total experience like to do business us? From seeing your marketing to calling for information to meeting with a representative – to actually be served with your work
• Obviously, you want the Inside Reality to be Amazing – to Exceed Expectations.

Outside Perception – is your face to the world.

• When someone thinks about your business, what comes to their mind?
• Does this perception of you match the reality of who you really are?

The GOAL for the small business owner is for these two to match – Your Inside Reality and Outside Perception is the same.

But that is not usually the case

Big Box examples that have a mismatch.

• Walmart
• Home Depot and Lowes
• McDonalds

Big business that gets it right

• Starbucks
• Chic Filet

The Sole Purpose of Business

And

A business has two functions

Two Big Piles

Create and Keep

Create is:  Outside Perception

Ask these questions:

• Does your marketing set you apart from your competitors?
• If you are 10 times better than the competition

IPS our unconditional Guarantee – the curse of the familiar

You are standing too close to your own business

Industry influenza – copy cats…

Outside perception options

• They don’t have ANY perception
  • That’s OK for the general population But if you have KEY prospects – the people you serve best – the highly valuable customers that would benefit greatly from our work – the ones who are happy to pay a premium for your quality – the ones who will buy from you for Years and Years… IF THEY don’t know about you – That is a problem
• Outside perception they know about you – But think about you the same as they do every other company like yours

KEEP:  Inside Reality – you are going to create something truly amazing.  Your business is Unusually Exceptional.

That Begins with creating a Predictable Experience you are confident delivers.  Then Innovate it!

Innovate or Die, as the saying goes.

Innovation is how your Keep Customers coming back

If you do not have repeat customers – You can not build a long term business.

Customers must Love your company – love doing business with you.

People Love Chic Filet – lines around the building 2 times.

People Love Starbucks and Gladly pay 5 and 6 bucks for a cup of coffee.

1. Create Customers with your marketing – telling your story well – again and again. The outside perception is exceptional – You are Premier and the Obvious Choice.
2. Keep Customers with your overall experience of excellence. And keep asking, How can we do this better, faster, cheaper – and still exceed expectations.

That really is The Sole Purpose of Business.

Business photo created by diloka107

Mission – to our people

The story of Bill

1. Clients come Second – Employees come First
   1. Seeing the Circles not just squares
   2. Perspective Change

2. MBWA – catch people
   1. Management By Walking Around
   2. STORY of the first time I heard this

3. Show Honest Sincere Appreciation
   1. PEOPLE are Thirsty for this. Dying of thirst even.
   2. A New Mindset – a new perspective
   3. From accusations to appreciations

4. Recognize and Reward
   1. WE CREATE MARGIN SO THAT WE CAN RECOGNIZE AND REWARD

5. Do not criticize, condemn or complain
   1. MAKE A Sandwich if you must
      1. Privately and spoken if Criticism
      2. Publicly and Written if Praise
   2. Positivity
   3. Fun
   4. DO HAVE HARD TALKS…

6. Set People Up to Win
   1. Process and Systems
   2. Checklists
   3. Clear expectations

7. Onboarding and Training
   1. Invest in people
   2. Invest in their success – their training.

I said earlier…

??? Do You have a sense that your WORK, is connected to that Mission?

If YES – then you are doing your BEST WORK!

You need to do your Work Tasks – of course.  But that work also has to be connected to something Bigger…Your Vision

STORY OF CHRISTOPHER WREN

Vision and Tasks – You need them both.

“A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. Vision and a task are the hope of the world.”

Vision vector created by wowomnom

I asked this last week:
Does your work feel like Drudgery?
Have you lost the passion you once had?
Does work feel like an endless to-do list of unrelated tasks?

Margin for Mission

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

1. Margin – for ourselves
   We’ll never find our mission unless we have some margin.
   

Mission – Begins with people

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – author John Mark Comer

WHEN I READ THE SYMPTOMS OF HURRY – I KNEW THE CAUSE OF MY PROBLEM
READ:  PAGE 48

The theme verse for the Ruthless book was this:

Matthew 11:28-30
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

THE MESSAGE:
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.””
Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

BUT, – – – and this is the point of the podcast – IF we’re not careful – if we’re going too fast – our work becomes drudgery.

Margin – for ourselves

How to build Margin into our Everyday Life.

We are going Fast – We live in a fast-paced world.
BUT we can choose our pace…

7 Ideas to Regain Margin

1. The unforced rhythms of Grace

The unforced rhythms of grace

WOW – I don’t even know exactly what that means – But I want it!

JUST SIT WITH THAT
– DOESN’T THAT FEEL GOOD – I WANT THAT

There is a Rhythm to life – AND to Grace

What does that mean – – – For YOU?

1. Come to Jesus. Time with Jesus.  Intimacy with Jesus
2. Start the Day Slowly
   1. Your phone is not your alarm clock and you don’t check it while still in bed. Go on Amazon and buy an alarm clock
3. SABBATH

THIS WAS CREATED BY GOD AND IS PART OF THE UNIVERSE – PART OF THE RHYTHM OF THE UNIVERSE.

THE GOAL IS …
A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME

2. No is a complete sentence
   1. Say No to the good and yes to the best
   2. What Good things do you need to say no to?

3. EXAMEN

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

St. Ignatius thought that the Examen was a gift that came directly from God, and that God wanted it to be shared as widely as possible.

One of the few rules of prayer that Ignatius made for the Jesuit order was the requirement that Jesuits practice the Examen twice daily—at noon and at the end of the day. It’s a habit that Jesuits, and many other Christians, practice to this day.

1. A pause in the day.
   1. The hardest thing ever
2. SABBATH IS A PAUSE IN THE WEEK – EXAMEN IS A PAUSE IN THE DAY.
3. Prayer, Meditation and Thinking
4. THINKING…IS WHAT I AM ABOUT TO DO – TO PICKUP – MY BEST WORK?
5. APP – the one minute pause APP. – John Eldrege

4. ASKING God
   1. So many Verses on Asking
   2. Asking is a Biblical Principal

5. SLOW DOWN.
   1. Ruthless Book: A Whole Chapter on SLOW
   2. In life
   3. In traffic
   4. Margin for appointments

6. TAME Your TECH
   1. Turn off all notifications
   2. We are like a monkey on a leash
   3. Milkshake Multi-tasking
      1. DETOX YOUR BRAIN

7. GO FOR A WALK…
   1. THE best habit ever
   2. Therapy
   3. Clarity
   4. New Outlook
   5. It is a work break
   6. Walking Meetings

Margin is the Space To slow down and Think and Dream and Plan

Next week – How to use your Margin

Background vector created by rawpixel.com

WELCOME! This Episode is for you!

We all get to that place – and need fresh perspective.

The podcast is about – Growing You, Growing Your Business

I have a line in my intro – you just heard it – “A business will never grow bigger than the person who leads it – You”

You the leader have the power to decide – to Choose – what your business or organization will focus on.

You have to choose!

To Not choose is to choose

Not just about Business – About Your Work
Your “serve people and change the world work”

All great businesses serve people – they serve people with their work.

Work is not a 4-letter word that ends in K – OK it is but it is not a cuss word.
It’s a beautiful word.
I believe God created each of us for work – serving others.  Serving others and not our selves adds meaning to life

BUT, – – – and this is the point of the podcast – IF we’re not careful – if we’re going too fast – our work becomes drudgery. We get in a hurry and lose all Margin.

We have to Regain our Margin to focus on our Mission

I want to refresh your Vision for your work – to look at the Big mission You are on
“We’re on a mission from God”
-Blues Brother – Jake and Elroy

Slow down and Think about Your business and/or your Work
Maybe you don’t have a business – But you have a Work.

How do I know that?  Bc God said so
I call it your Eph 2:10 work
“We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good work, which He prepared in advance for us to do”

If that offends you – maybe this is not the episode for you – Tune in next week…

But it is the truth as I have experienced it in nearly 40 years of following Christ
The point is…Will all have this work – again whether or not you have a business… BUT we can Miss it bc we get so busy.

We get Busy and we lose Perspective.

OR

We never have been challenged with a Bigger Vision for our life –

THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME

I have a talk – Your Best Work, the Best Way and it starts like this:

Hi my name is Brad and I’m a recovering Technician.
EVERYONE SAY, HI BRAD
Nice!  This is going to be a good day.  I feel it.  Safe Place.

The talk is to Business Leaders and my goal is to make a giant shift in their thinking – In Their Perspective.

THINKING ABOUT THEIR “BEST” WORK

From thinking about themselves as Employees of their business – or technicians.

TO

Business Owners – Leaders

I read a business book about 30 years ago that changed my PERSPECTIVE about how business should work

Here is Big Idea of the Book:
“STOP going to work in your business…go to work on it”

Working IN your business only – can become drudgery
Working ON it is Vision – so that you are working on the Right Thing!

That is a huge Perspective Shift for business leaders.

And that is what You are!
You are here, listening to this, because you are a Leader

I am going to ask you to make a couple of huge Perspective Shifts

You are the Experts in your work –

• I am not asking you to do your work Differently
• MORE I am asking All of US to THINK about our work differently.

The podcast IS NOT ABOUT the work of DOING…It is about the work of THINKING

THINK

We are going to ask Big questions like…

What is my work REALLY?

What is My BEST WORK?

I gave this talk to an amazing group of Salvation Army leaders
They’re amazing and do life-changing work – but bc of the year 2020 – many of them were experiencing drudgery –
I asked them….

??? Is your work connected to the Mission of The Salvation Army?

The Mission of The Salvation Army
TSA, an international movement…
IS an evangelical part of the universal Christian church
It’s message is based on the bible
It’s ministry is motivated by the Love of God
It’s mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.

??? Do You have a sense that your WORK, is connected to that Mission?

If YES – then you are doing your BEST WORK!

Your Best Work is connected to Mission.

Here is another quote that really helped me…

“It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and then do your best” – Demings

I AM GOING TO ASK US TO BE OPEN TO A PERSPECTIVE SHIFT

• TO OUR BEST WORK!

PERSPECTIVE –

• An attitude toward or way of regarding something – A point of view

The Coffer Illusion
Do you see the rectangles – the circles?

As we begin this day, I am asking you to be Open to seeing your work from a Different Perspective.

Maybe – – – maybe…
…there are some CIRCLES IN YOUR WORK, that you are missing.
You are All About the Rectangles!!!

You say:
“Well Of course My Work is about Rectangles – can’t you see how many there are – and they all need ATTENTION, my attention, Right Now!”

But what about the Circles?

The Rectangles are URGENT!
The Circles are IMPORTANT…

THE Rectangles are Obvious and scream for your attention – the TASKS

The Circles, not so much.  They are the VISION
Listen – it takes time and Intention to see the circles

It’s a perspective shift
That is what our goal is.

To look at our Work with Fresh Eyes – asking God to help us see things we have not seen before

Ask, “God, what is my Best Work”

That’s introduction – Part 2 is about how to find the Margin

Without the Margin to THINK and Slow Down – you will never get the perspective you need

Coffee photo created by wayhomestudio

Here’s the big idea The Very Best Businesses are Intelligently Designed

The World Class businesses that you love, serve you in amazing ways and the experience with them is predictable and comforting

• Whether AMAZON or Starbucks or your favorite restaurant in your neighborhood

The reason these businesses are wildly successful is BC we as humans Love Order

“It is best to do things systematically bc we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy”

• Hesiod 650 BC

Order!

Why is order important?

Whenever you see order – That is the sign of an Intelligent Designer

The Universe for example.

Nothing about the universe is random

The universe is perfectly designed to work in an orderly way – And all of the systems work in harmony with every other system.

Just Like a great business should.

Just as there is nothing random about the universe – there should be nothing random about your business.

Say again – THERE IS NOTHING RANDOM IN YOUR BUSINESS.

Nothing is left to chance.

Everything is done for a reason BC you have designed it that way.

Nothing is left up to chance.

That type of order requires an Intelligent Designer….YOU!

You are the I. D. of your business.

That is how you work ON your business.

This is a Good time to talk about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

It has to do with Energy and Entropy

Second law: Entropy = disorder.  As energy is used, things go from order to disorder.

In simple terms – Our business as it does its thing – AS IT USES ENERGY – it will go from order to disorder.

AS I SAID – – – People – – – our customers Love Order

If your business is chaotic and haphazard – that does not create confidence and people look for another company.

You as THE Intelligent Designer have to invent the systems and the processes TO Keep pushing Order.

Read that again!

In the Push and Pull of doing your work – things will get Chaotic and Disorderly – that’s OK if you have the systems to Reverse the cycle of Entropy

Negative Entropy = Negentropy

Proverb – 14:4 – Where there is no oxen, the stall is clean – But from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests

The stall is going to get dirty if you’re busy and doing your thing.

But you don’t worry about that – bc you are the intelligent designer and you have designed the systems and checklists and templates So That everything – Every Thing, in your business is orderly

For Example – – – Here is my Short list of things you need to Intelligently Design.

1. Your prospecting. Who exactly? And Why?
2. Your marketing. How do you interrupt and get their attention?  How do you engage?  Educate?
3. Your sales. Sales is not Marketing and…. You need Selling systems.
4. Order Fulfillment – you sold something and now you need to deliver on the promise. How do you make sure you Deliver in a memorable way that exceeds expectations?
5. Office Admin. Invoicing
6. Accts Rec – needs clearly designed systems
7. Staff Dev. Hiring and Training and…

Intelligent Design In the Universe AND Your Business

WHY?  Because…The Very Best Businesses are Intelligently Designed – they are orderly and predictable!

Technology vector created by starline

We’ve been talking a lot about inventing your business. Making your business defy comparison. Making your business special.

We’ve been talking a lot about inventing your business.

That’s one of the best reasons to go to work on your business inventing it. Your business becomes unusually excellent.

That’s what I mean by business as unusual

Walt Disney was famous for his saying:  Plus it

The company’s success wasn’t accidental. Walt set out from day one to always achieve the impossible. He encouraged his team to think bigger and more creative by telling them to plus It!

They would create some new Something and it was always amazing, THEN Walt would stand back and say to his team…How can we PLUS IT?

Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how it can be improved. — Walt Disney

Lagniappe:  something given as a bonus or extra gift.

Shawn White wins the 2010 Olympics with his – Double Mctwist 1260

IT WAS HIS SIGNATURE MOVE –

What is your businesses version of the Double Mctwist 1260

Customer Satisfaction is worthless…Customer Loyalty is Priceless

• Jeffrey Gitomer

7 Practical Ideas to do BUSINESS as Unusual

1. Under promise and Over-deliver
   1. Exceed customer expectations

2. Have margin in your staffing – if everyone is maxed out, not only is there no time to Plus It – there is no motivation. Keep staffing as you grow.
   1. Your team must grow with your business
   2. Not just in numbers as in adding new hires – BUT Personal and Professional Dev

3. Know what people are really buying – so that you can do more of THAT. We don’t sell Plants and Planters – we sell Ambiance and B. Spaces
   1. What is it that your Clients REALLY want from your work?
   2. What is the Benefit behind the feature?
   3. HOW WILL YOU K NOW — UNLESS YOU ASK – THE KEY QUESTION

4. Give Gifts – Giftology book
   • Not with your name on them
   • Giving Gifts when unexpected – otherwise they become part of the normal transaction

5. Hand written notecard
   1. The Lost Art of hand-written communication
   2. Send a note of thanks and gratitude – That’s All, and nothing else

6. Think of the Customer of the Customer
   1. To know What really matters to your customer and how to Plus It – think about who they are beholden too – who are their customers?

7. Help your customer to Look Good – like the hero to His Stakeholders – His family and his closest associates.
   • Similar to above – but not his customer, The People in his life, Her life that makes their life meaningful!
   • Giving Orchids at Valentines – NOT for YOU, but for your Sweetheart!

Minutes Matter

Practical Innovation that pays Big Bucks!

3 Ways to Increase Business Efficiency

Efficiency is doing the same work you do, in a faster AND better way

EFFICIENCY:

(especially of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.

MINIMUM WASTE!

(of a person) working in a well-organized and competent way.

MINIMUM WASTE!

THERE is so much waste in every business!

• Time – labor is the highest expense of almost all businesses

How do you create efficiency?

Innovate.

Innovation: ongoing systems development. This promotes continuous learning, growth and the improvement of individuals and organizations.

IT IS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

THE REASON TO CREATE A PROCESS – IS SO THAT YOU CAN IMPROVE IT

3 Ways to Increase Business Efficiency

1. Eliminate bottlenecks

Anything that slows down the process – – –

Awesome quote:  5% of total elapsed time is the actual time to do the work

In the book – Reengineering the Corporation – the story of processing a credit app.  It was taking 4 days to do the whole process

• They wanted to reduce this time
• Instead of the normal process of sending it from department to department for their piece of the process – someone physically walked the application through the process
• They reduced the Elapsed time indeed – One day reduction? Two?  No, the whole process took 20 minutes –
• The rest of the time was bottlenecks – sitting in peoples to do stack.

Reduce the Cycle time of a process – the steps from beginning to end

You do this by finding and eliminating bottlenecks

Bottlenecks can be

• People OR
• Processes

2. Eliminate tasks that don’t need doing

There’s no so useless as to do with great efficiency something that does not need doing

WOW, read that again!

DEMING!

Here is a super quick way to Increase efficiency and Profit!  STOP doing some of the things you are doing now!

Look at every task and ASK, “Why are we doing this?”

Industry Norms!  Sacred COWS!

Sacred Cows make the best hamburger

3. Eliminate Rework

Can you pull off a Zero-defect installation?

Zero Defect means

Zero Defects was a management-led program to eliminate defects in industrial production

What’s the Metaphor for an installation for you?

What does Production look like?

What is your work – what is a process that frequently needs someone to go back again and redo it

Another way to consider – KEY Frustration.

Minutes Matter!

From Chapter 2 in my book: Victory Goes to the Business with Superior Systems – systems create order from Chaos – Becoming the Intelligent Designer of Your Business.

Become The INVENTOR of your Business!

A World Class business is a beautiful collection of Inventions – all harmoniously working together like a high performance automobile

You can do this for your business

Study McDonald’s then Innovate Your Business

How to create a business that works – and Works without YOU!

There are a lot of things at McDonald’s that do not apply to your business – bc they are a restaurant and sell food.

A lot of things about McDonald’s can be copied and implemented

7 Innovation Ideas from McDonald’s: 

1. Ruthless Standardization
   • You are Not making up a new way to business every day
   • Your staff can count on your systems – they come to work with confidence
   • Your customers can count on your systems

2. Limited offerings
   • Part of standardization is streamlined operation
   • Fewer Choices makes everything easier
   • Be Known for being the BEST in a small space!

• • BIG 8 BBQ – 8 meats – 8 sides!

3. Extraordinary systems, operated by ordinary people

• • Study McDonald’s and see how many systems you can count
  • Look at their people – – – ordinary! Teenagers!

4. They have recipes – Wait you said it’s not about FOOD.
   • Listen to podcast 64 – Betty Crocker Systems GURU
   • A recipe is the Best Metaphor for an Extraordinary system

5. Specialized Equipment and tools
   • McDonald’s has invented almost every tool and piece of equipment in it’s operation.
   • The GUN for applying the ketchup – and et else
   • You can do the same for your business

6. Intelligent Design
   • YOU are the Intelligent Designer of your business!
   • YOU as the Visionary of Your Business – get to decide how ET is done
   • Break Out of Industry Influenza – STOP looking at the competition

7. Cleanliness AND Order – ANOTHER GREAT LESSON FROM MCDONALDS
   • Ray Kroc was Adamant about this!
   • Chic Filet has now surpassed McDonald’s
   • Chic Filet learned most of their best stuff from McDonald’s

“Define your work in a way that serves you”

As entrepreneurs and small business owners we can always be pushing And never satisfied

We think if we just work a little harder and a little longer – all the problems will go away.

• You will never master this thing called business

That’s Good news and Bad news

• It’s good to have something that will cause you to work hard and Develop
• But Bad, if you don’t balance it

This Podcast is Perspective On a BALANCED View

We put a lot on ourselves.

We read books and go to seminars and listen to podcasts – And we become idea junkies

WE Want to do it all

• I have to read that book
• I have to implement that

Always pushing and never satisfied

AND …We Don’t Celebrate our wins!  BC there is always more to do.

WE DON’T LEAVE ANY MARGIN TO THINK – TO THINK!

Let me tell you something Friend…

THAT doesn’t serve you.

You will not be your Biggest FAN – YOU WILL BE YOUR BIGGEST CRITIC

Everyone else is Celebrating You and saying – Wow, Well Done…but you’re not satisfied

THAT DOES NOT SERVE YOU

Here’s the phrase I would ask you to memorize so that you can repeat to yourself

“Define your work in a way that serves you”

Work is not a dreaded 9 to 5 existence

It is an expression of your unique gifts, talents and life experience for the Purpose of Serving other people

Working ON Your Business:  Yes you should do that…

If you’re going to work ON your business – There is a lot of Thinking Work and NEW things you have to learn.

It’s a little like learning how to play the piano

• It is awkward and clunky and you’re not very good at it.

You have a choice…

You can either celebrate yourself for making the Big Decision to leave your comfort zone – OR you can be impatient with yourself and Condemn yourself.

I got this quote from Jeff Walker – it was a simple idea but very profound

DEFINE YOUR WORK IN A WAY THAT SERVES YOU

“YOUR WORK” – does not have to be just your business building work – it can be anything you are working on to reach your full potential

You have made a choice to Live into the fullness of your potential – AND that means, doing something you are not good at now.

One of those things for me was Podcasting.

I saw it as a big part of the work I wanted to do at MMT

And I knew I was not good at it

I was going to give myself the time to be bad – permission to be Incompetent for a period of time.

But somewhere along the journey – I lost some of that Grace for myself

My podcast was condemning me.  OR I was condemning me bc of my podcast work

“Define it in a way that serves you”

Here are some other thoughts on this…

1. Small beginnings. Lower the bar and create the habit first.

“define it in a way that serves you” – – – Make your work A Fun and Joyful part of your life.

• Give yourself Grace to Start Small
• Give yourself permission to be an amateur

2. Celebrate your WINS – we all have a lot on our lists. We get them done and then go right to the next thing.  Celebrate and Ring the Cow Bell!  YOU HAVE TO BE YOUR BIGGEST CHEERLEADER.

• Celebrate More
• Celebrate YOU and be Generous and Encouraging when you have a good day or a good win.

3. Be On Guard against condemning yourself. DALE CARNEGIE – do not CCC.  There is this TAPE running in the background – The critical voices…You’re Doing IT Wrong.  What ever IT is.  Listen…NO you are NOT!  You are Doing it.  And you are figuring it out.

Saw this title for a John Maxwell Book:

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn”

• I don’t have to read the book – I Just need that reminder

4. Work from a place of Contribution – not just accumulation and accomplishment. Get your joy from what you GIVE to life, not from what you GET from life.
   • THAT WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR EVERY PERSON.
   • How do YOU, give to life!

5. Do Your Unique work – Your Bradmillerness Work – do not compare your work to others. Comparison is the death spiral into ourselves.  You are the Intelligent Designer – do your Unique Work that no one else can do

“Define YOUR WORK in a way that serves you” – CHOOSE TO BE YOUR BIGGEST FAN AND – then you can Celebrate Yourself and Your Big Life

Peter Drucker:  The sole purpose of business is to Create and Keep customers.

Controlling Idea:  THE SOLE PURPOSE OF BUSINESS IS TO CREATE AND KEEP CUSTOMERS

WHY IS THIS TRUE?  Focus on the last word first.  Customer!

If you’re Not careful and intentional you will be All Kind of Distracted.  Your customers are who you serve…

… but without the focus we make our business about a lot of other things – all those other things are only important as they help us TO… create and keep. 

Create and Keep. 

1. These two are what create profit. Creating and keeping customers creates profit.

Business is like monopoly – when you run out of money, the game is over for you.  All the pieces go back in the box

2. Creating and Keeping a customer is how the business does the thing it was created to do. The work of the business is for the Customer.  Everything you are doing is for a better experience for the customer

– Even taking care of your Staff!

Who comes first – the customer or the staff.  The staff BECAUSE…they take care of the customer

Stay Close to the Customer.

What does that mean?

• Be the champion of the customer
  • They are not an interruption of your work – they are the reason for your work

I’ve hung out in the office just listening – trying to eavesdrop on phone calls and conversations.

It is not always GOOD – – – we can become annoyed and impatient with our customers

WHY?  Because our customers do annoying things!

Love them anyway!

Tie this quote of Drucker into my other favorite quote of his

“Because of the nature of business it has two and only two functions: marketing and innovation.  Marketing and Innovation make money, everything else is an expense.

Marketing and Innovation

Marketing = Create

Innovation = KEEP.

The first one is CREATE!

Some people mistakenly Misquote this and say – to GET and keep

Create is such a better word.

The purpose of marketing is to CREATE a customer.

This requires some creativity

I remember years ago from my Dale Carnegie sales trainer – – –

“Don’t look for someone who Wants what you’re selling, Look for someone who NEEDS what you’re selling.”

If you depend on people who WANT – – – that is a very small list, and you’re just waiting around for Your UP.  You’re waiting for the phone to ring. Not the way to grow a business

BUT if you understand your Work and how you really Serve others – YOU ARE ATTUNED TO THE PEOPLE WHO NEED WHAT YOU DO.

THAT IS HOW YOU CREATE A CUSTOMER.

You Create Customers with Marketing And with SALES.

THE SECOND PART IS KEEP!

If you can’t Keep your customers, your business will never grow.

First because they will not say good things about your business – IF you are not Keeping them.

How do you Keep customers?

Your business is fine-tuned and you have The Best Customer Experience EVER Known to Man.

A Book on my shelf – – – Customer satisfaction is worthless, customer loyalty is priceless.  By Jeffrey Gittmer

Sub-title: How to make customers love you, keep them coming back, and tell everyone they know.

It is my experience that in order to do that you need finally tuned systems that create a predictable customer experience every every every time

That is innovation. It’s thinking through every layer of your work and doing it with intention

So that when they come back – it is the same experience

That only happens with Intentional systems and Training and more Training and then some more Training!

The sole purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

You have to Get this.

Addicted to Your Technical Work. 

I have a Signature Talk – and this is how I start it…

“Hi, my name is Brad and I am a recovering technician.  Everyone say hi Brad”

If you’re having a hard time getting free of your business,

You may be addicted to your Technical

Well you say, what’s wrong with doing the Technical work.

LISTEN to me closely…nothing.   If that is your choice.

But for most it is not a choice – it is a Chain.

Most people start a business and they have plans to grow a business – But they don’t grow the business and the can’t grow the business Because they are addicted to the Technical work

WHAT do I mean by the Technical Work?

It is the Order Fulfillment work of your business

Here is the Problem – you think you are an Entrepreneur – and you are a Technician.

That is the E-Myth

The Entrepreneurial Myth – it is the fatal assumption

He is the one who said…”you must stop going to work IN …”

THIS is why it is very hard for you NOT to be addicted:

This is why you are ADDICTED TO WORKING IN…

ADDICTED TO THE TECHNICAL WORK

• You love it – or you loved it at one time
• You are very good at it
• You are better at it than anyone else in the company
• It is comfortable. You know exactly what to do
• It is busy work – – – your hands are busy – and sometimes that just feels good.
• You like the feeling of accomplishing something
• YOU LIKE to look and feel busy
• You like the strokes of approval for activity and productivity

Here is the problem with This Addiction

• You don’t have a business, you have a job
• When you’re not working, you are not making money
• You cannot scale your business
• You have no job security – if you get hurt – and cannot work – you are out of business
• You don’t have a life – just a job

What is the Cure?

The knowledge is the beginning of the cure –

If you just heard this for the first time – – – You may have had a breakthrough.

Just the awareness of what you’re doing – opens the door to new possibilities

The Work of Miller Marketing & Training is the cure too.

I believe it all starts with Vision – YOU HAVE TO IMAGINE YOUR BUSINESS BIGGER AND DIFFERENT

End with this quote:

THEY INTOXICATE THEMSELVES WITH WORK – SO THEY WON’T SEE HOW THEY REALLY ARE

– Aldous Huxley

Ouch. That stings a little.

Vision

Miller Marketing and Training empowers leaders to clarify a bigger vision of their life and business and then train them to create the systems to make that vision a reality.

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

Micromanaging has gotten a bad rap.

How do you Grow your business – Trust your Staff – and not MM them?

Here is the Game Changer:  You MM the systems creation process so that you don’t have to MM your staff.

The title of this podcast is Chapter three of my book –

Victory Goes to the Business with Superior Systems:

Micromanage Your Business to the Max

ONE OF THE BEST BENEFITS OF SYSTEMS IS THAT YOUR BUSINESS works in the hands Other People.  It is YOUR vision be executed day by day in the capable hands of others – BECAUSE they know exactly how to do it!

Here is the Goal of MM the systems creation process:

• You Are Eliminating Discretion at the Operating Level of Your Business.
• You are Creating the Blueprints for the Amazing Business Of Your Dreams
  • The Workers are not building the house THEY want – No it is your Dream home – your Dream Business.

How Do You Micro-Manage the Systems Creation Process:

1. It starts with Vision
2. Then you lead with INTENTION
3. Then DOCUMENTATION
4. Training
   • This is the Transfer of the Vision –
   • Training is Transfer
   • You cannot transfer your vision without Documentation and ONGOING Training.

5. NOW You’re ready to Delegate. Delegation without systemization is Frustration. BUT, delegation WITH systemization is…FREEDOM

It is FREEDOM because you do not have to MM your employees

If You want to be a systems Guru too, do what Betty Crocker does.

She Creates Recipes!

Why is that important?

Recipes are the Way – the Path to a predictable and profitable business

If you can learn how to create recipes like Betty Crocker, You can NOT ONLY Control your business – you can Build something truly special and enduring.

Before I tell you how to model what Betty does, let me tell you what you can expect FROM YOUR RECIPES!   YOUR Business Systems…

1. You can expect predictable results!

• Wow that’s an amazing thing in a business
• That’s exactly what customers want
• They want control – Not a hit or miss experience
• BUT as good as that is for your customers – You the business owner can expect predictable results

2. You can expect to Everyone to do their work the same way – because they are following the same recipe

3. BEST OF ALL…You can successfully delegate your work to Others

• They know Exactly what to do
• You are getting yourself out of one of the Boxes of your organization!

Now go get your Betty Crocker cookbook off the kitchen shelf

This is what is included in a Recipe – and a Well Documented System

1. A Name of the Dish
   1. Naming your work has power
      1. It is distinguishing it from all other work
      2. It is Branding it and making it special

2. A picture of the finished dish.

• This is a metaphor for a Vision –
• Every system needs a short vision statement – Or sometimes just a picture.

3. A Target Time – Prep time 15 minutes. Cook time 7 minutes

Work expands to fill the time allotted to it

4. A list of all the ingredients
   • A checklist is one of the miracle inventions of the world.
   • Use checklists liberally in your systems creation work
   • Defects and Do-overs happen bc someone did not create a checklist of all the materials the Work required
   • OR they didn’t use it. Don’t assume that just bc you created a checklist – your staff will use it.

5. A measured amount of each ingredient
   1. Every good recipe uses measuring devices – spoons, cups or weight or whatever – THIS IS HOW YOU CREATE A PREDICTABLE PRODUCT EVERY TIME! THIS IS NOT UP TO THE DISCRETION OF THE WORKER – IT IS UP TO THE PERSON WHO CREATED THE SYSTEM –

6. Equipment needed to make the dish
   • The Right equipment is a Huge part of a successful system
   • You may need the measuring cups to get it just right
   • You may need a piece of equipment to make the work faster and easier

7. Step by Step instructions
   • Now we are talking about Process
   • All work follows a logical process
   • Step One – – – THINK and do not assume.
   • Get someone from outside your industry

8. Pro-Tips – all work has Tips, Tricks and Techniques that you learn from years of doing the task. Make sure you include these!

YOUR Work can be predictable and consistent – So that people keep coming back for more!

Go to work ON your business to create recipes for work.

The Common Denominator of Success

by Albert E.N. Gray

Several years ago, I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was.

And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all.

The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. 

The Hard skills of Selling

• Product knowledge
• Prospecting skills
• Features and benefits
• How to use your company software – CRM and Email
• How to do the paperwork
• How to do a design
• How to handle objections
• How to get an appointment
• Knowledge of your SALES Scripts – No winging it!
• How to ask for the order.

You see you can be doing all the Hard activities of selling but without the soft things, there’s no magic.

The Soft skills of Selling – the Magic

• Attitude
• Energy – positive energy
• Enthusiasm
• Joy
• Love of the product or service you’re selling
• Passion
• A desire to succeed – IN a BIG WAY
• A big reason why
• All In All, the Way – All the time
• The ability to get yourself UP
• Responsibility for your own actions
• The ability to Listen
• The desire to serve and Be of Service
• The desire to Deliver big on your promises
• Connecting with People –
• People to People selling – never B2B
• Belief Systems about Yourself
• Belief about your company and what you sell

“Bob Waterman and I got our 15 minutes of fame in part by the assertion-slogan-axiom that “Hard is soft. Soft is hard.”  We said it’s the “hard” plans and budgets and numbers that are in fact “soft”; and it’s the “soft” people-customers-relationships-entrepreneurial culture that are truly “hard,” that is, the Bedrock of Excellence.”  —  TOM PETERS, From the introduction of The Little Big Things (referring to his book In Search of Excellence)

• The Four Levels of Competency and the Four Stages of Training
• Then – how to actually use the Training Manuals when you Train!

Starting with the lowest level of competency – to the highest

1. Unconscious incompetent. Very exciting time for a new hire.  They see the work you do, they see the amazing results and they hear the promise that they can do similar things.  “We will train you.”  But they have not started the journey.  Therefore, they don’t know what they don’t know.  Blissfully ignorant stage.
2. Conscious incompetent. A very discouraging time for a new hire.  They are two or three weeks in.  It’s way harder than they thought.  They are Not getting the amazing results, and they are frustrated.  They need a lot of encouragement at this time – as they are tempted to lose hope and quit.
3. Conscious Competent. This is a time of victory for your new hire.  They have some practice, they’ve made a lot of mistakes, but because of their trainer and your systems – They’ve got it!

THIS IS YOUR BEST Expert for the Expert Download, and they are a great Trainer.  They’re still very much in the moment and thinking about their work – and how to get great results.  In fact they are getting great results because they are thinking.

4. Unconscious Competent. This is mastery level and it is no longer a new hire.  They are getting great results at an unconscious level bc they have developed muscle memory – not just physical muscles, but mental and even emotional.

Your Expert Trainer needs to come down a notch from Unconscious Competent.

The Conscious Competent is the best trainer.

When you reach the level unconscious competence you are doing the work on autopilot, your muscle memory takes over and you aren’t even aware of the steps.

That’s why the Expert download needs an interviewer – Someone who can slow the process down and ask good questions.

The best question is…. WHY?
Why do you do it that way?

Many times, the Expert can’t tell you why.  That’s the way they were taught, and they have never been asked the question before.
They have never dared to think bigger or deeper.

Then – you actually have to use the Training Manuals when you Train!

• This is the training that happens in the classroom – sitting down and talking about the work – not doing it!
• Page by page through the manual
• Reading – yes, actually reading the pages for each of the STO’s
• Asking questions
• Asking the trainee if they have questions
• Asking them to Sign and Date each of the STO pages

You can download the Flowchart of this process here: https://millermarketingandtraining.com/work-with-me

The Strategic Training Objective Creation Process:  This is where the magic happens!

You take a “lowly” task and elevate it in status to a Strategic Training Objective

How do I do this?  What exactly is happening in this process of task to STO?

• Using the appropriate template from this module, “simply” begin to describe the work.
• THINK, but don’t overthink. If you experience “overwhelm” you’re overthinking.
• The “biggest win” here is documenting the work, no matter how rudimentary to start. Perfection at this stage is not the goal – “Getting it out of your experts’ head” is the goal.
• Use the below ideas and to guide you, motivate you and inspire you…

• The work is scrutinized to ensure it is part of the vision – if not, it’s deleted.
• You ask questions about the work – “what are we doing, why are we doing…”
• The work is described
• The work is brought into the light – it is focused on
• The work is documented – it is no longer just verbal
• The work is elevated in importance – it gets it’s own STO name
• The work is named: you create a shared language, a training vocabulary
• The work is becoming a system – it can be replicated
• The work can be delegated to someone else
• You are getting free of this responsibility – a chunk of the work that you once did, is now successfully transferred to another
  • You can do your higher calling work
  • You can work ON the business
• The work is thought about – THINK
• The work is broken into segments/modules – Training chunks with a beginning and an end
• The work takes on accountability – it can be assigned and initialed, you can create quizzes and tests for competency and understanding
• The work becomes more efficient, you eliminate unneeded steps
• The work is integrated into all other company systems and divisions
• The work becomes effective – it is part of the vision

You can download the Flowchart of this process here: https://millermarketingandtraining.com/work-with-me

This is where you Create the small inventions – that put together create something very special!

The simple ACT of documenting your work is a system!

You have to appreciate and understand that simple idea –
Write it Down and you have a map or a blueprint to do it the same way AGAIN and AGAIN
Just like CREATING the Recipe

The Systems Manual Blueprints
This is how to create your masterpiece business – you have blueprints
The same idea as a recipe – now think Blueprints

WORK TYPES:  There are different types of Blueprints because there are different types of WORK

Concrete and footers Blueprints
Carpentry and framing
Electrical
Plumbing
Think of everything that goes into building a home – all the different trades – Those are Work Types
To be able to document all the different Types of Work – we have the term we created, call STO – or Strategic Training Objective

Here’s the BIG Idea – that took me years and trial and error to figure out how to create Systems Training Manuals

There’s different types of work, therefore, you need different types of templates

We tried to create a One Size Fits all template – and it didn’t work!

Think about all the different types of work in your business

• Sales work
• Financial work
• Office Admin work
• Marketing work

Then – The order fulfillment work of delivering Big on your promises
We have five different divisions for our Order Fulfillment

1. Plant Preparation – pulling and prepping plants
2. Greenhouse – our facility. And lots of different work types there
3. D and I
4. Plant Care
5. Quality Assurance

Your Work Systems must consider the Type of work, before you can create a system for it

Don’t let this intimidate you – this is your opportunity to Create, Innovate and Invent your work

This is where you Create the small inventions – that put together create something very special!

You can download the Flowchart of this process here: https://millermarketingandtraining.com/work-with-me

Step two in this module called, The Best Way – Matching Work Types with Template Types

In this episode we discuss template types

WHAT IS A SYSTEM?

A method – a form of procedure for accomplishing something –
Intention: a determination to act in a certain way

The best way to describe a system is by describing how to document it!

That’s huge – say that again!

That gives new meaning to the phrase…
“It’s not a system until it’s written down” – Michael Gerber

There are more ways to document a system than just writing it down.

A system says, This is how we do things here.  Which also says, “this is how we do NOT do things here.”

What is a system?
It is a method!  It is intention

The Story of Bonefish Grill – How do they do that?

How do you document a system?

Templates.  A preset format for a document, used so that the format does not have to be recreated each time it is used.

• Think fill in the blank
• The template is asking you questions and your answers fill in the blanks

Types of templates:

• Fill in the blank forms
• Checklists – the checklist manifesto! Huge idea that is dangerously familiar and simple
• Signs and Labels
• Step by step instructions. Step 1, then step 2, then…

Other methods for Documenting a system

• Pictures – before and after, and how the finished product should look
• Diagrams – think putting together KIA furniture
• Videos – training videos. Imagine how hard this was just 20 years ago.  Or 50 years ago.  Videos are so easy to make today.  Create your own training videos

Systems Thinking is not just about you the business owner – BUT making systems thinking part of the DNA of your company culture. Which means that part of your company culture is TRAINING – and for training to stick you need Training Manuals

A Training Manual is a collection of all of your Systems Documentation in one place.
All your templates, signs, diagrams, etc.
All your pictures and videos and Any other way you document your work

Systems Manuals ARE ESSENTIAL as a WAY to TEACH and Train systems Thinking.

Teaching the Recipes from the Cookbook

Next episode – we’ll take this one step further with the goal of creating your systems manuals for training.

The STO Creation Process

I am finishing up a series of podcasts featuring – Your Best Work, The Best Way process.

You can download the Flowchart of this process here: https://millermarketingandtraining.com/work-with-me

This is a process to clarify your vision – Your Best Work, and then reveal all the work that makes that vision a reality – And Then…Do That Work the Best Way.

And today we introduce The Best Way – and the Best Way is Systems.

The title of this process was inspired by an Edwards Deming quote

“It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and then do your best.” – Deming

The module we are starting today – The Best Way –  is where you document your systems

It’s not a system unless and until it is written down!

A flowchart is just one way to document a system – there are dozens of ways – and I’ll teach them to you in the next couple of episodes

THINK Templates – fill in the blank templates

Introduction to YOUR BEST WORK:

Your Best Work module has three steps:

1. Becoming a systems thinker
2. Matching Work Type to template type
3. The STO Creation process

This episode is about becoming a Systems Thinker

7 Advantages of a Systems Thinking

1. Systems preserve the original intention – The Vision – of the business owner

• • The vision that you have of exactly how you want to serve people is clear.
  • Think of a CHEF who creates this masterpiece meal – it is his vision of how it would look, taste, etc.

2. Systems allow the vision to be scaled. You can share it with others and the vision can grow.

• • Without the Recipe system – it would have to be the Chef doing all the work – all the time

3. Systems allow the customers to have a Predictable Experience

• • Same amazing meal Every Time
  • You create CUSTOMER Loyalty
  • Business depends on – and only survive IF customers keep coming back!

4. A system allows you to make improvements.

• • Incremental improvements make the vision better and better
  • Efficiency to Eliminate waste
  • THIS creates more profits – growing the top line = more customers and the bottom line = more profits

5. A system enables you to create something truly remarkable

• • Doing the same work over and over creates Unique Expertise – you begin to see opportunities that don’t come with doing something only once or twice
  • You are serving people in meaningful ways – and they love it and keep coming back for more.
  • You are different – better than anyone else. Differentiated

6. Systems enable your vision to be accomplished by less skilled people

• • You break the system down into steps and chunks that can be taught to others
  • If your business depends on superheroes you do not have a sustainable or scalable business model
  • Ordinary people – doing extraordinary things with your systems

7. Systems allows your Vision to happen without you doing the work

• • Scale your business, Create Free time and do the work you love
  • You are the inventor – the visionary – But not the technician
  • Probably you should not be the technician – others can do it better than you – over the long haul.

Welcome to a special episode of the podcast with a focus on innovation, marketing and mindset.

The inspiration for this episode is from one of my favorite quotes by Peter Drucker:

“Because of the nature business, it has two and only two functions, innovation and marketing.  Innovation and marketing make money, everything else is an expense.”  – Peter Drucker

WOW!   There’s not a more perfect statement to focus the attention and energy of a small business person.  In my experience, however, most small business people don’t know this, and spend their time on lesser things.  The result is a business that stays small and mediocre, with a business owner who’s not really an owner, but a key employee.

Innovation and marketing are the keys to set you free, along with a mindset to believe it’s for you.

The podcast is the audio version of a sales letter for an event based on the same ideas:  The Plantscape Innovation and Marketing Live Event.  The event is happening in Fort Myers, Florida in May of 2020.

You should come, even if you’re not in the Plantscape industry like me.  The principles of innovation and marketing are universal.

You can learn more about the event here.

HOW TO NAME YOUR WORK – WITH AN EYE TO OUTSIDE PERCEPTION

When you put all the pieces of the system together into a whole – You CREATE something worthy of a Name

It is the Sum total of all of your small inventions and innovations – put together into a Marketable Program!

People love to buy “a complete solution”

This is your opportunity to create your own turn-key program

When you use the word “Program” it can be anything you want it to be!  You are the inventor – you’re the creator.  It’s your creation, name it whatever you want.

How to create your own program:
Think, complete solution program

• a higher perceived value.
• You’ve thought of everything
• Peace of mind
• Tried and tested
• All inclusive – no extra costs, or fees
• Set it and forget it

And the all-time best reason for creating a Program …

• Recurring Revenue
• A monthly subscription
• Mailbox money

HOW TO NAME YOUR WORK – WITH AN EYE TO INSIDE REALITY

This is how to create your Unique Branded Systems inside your company…

From the raw work of the Expert Download, The Sifting, Sorting and Naming Process just naturally leads to naming

• Simply raise your Intention in the process, from describing the work to “naming the work”
  • Separate this work from other work with a name
• The name should be short if possible – 5 words or less
• Bonus points for a mnemonic device, catchy phrase or rhyme
• Occasionally and as appropriate, use the words Program, Process, System, Method, Technique, etc. – even inside your company!

Your work has a name! 
There are a lot of benefits to this – Both inside your company and outside

The Outside Perception – how the marketplace sees you
The Inside Reality – how your team interacts with your company

Think Innovation!  Both Inside and Outside your company.

You are differentiating your work from every other company

Even if… ESPECIALLY If you are in a commodity type business – like plumbing or dentistry – where people tend to just go right to price.

Naming makes your work unique and special

You are Creating a Process – UNLIKE any other

The Power of Naming Your Work

• You are creating your Unique Branded System
  • Your work is your own
  • You are the Inventor
  • You have learned how to PLUS IT
  • The little something extra!

• You are creating a Shared Language – everyone knows exactly what you are talking about and referring to
  • Creating company culture
  • The biggest part of any culture – is language – not just in business but in life
    • If you can’t speak the language, you can’t relate and become part of the culture
  • Your Company has a language of its own.
  • How do you get it? You create it!

• You are innovating your work – “The ABC Process” the “The XYZ System”
  • Naming stuff encourages innovation
  • You are creating a culture of innovation

• Naming something creates ownership – company ownership
  • Watching a documentary on McDonalds bros. Long before Ray Kroc, they had the Speedee System. And they had a mascot – his name was Speedee

• Naming creates ownership inside the company – AOR’s
  • Areas of Responsibility
  • Naming creates accountability – the work can be assigned

• Naming something Elevates it in Importance
  • If something has an official name, it is naturally more important

• Naming distinguishes this work from all other work – it is it’s own work
  • Your work tasks should be unmistakable
  • When you ask someone to do XYZ – there is Zero confusion

• Naming creates “Training Chunks” or Work Units.
  • All work is part of a bigger picture, but work needs to be broken into Steps that can be described and documented
  • Work is Big and Complicated and has a lot of moving parts
  • It is like creating a start time and stop time
  • A beginning and an end

The STO is a term to describe a chunk of work.   And, it distinguishes work as a Unit that can be described and trained.

Training is TRANSFER!
You are transferring knowledge and expertise from one person to another
The transfer has to be done in segments

You could call them work tasks – BUT you miss some of the power of creating a systemized method for doing the work.

SOP – Standard Operating Procedure
•  There’s nothing standard about Your business

Here is the difference… And STO is, A Task On Red Bull

What’s the difference between a “task” and an STO?

Definition of a Task: a definite piece of work assigned to or expected of a person.  A piece of work to be done or undertaken.

STO/Strategic Training Objective:  a task that has been scrutinized (examined and inspected closely) to,  1. ensure it serves and advances the vision, and 2. is accomplished in the most efficient manner.

Gimme an ‘S’ – Definition of Strategic:   Carefully designed and planned to serve a particular purpose or advantage.  Strategic also means, relating to the gaining of overall long term competitive advantage.

Strategic:  Each one of our STO’s has been fine-tuned, tweaked, and innovated through many years of Trial and Error and then Trial and Success – “carefully designed and planned to serve a particular purpose or advantage.”  Please respect the strategy and our “careful design.”

Gimme a ‘T’ – Definition of Training:  The action and work of “teaching” another person a particular skill or body of knowledge.

Training:  All effective training requires a trainer: someone who is very familiar with the skill or process being taught.  The trainer uses the STO Form and teaches Step-by-Step according to the documented system.  Telling is not Training!  The act of telling someone about a task is not communicating all the details, steps, innovations and “strategic reasons why” we do something in the manner that we do it.  That is why we train using our Systems Training Manuals and teach each STO step by step.

Gimme an ‘O’ – Definition of Objective:  A specific result that a person or system aims to achieve within a time frame and with available resources.

Objective:   A simple term for objectives is “a piece of work.”  The objectives are the work tasks that must be completed on a recurring frequency to fulfill our vision.  If we are doing a “one time” task it is not included in our training – only the objectives/tasks that occur with frequency (once a day, week, biweekly, etc.)

You now have your RAW Expert download!  Awesome!  Huge!  High-five!  This is a really big deal, and shows your commitment to create a business that works.

Now we are going to take it and process it into a Refined Form.  It was raw, but we are going to refine it so that it serves your business in so many ways.

Module 3 – The Sifting, Sorting and Naming.

You are creating a systems manual for your business, A Training System

1. You are creating a job description. Everyone knows what is expected of them.  SO FEW businesses have that for a new hire.  This is a list of what you are responsible for.  You get Agreement on the FRONT END.  So hard to add more to a job description later
2. You are creating the Table of Contents for your Training Manual – That is a big deal bc Orientation Day of a new hire is essential
3. You are putting things in writing – The written word has authority
4. Your Training gets respect – Your Company gets respect.
5. You have standards that are setting Expectations. If you don’t have a level of expectation, people will make up their own.  Theirs will not be as good as yours.
6. YOU are NAMING Your work – you are creating your unique branded system.

We have a Living Ambiance Plant Program. There are a lot of small systems inside that program, that the client never sees. For example:

• SPANX
• Spin
• Pack
• Adjust
• Nip
• Xchange

Sifting, Sorting and Naming…

• The Expert Download Work. You are taking all of the content from spending a couple hours or more with your Experts, and categorizing it
• The content is Raw and Unorganized – Just like a box of puzzle pieces
• Turning the pieces of the work to reveal what “type” of work it is so that you can categorize it

Sort the Expert Download work into two big categories

1. Framework pieces – these are the main heading pieces
2. Supporting pieces – these are the sub heading pieces

Note:  In an outline format the Framework pieces would be a Roman Numeral “I” and the supporting pieces would be a letter “A” underneath.

The Expert Download – interview process

You are going to do this interview with someone in your business – WHO?

• The person most expert at delivering an amazing customer experience – Not just one time, but consistently…predictably
  • Why?  Because that’s what’s needed to grow a business over time
• This person – The Expert, knows the big vision of the company and how their work fits into this Vision.
• They know how to Show Up Big – every day, every time.

THAT’S What Grows a business – repeat customers who say great things about your company.

For that to happen you have to …

Eliminate Discretion at the Operating Level of Your Business…

• A quote from Micheal Gerber in the E-MYTH!

What does that mean?

DISCRETION:  the Freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation.

The Expert Download is helping you to Eliminate Discretion

YOU, the business owner, the Visionary gets to DECIDE what should be done!

If you want repeat customers who say great things about your business…They need to have an experience that’s Scripted and Designed and Executed flawlessly Every Time they do business with you.

Your staff can Not make it up as they go along.

Contrary to popular belief – your team actually likes this!  People like to know what the expectations are.

THAT’s what you’re doing in this process – You’re creating the Recipes for Success.

You are writing the cookbook!

The Expert Download Process

Step by Step

Step 1:  It Starts with Vision

• Refresh yourself with the Company Vision Statement.  Make sure a copy of the Vision Statement is available to all
• Refresh yourself with the Division Vision Statement.  You’ll want a copy of this one too
• The Goal is to connect the pieces of the work of this division with the Vision of this division…Making sure all the pieces are in the box.  If there are pieces missing, the Vision will not be complete.

Step 2:  Working with the Experts – in this division

• The Experts are the staff people most familiar with the work of this division.  It could be the business owner or key team members.

Step 3:  The Interview Process

• Use the document: “The Expert Download Questionnaire”
• Brainstorming Rules apply:  no judgment, just ideas.
• Describe the what, not the how.  The how comes later.
• Consider including an industry OUT-SIDER.  Avoid “stupid assumptions”

• The Setting:
  • The setting is a place where you can be uninterrupted for a couple of hours or more
  • It is comfortable, uncluttered and orderly
  • Offsite is best.  At a hotel conference room or some space inside one of your customer’s offices
• The Process:
  • Begin asking the Experts using the Questionnaire doc.
  • The scribe is writing the responses on Sticky Notes
  • The goal is Short answers – not long descriptions
  • REMINDER:  The answer is the What do you do, not How!
  • Sticky notes go on the wall or whiteboard – Do not work on categorizing them now.  That step comes later!

Getting Your Business Out of Your Head

The Expert Download Questionnaire

1.How do you start your day?  Do you have Opening Duties?  Describe them.

1. 1. • As mundane as some of this could sound, if you can create “rituals” that become automatic, it begins the day in a positive and productive way.  Don’t think, just do.

2. How do you end your day?  Do you have Closing Duties?  Describe them.

1. • Your closing routine should set you up for success for the next day.  It could be cleaning up your desk or restocking a work station.

3. Describe your day, what do you do?

• Use the questions below to drill into this

4. What are the daily “recurring” tasks of this work?  Those that have to be done every day?

1. 1. • Thinking about the frequency of a task is important – in both ways.  Sometimes you’re doing something every day that can be done once a week, or the exact opposite – if you did it little each day
      • Notecards to clients – one or two a day.

5. What are the “As Needed” tasks?

6. What are the biweekly tasks?  Monthly tasks?  Annual tasks?

7.  What elements of this work should be memorized to be most effective?

1. 1. • Memorization is a vital part of training.  Imagine how much time is saved from not having to reference common information about your work

8.  What company forms are needed to do this work?

1. 1. • Describe the forms you use now

9. What Quick Reference Guides are needed to do this work?

1. 1. • QRG is info that is too extensive to memorize – But if you have a laminated card or similar

10.  What are the Tools and Equipment needed to do this work?

1. 1. • Describe what you now have and this will spur other ideas
      • Adding a tool or piece of equipment can be an amazing time saver

11. What Supplies are needed to do this work?

1. 1. • Listing the supplies So that you can create a supply checklist
      • Inefficiency creeps in Big time when you don’t have the supplies – sloppy work, do-overs, and defects

12.  What specialized knowledge is required for this work? (Software Programs, Technology, etc.)

1. 1. • Important to know when hiring. Some positions need you to show up with a knowledge base
      • Your hiring has a way to test this

13. What skills and/or experience is needed to do this work?  Work that takes time and practice to develop into a skill?

1. 1. • Similar to knowledge, but there are some skills that can be trained rather quickly with the right systems
      • That’s what we are creating here, a Training System – so that you can hire the best attitude and then train them on your systems

14.What certifications or licenses are required for this work?  (drivers license or industry requirements)

1. 1. • Important information to know
      • DL check, and not just DL, but the driving record So That you can insure them.

15. What product knowledge is required to do this work?

1. 1. • Describe all your products and the specs of each
      • This is information that could be required training
      • 30, 60, 90 day benchmarks.  Tied to raises And even continued employment.

16. What step by step processes need to be learned?

1. 1. • Different from product knowledge, these are the processes that make up your Order Fulfillment – the customer experience
      • Describe them as a big list by breaking them into chunks
      • You will describe them each later

17. What names and terms should go into a “Glossary of Terms?”

1. 1. • Make sure that everyone on your team speaks the same language
      • Creating a common language inside your company – Everyone knows the name of a product or process and calls it the same thing.

18. What is the Customer communication needed to do this work? (what types of interaction with customers, what types of questions come from customers?)

1. 1. • This is the magic touch inside your customer experience
      • Don’t assume that everyone knows “common courtesy” and has been taught manners
      • Smart woman from a professional background…who didn’t like to greet her clients

19. What work areas require “order and organization” to do this work?

1. 1. • In big banks, the desks and work areas for tellers are exactly the same
      • You are not describing How to organize now, just what areas need order

20. What mindsets are essential to do this work?  What belief systems?  What attitudes?

1. • Mindset is and belief system how you view the world and everything in it.
   • We hire people that love life and love people.
   • We don’t have align in politics or faith and religion, but you do have to have a positive outlook on life and enjoy people and serving them.

SHOWNOTES:

How to create Your lifestyle business, with The Expert Download

The expert in your business has a lot of the work in their head.  Or, if there’s no documentation, all of the work.

Listen…this is why delegation most often fails.

Many times the expert is the business owner.  Sometimes it’s a key employee.

3 – Reasons Why Your Best Efforts to Delegate Failed

1. There was no clear Vision for the work.
2. There was no systemization for the work.
3. YOU, The Expert in the work didn’t fully unpack

“Delegation without systemization is frustration”

Why the Expert Download is important…

• This is the path to getting free of your business – creating a lifestyle business

• There is a lot of work inside your business which you should not be doing
  • You are not good at it – how do you know this?
    • You don’t like doing it.  It is drudgery for you.

• You need to grow your business – but you don’t want to.
  • Every time you add another customer, you feel more of your life is sucked away
  • WHAT IF…You could celebrate every new sale and new customer bc they gave you more freedom and wealth and prosperity in every way.  Even satisfaction because you know that new client is being served in the Most Excellent Way.

• Growing Your Business means scaling it with New Employees
  • Employees that are Trained!
  • If the idea of employees or more employees scares you, it is likely, bc you have not invested in their training.  A trained employee is a help and an asset, an untrained one is worse than none, they are a drain.  They cause defects and rework.

• So that you can go on vacation.
  • You have to get apart from the business or you will come apart
  • You need to sharpen the saw
  • You need to Think
    • Not worry type thinking.  I think about the business all the time…Worry
      • A friend who just hired a kitchen contractor. This was his sales close: If I take on job I am going to worry about it all the time.  I’ll worry about it while I watch football…
        • WOW!  No thank you
    • Creative thinking.  Innovation thinking.

• So that you can delegate with confidence

• So that your staff don’t walk all over you
  • Your Business is not in your staff’s head
  • Key employees leave – and they take huge parts of the business with them – bc no one has ever documented what they do

• Which leads to last reason why to do the Expert Download…
  • You are creating your Documented Training Manuals –

• SAY AGAIN…There is a lot of work inside your business which you should not be doing
  • You are not good at it – how do you know this?
    • You don’t like doing it.  It is drudgery for you.

Demolishing the Mental Lies and Limiting Beliefs

• Only I can do this work

• My customers only want to work with me

“Only I can do this work”

• That’s exactly why you need the Expert Download
• You need someone to Challenge your sacred COWS about how you do the work
  • SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST HAMBURGER
• Imagine You are a World Renowned CHEF – you are known for the amazing foods and incredible entrees
  • You think ONLY you can make this food.
    • NO!
  • You are going to take apart Each Entrée and describe the ingredients, the amounts,
    • LISTEN…IF YOU THINK YOU’RE THE CHEF, and no one can do it as good as you – you’re a small thinker.
  • You will always be just – Self Employed – you’ll never be a business owner.

SHOWNOTES:

Getting your business out of your head – The Expert Download Process

• The Knowledge that will be documented inside a manual is right now inside someone’s head.
• That person we call – The Expert.

• What Does This Make Possible?  Systems Manuals
  1. The business is out of your head. You have room to think.  Your mind is Freed up to dream
  2. The process is predictable
  3. Someone can do the work other than you
  4. You can Train the work to others
  5. You have a training system
  6. You can scale your business
  7. You can reach your Vision – Your Vision for your life can be realized

• THE EXPERT DOWNLOAD:  This is the pathway to creating your systems manuals.
• Systems Manuals are your ticket to freedom
• Getting free of your business.
• You’re not free now because you’re the only one who knows how to do the work
  • Or worse, One of your key employees is the only one who knows how to do this work.
  • Yes, it is good that you have a key employee, but you don’t want your business in their head

Module One was The Best Work – you have invested yourself in finding your best work.

THAT is a Big Deal.

If you did that work congratulations – that is huge.

This next module begins the process of The Best Way.

We are after the systems you already have in your business – You already have some systems for doing your work.

Even though those systems are Not Yet documented, you still have some.

1. The Expert –

The premise is someone is Already The EXPERT at the way you do your work now.

YOU, if you’re listening to this podcast are most likely the Expert

I want to Talk to You….

• This is your Work
• Your Signature Work
• We want to uncover, Not just the work and the steps, BUT Your Durable Competitive Advantage – Your Signature System.
• Find the Secret Sauce for the Work that you do
  • Create a process around it
  • It is unique BUT it is Duplicatable
  • It can be taught and trained and transferred to someone else
• People SEE what you do – BUT they can’t replicate it

Also, you want this system to WORK without you – It is Your Unique Branded System, BUT it can make you money ….here it is – IN THE HANDS OF OTHERS

2. The Download – begins the process of finding all of those systems and describing them.

That is the subject of the next podcasts!

That is the First step to improving the systems…Find the ones you have, describe them in detail, THEN the innovation naturally and Organically reveals itself.

Organically: naturally, not forced. As elements of an organized whole.

Your work is part of a larger organic world – the world in which we do our work is this miraculous system of systems all working together without any human making it happen.  There are Supernatural systems at work all the time.

Our work happens inside of that system and as we reveal the systems we already use – as rudimentary as they are – newer and more efficient systems will naturally reveal themselves – Organically.

3. The Process –

The Expert Download works with these people in an interview process to ask them questions to reveal the work.

It is more than just describing it, there is a revealing.

Why is this?

THE EXPERT IS TOO CLOSE TO THE WORK

It is the curse of the familiar.

Don’t ask a fish what water is like

Don’t ask a bird what air is like

When you live IN it – you eat, sleep and breathe it, YOU lose a lot of the Magic of what it is you really do.

You take it for granted!

The things you do that BORE you – other people are amazed.

The things that are Easy for you – others are Flummoxed

You have mastery level.

The Expert Download Process

It’s the next step to creating a lifestyle business.

SHOW NOTES:

Creating Your See-Shells – Thoughts Become Things

I love this idea of “thoughts become things”

What was once just an idea in your mind, is now a tangible object that you can see and feel.

Friend, this Step is the Giant Leap to getting your business out of your head and documented so that you can share it with others

AND by share it I mean – – – TRAIN others how to do the work that previously only You knew how to do.

You are creating Training Manuals

What would that mean to you and your business?

What would it mean to your life?

I don’t want this to be lost on you exactly how amazing this really is and what it will do for you and your business AND what it makes possible

What would that make possible?

• You could scale your business
• You could do the work you love
• More joy and satisfaction in your work
• You could have a hiring system
• You could eliminate a lot of the waste
  • There is waste in every business
  • Defects.  Wasted Steps.  Do-overs or Rework.  Windshield time – unproductive time that is not creating revenue.
• More Profit – same amount of sales, just more money from the customers you are already serving.
• You could take a vacation

Creating the See-Shells

The “hold-in-your-hand” systems manuals.

Your systems manuals begin to take shape and what was once only in your head, now is becoming real.  Your thoughts are becoming things – Systems Manual things.

The systems manuals are the home for all of your great work – they are 3-Ring Binders, one for each company division.

10 THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE

1. Brilliantly Low-tech for a reason

• The manuals are a real live book…it is Your published work. Books get respect.
• You are the Author, the Authority on your great work
• Software you already know – nothing new to learn

2. A live training manual … for training

• Your training is actually happening.  Step by step with a new hire.
• Companies that fail to train, fail.
• Training is the hallmark of every great company

3. Your Vision for this position – with orderly systems

• Training people is sharing your Vision with people. WOW!
• Your big Vision and your Micro-Visions
• Vision for each Division

4. A logical & strategic step-by-step presentation

• There is Order in the presentation of the training
• Knowledge builds on knowledge in a logical format
• Every thing is in there

5. Your training gets Respect – a new mindset for you and others

• The written word gets respect
• The Professional presentation gets respect
• The contents and order gets respect

6. The written word gets Respect

• What is written down and documented takes on authority
• What’s written down is more accountable
• No more Tribal Training – word of mouth from one staff to another

7. A document with a place to sign and agree

• Training with teeth!
• “The above STO was fully read and discussed on this date:_______”
• Say goodbye to, “I didn’t know we did it that way

8. A “home” for all your great Vision and Systems work

• The See-Shells are the home for all the work – A Place for Everything
• All training in each division is Quickly and Easily accessible
• Your training work never gets lost – it all has a home

9. Your Business is finally out of your head.

• Even better, your business is out of your employee’s head
• You’re on your way to creating a “Lifestyle Business”

10. You can “completely delegate” your work

• Delegation without Systemization creates Frustration
• Your work is systemized and can now be truly delegated
• You are leveraging yourself and your time (your life)  with systems manuals

You are creating a Lifestyle Business

What does that make possible for your life

SHOW NOTES:

Division Vision Statements.  The Plan for Your Dream Business.

Your Big Vision requires smaller visions – because  you can’t do it all!

You are the business owner, you are not just an employee of your business.

If you are looking at your Org Chart – your name is in the top box.

That means something! That’s a huge accomplishment.

You are the Leader.  As the leader, you are the visionary.

It is important to remember this – You are the one everyone looks to set the course for the day – or the week.  Or better, the year.

Drucker – Efficiency is doing this right, effectiveness is doing the right things.

You are the one who is responsible for how all your assets of time, money, and most important Energy.

Where the Focus Goes, the Energy Flows.  Energy is a limited resource – YOU Can’t do it all!

It took me a long time to believe that…you can’t do it all.

Last episode, I introduced this idea of your ORG Chart…Your Business BLUEPRINT.

Your Organizational Blueprint.  The giant step towards a business apart from you, and not a part of you.

Now you are going to Think about your business.  You are creating the Blueprints for your dream business – and You as the leader are going to decide what Divisions are part of your business.

Then, you are going to create a vision statement for each of these.

Again, Where the Focus Goes, the Energy Flows.

Here are my suggested base line starting point.  There are 4

1. Order fulfillment
2. Marketing
3. Sales
4. Finance and Accounting

1. Order fulfillment is different for every business – Cleaning business. Landscape business. Website development. Real estate. Window washing.

You may have more than one box in order fulfillment – especially as your business grows

2. Marketing.  Marketing is lead generation.  You have to be thinking about where your next sale is coming from – so you are planting seeds all the time.

3. Sales is Lead conversion.  You are closing the deal and getting your prospect to say Yes!

About sales and marketing.  Make it a part of learning your business.  If you want to have a growing and thriving business for the long term – this is part of your regular study.

Sales is not marketing and, marketing is not sales …BUT they are very closely linked!

4. Finance and Accounting.  Good record keeping of income and expenses AND…invoicing.  Send out the invoice.  And A/R.  Someone has to be assigned to AR.

Other divisions as your company grows

Staff Development Vision

Quality Assurance Vision

Office Admin Vision

You are writing a systems manual for all the work in each of these divisions.

Think of this as its own Puzzle with a box top and pieces.  You want all of the pieces for this VISION inside the box.

SHOW NOTES:

Organizational Blueprint = beginning to think about your business apart from you, and not a part Of you.

A huge mental shift!

An Organizational Chart is a very important Vision Tool.

It gives you the vision of where your company is going.

It gives you the vision of the business that will be – the business without you doing everything.

You can’t build a home if the only trade you know is Carpentry.

Small business people try to build a business, focusing only on the technical work of their business.

Think about an ORG Chart as Blueprints.

You are the General Contractor

Your name is in all of the boxes – But you know that.

A business has multiple functions

We call it an Organizational Blueprint because you need to see this as the Blueprints for building your Dream Business.

• You need the vision documents…

…Everyone is all on the same page – Well then you have to have  a page.  A lot of business say, “we have to get on the same page”  – but they don’t have a page

An Org Chart is just one of the Vision Documents.

The top box is the Visionary

It is the Leader – YOU.

Any time you go below the top box, you are working IN the business.

“Every business two and only two functions, marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation make money, everything else is an expense.”   – Drucker

My banker friend…telling him the story of my new company MMT – marketing.

Order fulfillment and Sales and Marketing.

Order Fulfillment is the technical work of your business.  But it’s not the only part of your business.

Next Episode we talk about the Division Vision Statements.

Your business has to have a Vision Statement for each Division

Our Goal – the destination is a Systems Manual for each division.  It is the detailed Blueprints for Each Trade building the house.

SHOW NOTES:

Vision First, Then Completed Product

Create the vision of the Life you want, Then go to work on your business to make that vision a reality.

The completed product is Not the thing you sell, the complete product is your business.

Let me say that again…the completed product you’re working on is your business or your organization, not the thing you sell, or the service you provide.

Huge mental shift that many, if not most business people never make.

Technicians think about the thing you sell

Entrepreneurs – and visionaries think about the business.

You are beginning to think about the business as apart From you and not a part Of you.

Your business works, so that you don’t have to – Gerber

If you’re having a hard time getting your mind around that…you likely have some limiting beliefs.

Last episode we ended on limiting beliefs and mental lies

Beliefs Have Consequences – Your Beliefs will affect your business vision

The completed product is your business.

The Systems Manual Blueprints Course

Think of creating the Blueprints for Your Dream Home

• Except this is your dream business

Create the Blueprints for Your Business.

• It would be Impossible to build your dream home without immensely accurate and detailed blueprints
• For Every Trade!

But listen You can’t create the Blueprints until you have your Vision Thinking time.

TO THINK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.

Last weeks episode challenged you to think about your life first…

• Create the vision of the Life you want, Then go to work on your business to make that vision a reality.

Now you’re ready to think about your Business.

Your business vision is the Blueprints that you are going to create

NEXT Episode is “Your Organizational Blueprints” – that’s where you begin the process creating the blueprints for each Trade – or business division.

Today I am going to take you through a short questionnaire to think deeply about The Dream Business

Your Dream Business Thinking Work begins by answering these questions:

1. What exactly is the solution we sell?

2. What is the pain our prospects have?

“You can’t sell John Smith what John Smith buys, until you can see the world

through John Smith’s eyes.”  What are John Smith’s pain points?

3. Who do we serve the best? Who is our best prospect?

4. How can we create a transformation for our customers? Not simply transaction, but transformation.

5. How will our client’s lives be better/different because they did business with us?

6. What will our clients miss in their lives right now because they do not do business with us?

7. How can we create a WOW customer experience?

8. How can we innovate our work? So that our business is differentiated from every other possible option.  We are a “category Killer.”  We defy comparison.

SHOW NOTES:

Write the Vision and Make it Plain – The Value of vision

“You’re at the right place to, get a bigger vision of Your Life AND Your Business, and THEN, learn how to make that vision a reality.“

Pat Morley – The Man in the Mirror  “Leading an examined life”

Most people live an unexamined life.

Socrates – an unexamined life is not worth living.

WHAT does that mean?  THINK.  Think about the most important ever – your life.

Most people spend more time planning their One week summer vacation, then they do Planning their life – or thinking about their life.

1. You need a vision for your life.  Not just your business. 

 – The Vision for your life must come first!!!

Your vision for your life first.

Once you have the vision for your life – that will inform your vision for your business.

What is the vision you have for your life?

The goal is to separate your life from your business.

What kind of life and life style do I want to live?

2. Your vision for your life MAY Not include a business!

“I can easily imagine a life without a business, but I can’t imagine a business without a life.”

Your vision, however, should include your work.

Not your job, but your work.

Your job is what you do for money, Your work is how you show up in the world to serve others.

Sometimes your work and your job align perfectly – but not always.

Your Job

Your Work – Ephesians 2:10

Your Business

This is where it gets tricky…Track with me:

• Your vision for your life may not include a business (not everyone wants to have a business, and many should not)

• Your vision should include your work: you are uniquely created to serve others in a deep and meaningful way

• Your work and your job is different: sometimes they align and sometimes they don’t.  Your job is what you do for money, and your work is how you serve the world.  However, your job can also serve the world, if you do it with a servants heart – even if you know that job is not really your work.

• Lastly, if your vision for your life DOES include a business, that business should align with your work.  Meaning…it would be really hard to give yourself to starting and growing a business, if it just felt like a job.  There are a LOT of people that do that, and they hate their business and their life – I know, I was one of them.

3. IF your Vision for your life DOES Include a Business, That business should serve your life and not the other way around…..your life should not serve your business.

Your business should make your personal life vision possible.

If your only vision is a business, your life will be out of balance.

“Be careful of the success you desire” – you will most likely get it.

Make sure that when you get the thing you desire – It’s the thing that truly satisfies.

Ravi Z.  The saddest day of a man’s life is when he gets the thing he thought would most make him happy – and it leaves him empty.

4. You need a VISION for your Business

Your Vision for your life – will inform your vision for your business.

5. Your Vision for your Business – needs to be bigger than smaller.  A small vision does not serve you

You’re at the right place to, get a bigger vision of Your Life and Your Business, and THEN, learn how to make that vision a reality.

Most people’s vision for starting a business is to Quit their day job.  They don’t like the boss.

6. Your Vision for your life and your business is either served or limited by your beliefs – Beliefs Have Consequences.  Your vision will Rise or Fall out of your Beliefs.

Vision

Miller Marketing and Training empowers leaders to clarify a bigger vision of their life and business and then train them to create the systems to make that vision a reality.

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

Beliefs Have Consequences.  Your vision will Rise or Fall out of your Beliefs.

7. Your Vision will Rise out of Your Uniqueness.  Live into the fullness of your unique YOUNESS.  You are a Masterpiece…Created in Christ to do good work.

The Magnolia Journal front cover – Chip and Joanna Gaines – “The World Needs Who You Were Made To Be”

Show Notes:

Module 1 – Your Best Work.  Your Best Work is Vision

Module 1 is the box top – you have to start with Vision First.

You can’t do a puzzle without the vision – the picture on the box top.

We are talking about BOTH your Life and your Business Visions.  You are Creating the BLUEPRINTS for how you want your life to look.  A puzzle comes with the picture – your life does not!

Your Business does not come with the detailed picture either!

Module 2 is The Expert Download.

The Vision is the BIG Picture.  The box-top.  On the blueprints – IT IS THE ELEVATION VIEW.  The expert download is all the pieces that when put together make the picture come to life.

Create the Vision – and then create the systems to make that Vision a reality.

BLUEPRINTS = all the pages behind the elevation view

All the trades that you need to build the dream home.

Module 3 – The Sifting, Sorting and Naming.

This is likely the most helpful step for a small business owner Who is a technician.

OH…there’s other work that has to be done to create a REAL Business

Work Types.

• Marketing work
• Sales work
• Order Fulfillment work
  • Purchasing work
  • Logistics
  • Scheduling
• Staff Dev work
• Finance and accounting work
• Customer service work

Module 4 – The Best Way Process.  The Best Way is Systems.

Systems Thinking is the key to everything.

Deming said, “if you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Matching work types and Template types is our process for creating systems.  We call that  the STO Creation Process.

It is no longer just a task – it is a Strategic Training Objective.

SHOWNOTES:

Get Your Business Out of Your Head – Part 2

6 More reasons to invest yourself in the work of The Systems Manual Blueprints

To get your copy of the “Your Best Work, The Best Way Process” Flowchart send an email to:

Brad@MillerMarketingandTraining.com

7. It will teach you how to create the systems that make your vision a reality.  All work tasks are connected to vision.

• Creating Systems around your work is taking your business to the next level – BUT when the systems are connected to the Vision – that’s huge.
• Vision First, Then Systems

8. It will eliminate the overwhelm of creating training manuals by taking you step by step through a simple process.  Your training manuals are 100% done!

• Systems manuals are truly a thing of beauty – starting a new hire with the step by step guide to how we do our work
• Being able to say – This is how we do things here.
• BUT…the process for doing that was hard.  WAS…hard

9. It will teach you to think about your company as a real business, and not just a bunch of jobs.

• Your vision is for the Whole business, not just the technical work.
• You see yourself as a business owner – not simply a technician or an employee
• You see the departments and divisions of a real business.

10. It will turn you into a systems thinker.  You will reap the efficiencies of seeing everything as a system that can be replicated

• You will become a systems Nerd.
• You will see the frustrations disappear as the systems appear

11. It will make it easy to scale your business because you can hire and train staff to your documented systems

• The balance of New work with the team to handle is always tough
• With systems manuals – and a training system, you can hire and scale up quickly

12. It will teach you how Think Innovation all the time – so that you not only do what you do, Better – but you did more efficiently.  Thus growing your bottom line profits.  Oh yeah!

SHOWNOTES:

The Systems Manual Blueprints

What it WILL do for you!

Sidenote:  To get your copy of the “Your Best Work, The Best Way Process”  Flowchart, send an email to

Brad@MillerMarketingandTraining.com  – in the subject line type, Flowchart

FIRST, the Systems Manual Blueprints journey… is the destination.

What does that mean?

YES, you are working on your systems manuals, But You are working on your Business.  THINKING DEEPLY about your business….You see opportunities and ideas previously hidden from you

1. It will get your business out of your head (and your employees head) and into documented systems manuals

• The amount of information you have in your head about your business is huge
  • The problem is … that information can’t be used by anyone else – To serve others
    • You have some amazing things you’ve learned through years of doing your work.
• Your Employees Head.  If your staff knows more about aspects of your business than you – that is not a bad thing.  That’s Smart, it means you’re a leader.  But What’s not smart is to let that information Stay in their head.  BC if they leave – so does your business.

 2. It will teach you how to get a bigger vision for your life, and build a business to make that vision a reality.

• Visualize Your Work – – – using sticky notes – Now you have a Visual Representation…
• Without a vision the people perish.  You perish.
• Sign on a work van – you were not just born to pay bills and die.
• Without a Vision, work feels like drudgery.

 3. It will teach you how to create a Lifestyle Business.  A business that works without you in the day to day. WOW!

• See the Big picture – not just of your work – BUT MORE – your life
• That may be a new idea for you.  YOU don’t have to be an employee in your own business.  Wait What???
• Unless you want to be.
• You can still Think lifestyle by bringing a lot of Intention to your work

 4. It will teach you how to do your Genius Work.  The work of transformation.

• From the big Leap book.  Incompetence, Competence, Excellence, Genius.
• It is work you love bc You know you were created for this.
• It’s no longer just a transaction – of money – it is transformation.

 5. It will teach you how to expect more – A Bigger Vision.  Your Vision is Too Small!

–  and create more wealth from your business.  Cash follows clarity and intention creates income.

• When you bring this level of Intention to your work, it naturally leads to more profitability
• More efficiency – doing things right – BUT MORE
• More effectiveness – doing the Right things.

 6. It will teach you how to create a company culture of clarity around your vision – so that your team is inspired that their work is part of the big picture.

• Quote:  a vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world.
• Company culture is a REAL thing – a knowing and a sense that my work (my tasks) are part of something bigger.

SHOW NOTES:

DISORDER IS YOUR GREATEST ENEMY.  And I got a plan to fix that.

What is my Plan you ask?

My plan  is a Process.

“Your Best Work – The Best Way Process”

It is a process.  A process to teach a process

I want you to see this Process – I have created a Flowchart that makes this simple.

EMAIL me at brad@MillerMarketingandTraining.com to get a PDF of the Flowchart

Here is the big idea:

Business is a puzzle – open the box and what do you see?  Chaos.

Business is complicated. It has a lot of moving parts. It is always heading the direction of dis-order.

Your work as a business leader is to Show Up big each day – and deliver on all your promises – and Do It in an orderly and predictable way.   And then show up tomorrow and do the same thing – again.

My premise is the best way to do that is with Systems.

Hesiod – “It is best to do things systemically, since we are only human, and disorder is our greatest enemy.”

DISORDER IS OUR GREATEST ENEMY.

“Your Best Work – The Best Way Process”  It’s Not just about Systems – it is also about your Vision.

Deming quote:  It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and then do your best

• Your Best Work is Vision
• The Best Way is Systems

YOUR Best WORK is very likely Locked up inside your own head

• There’s magic in your work.
  • But only you know that magic
  • And it doesn’t happen in a predictable way
  • You can’t share it with others – Because it’s inside your head
• THAT’S why we start with Vision.

This process is the foundation of a course

The Systems Manual Blueprint course

It is an online course.  Check it out at www.MillerMarketingand Training.com

I am going to teach you how to WORK ON your business.

Gerber…”Stop working in your business and go to work On it”

• Create a business – and not just a job!
• All the divisions of your work – not just the technical work
• Get your business Or your work – out of your head and into systems manuals

• Create documented curriculum  – – – SO THAT…IT CAN BE TRANSFERRED SUCCESSFULLY TO another person

Training is Transfer!

Email for the Your Best Work, The Best Way Flowchart

EMAIL me at brad@MillerMarketingandTraining.com to get a PDF of the Flowchart

My 7 Core Principles of a Lifestyle business.

Business is a choice also – If you have decided that you Want Business as part of your Life – Choose the very best scenario – then you have a lifestyle business, not just any ole business.

By lifestyle business I mean…

It is work that you love.  Yes work is hard and sometimes it is drudgery, but work should also bring you great joy.  Your work is how you show up in the world to serve others.

Your business is your work.  And work is not a 4 letter word that ends in k.  We were created for work, and work was created for us.

A lifestyle business is an entity that you have created that serves your life, so that you can have the longest run possible, serving other people’s lives.

1. People focused.  Considering all the stakeholders.  Employees, clients and vendors.
   •  It serves YOU.  You must think about your life and your lifestyle first.
   • It serves your STAFF – your company is a GREAT place to work.
   • It serves your Customers – Yes they come third.  If you don’t take care of the other two first – – – you’ll never pull off this one.  Customers are important of course
   • Vendors
2. It is Preeminent.  Best in class
   • Quality makes work worth doing.
   • Choose to be a Premier Provider
3.  It is Vision Driven. You have a Big vision
   • Your Vision is bigger than just the Technical Work
   • Your vision is bigger than being Self Employed
   • Self employed is better than Employee ??? Is it?
   • Your Vision includes Divisions
4.  It is Systems Driven.
   • You have recipes.  For EVERYTHING
   • You make the complex simple
   • You have a lot of moving parts to your business – that’s good… IT IS A BARRIER TO ENTRY.
   • You are a Systems Thinker and you systemize the complex

5. It is Marketing Driven. And Sales Driven

1. Everything is Marketing – and Marketing is Everything
2. You have to know how to bring in clients – lead generation
3. You know how to get them to say yes.  You make it simple to say yes – lead conversion

6. You have RR – Recurring Revenue

• RR is like compound interest – the 8th wonder of the world.
• Compounding interest separates the rich from the broke. The great Albert Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”
• Look around – everything is built on RR – – – Because it is so smart

7. It is your Gift to the world.  It is your work

• Your Work is your Gift to the world
• It is how you serve other people
• Just think of all the amazing things you enjoy – these trades are other peoples gifts – for how they serve you

What’s The one thing 99 percent of small business owners don’t do?

Hmmm let me think.  Yep that’s it.  THINK

Not only do most small people not do this, they think it is a waste of time

THINKING about your business.

It was Michael Gerber who taught me, not only that it’s OK to think about your business – it’s the exact thing you should be doing.

Tom Watson, the Founder of IBM

My dad’s office.  Sign on the wall.  THINK

IBM archives.

And we must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways of study. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter — thinking — because it’s hard work for people to think, And, as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said recently, ‘all of the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think.’ “

Wikipedia

At an uninspiring sales meeting Watson interrupted, saying The trouble with every one of us is that we don’t think enough. We don’t get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads. Watson then wrote THINK on the easel.

Asked later what he meant by the slogan, Watson replied, “By THINK I mean take everything into consideration. I refuse to make the sign more specific. If a man just sees THINK, he’ll find out what I mean. We’re not interested in a logic course.”

That’s all it was, a one word quote…THINK.

Thinking time

• THE E-MYTH Changed me life BECAUSE it changed my thinking.
• Thinking differently.
• THINKING about my business, not just doing my business.

Why most small business owners don’t think?

1. Guilt.  I should be working.
2. They are technicians in their own business – employees
3. Measure themselves by Their productivity not the company
4. Don’t have time
5. Don’t know how
6. Heads are too full.
7. They don’t value thinking.

What happens when you don’t think…

Peter Drucker – “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that does not need doing.”

OUCH!  That is so true it hurts!

How to do it?

1. Earl Nightingale. Legal pad
2. Vision. See what you want to experience
3. Believe that you can.
4. Believe in your own intelligence and ability to solve problems
5. Believe in Innovations and Breakthroughs
6. Think outside of your Industry box – industry incest
7. Stop relying on others to do your thinking for you – your industry

About What?

1. START with your business systems…
   • Think about how you do everything
2. How to increase sales
3. How to increase the value of your business to your clients
   • How to create an amazing client experience
4. How to improve your systems
   • Reduce steps
   • Eliminate steps
5. Improve the marketing equation:  Rich Harshaw…quote.
   • THINK about your Marketing to make that happen
6. PLUS it.  Think about your business value, and then PLUS IT.
7. Think Big

TIPS and TECHNIQUES:

1. Walking and Thinking
2. Writing and Thinking
3. Group Thinking – Master Mind

Last episode we went to work On your Avatar Client Profile

If you now have an Avatar client profile – this is a BIG Deal.  You have this beautiful thing – you have the profile of your VERY Best client.  Now what do you do with it?

Your Avatar Client Profile is the essential first step to creating…wait for it, this is huge, cue the echo chamber…your New Client Acquisition System.  Once you have that, you have something truly special.  You have a business that works.

“The Purpose of Business is to Create and Keep a Customer”  – Peter Drucker

If you want your business to grow, it’s critical to keep your existing customers happy and add on new ones.

That’s the work of MILLER MARKETING AND TRAINING

• TO CREATE AND KEEP A CUSTOMER

MARKETING = CREATE

TRAINING = KEEP.  You need really powerful systems to create a predictable and stellar customer experience

You have to learn how to CREATE customers – it is the most important Skill and Process you can possibly learn.  Invest yourself in this process.

YOU CAN CREATE AN ASSET IN YOUR BUSINESS BY FOCUSING ON SYSTEMS

It is process equity

• There is process equity in every area of your business

• But NONE so powerful as when your New Client Acquisition Process.

Creating your New Client Acquisition Process:

1. The John Smith Question: “You cant sell John Smith, what John Smith buys, until you can See the world Through John Smiths eyes.”  You have your Avatar Client profile – pretend like it’s Google Translate – everything you want to say to your prospect – put it through Avatar Profile.  Speak the language of your client – NOT your language.  Brings up #2
2. Message to Market match.   You can be selling the same product or service – but the message you use to sell is different DEPENDING ON THE MARKET

• The market is your WHO – the Avatar Client
• Be customer focused – not product focused.  You want to talk about you – STOP It.  Talk about your client
• Be very specific – not broad.  Niche in a niche in niche

3. Micro-Manage the process.  If you use sales people – do not leave the message up to the sales people

Don’t leave The Follow Up to the sales people.

4. Now Think about the Step By Step process – from cold prospect to new client.  It Begins with the Interrupt

This is a Multiple Step Campaign.  Think of dating…  you are courting, wooing, and getting to know each other.  Know Like and Trust you…

IF YOU’LL INVEST THE TIME DOING THESE THINGS – – – You are WELL on your way to creating a “New Client Acquisition System”

What the Heck is an Avatar Client?

I am going to ask you to do some work on your business that will serve you in amazing ways

I’m asking you to Work on describing your Avatar Client.

If you are asking “What the heck is an Avatar Client ??  You’re in the right place…more on that in a minute

I really hope you will do this, but most people who have a small business don’t work ON their business – they only work in it.

I’m going to do my Best to convince you to Go to Work on your business.

I have created a process – Your Best Work, The Best Way

It is a process for working on your business.

Introduce this with 3 of my favorite business mentors – they have mentored me from afar, through their books and other work.

First… Michael Gerber – Stop going to work in your business as an employee, and go to work on it.  E-Myth

Second… Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things. – Drucker.

Third…It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do, and then do your best – Deming.

That’s the quote that’s inspiration for the Process – Your Best Work, The Best Way…

Your Best Work is VISION.

It’s not enough to do your best – know WHAT to do…

Knowing what to do is VISION

The vision of what?

For this Podcast….

Knowing what to do, and WHO to do it for is your VISION.

Your Avatar Client is your BEST CLIENT

Vision of your ideal customer

• You only have the capacity and time to do business with so many customers – Why not have them be the best?
• YES you can scale to add more customers – BUT They should be the best too.
• Don’t complain about your customers – Choose the Best
• Listen you’re gonna live with this person for the next year, or five years, or hopefully 10 years or longer. Ask yourself, what kind of clients do I want to do life with.

If you can only think of the movie AVATAR …

Avatar Client

A customer avatar is a fictional character that represents your ideal prospect. When complete, it will help you understand the motivating beliefs, fears and secret desires that influence your customer’s buying decisions. … Answer each question so that your customer avatar is as real to you as a living human being.

What’s your vision for your ideal client.

Give them a name

Describe them in exact detail

Demographics

• How much money do they make

Geographics

• Where to they live

Psychographics

• the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research.
• Their dreams
• Their problems or pain
• What are they thinking about
• What are they reading

Interior Plant Scapes

My Avatar Client – MY Favorite and most profitable client in every way.

GENERAL

• They are good people
• They have a real appreciation for the work I do
• They believe what I do is an important service
• They have money to pay for what I do
• They think long term
• They will likely be a client for a very long time

Specific to my industry

• Logistics…of Interior Plant Scapes – my industry
  • They have a nice facility
  • They appreciate ambiance and sense of arrival
  • They have clients, customers, guests, or members that they have to impress
  • Their facility is suitable – Light and space
  • They are in my market area

Getting Free from Mental Lies and Limiting Beliefs

Business is not Just Strategy and Planning – IT IS ALSO  A HEAD GAME.  And you have to have BOTH.

And you have to take the Head Game very seriously – or your best plans will never launch!

MY VISION FOR Miller Marketing and Training…

Vision

Miller Marketing and Training helps people get a bigger vision of their life and business, then teaches them how to make that vision a reality.

We set people free from mental lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

That’s huge:

Mental lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

The big idea is …

That… ONE TOXIC thought is Enough to hold you back from – – – every bit of love, success and prosperity you desire for your life.

BUT…the Up Side is – if you are aware – and Take those rogue thoughts captive – – – it can set you Free to BECOME EVERY THING YOU WERE CREATED TO BE.

This is what I want to cover:  3 Things

1. The battleground really is the mind.
2. How to fight a battle that is in the mind
3. The Mental Lie and Limiting Belief that I am fighting –

1. The battleground in the mind…

YOUR LIFE IS WHAT YOUR THOUGHTS MAKE OF IT.

Getting FREE from Mental Lies and Limiting Beliefs

The Battleground of the Mind – Joyce Meyer.

Earl Nightengale – The Strangest Secret – We Become what we think about…

Chuck Swindoll – “Living above the level of mediocrity”

The Human Mind holds the key to soaring.  The enemy of our soul has made it the bulls-eye of his target.

The problem is … there is some stuff going on in our head that is just not true.

• It is holding you back from becoming everything you were created to be
  • Joy and Peace
  • Patient and Kind
  • Able to Respond to life and its circumstances – not react

You Agree, “yes, I believe it,  The battleground in my mind…

I do have stinkin thinkin.  Help me, how do I change?”

2. How to fight a battle that is in the mind

What if you could change?

First you have to believe that you can.

Therefore, we go to our highest and best source of truth…

You, Your Business and the Book:

Romans 12:  do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So first – WOW.  You can be transformed by thinking differently – Renewing your mind.  That’s what the Subject of this episode is

The greek word for transformed is – Meta morpho.  

The transformation by renewing your mind is not skin deep or temporary – it is a Complete Metamorphsis

You were a worm – now you can fly.

A Fascinating Book to recommend:  Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain – the key to peak happiness, thinking and health.

Switch On Your Brain teaches you the amazing power of the Mind and The Brain.

The mind and the brain are – two separate things.

The mind – our thoughts, our thinking, can change the Brain – – – for Good!

Neuroplasticity – the physical make up of the brain can be changed by our thinking.

You will have to read the book …there is a 21-day Brain Detox plan.

What she Teaches is  – – – – decide upon a Negative thought that you want to eliminate from your life – and actually reprogram your thinking – replace it with a new positive thought

Just think about that…

If there was one thought you could eliminate from your mind, what would it be?

3. The Mental Lie and Limiting Belief that I am fighting

AND…..

The one Negative thought in particular that I am on a journey of Demolishing from my own mind is this:  Criticism, Condemnation and Complaining.

I know other people struggle with this same toxic negative thinking – but I am talking about me.

CCC saps you of joy

And peace

And kindness

And love

How did this happen in my life?

How did CCC become part of my thinking?

Here are some synonyms, causes and related negative thoughts to CCC

• Blame
• Guilt
• Shame
• Accusations
• Perfectionism
• People-pleaser
• Anger
• Legalism
• Fear
• Bullying
• Shoulds

How does it start?  What are the roots?

Parenting

• Anger
• Guilt
• Guilt and SHAME
• Bullying

The church

• Fear
• Guilt
• Shame
• Legalism

Business owner

• Fear of failure
• Perfectionism
• Shoulds – and shoulding on myself

Where does this come from:  Is there someone responsible.  I believe Yes.

His name is satan

Overtime the affects of this kind of mental Toxicity will wear you down

• Physical
• Emotional
• Joy and Peace and a love for life

Leave you with these 3 thoughts

1. It is a struggle.  The first step to winning the battle is realizing there is one.
2. FIGHT.  Decide this is important and fight.  Get Help from others.  Even a therapist
3. Switch On Your Brain – The book and plan.  Take it seriously

The difference between coaching and consulting Part II – And why you need both, TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

The analogy I used last week was a sports analogy – For a Football team…The coach for the team is also a consultant.

Because not only does he Encourage the Team that You are Champions and you Can WIN – the coach is also an expert in the game of football – THAT is the consultant – an expert.

Our vision includes both coaching and consulting:

Vision

Miller Marketing and Training helps people get a bigger vision of their life and business, then teaches them how to make that vision a reality.

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

Consulting VS Coaching

Consulting:

Miller Marketing and Training helps people get a bigger vision of their life and business, then teaches them how to make that vision a reality.

Coaching:

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

That is the topic today – You need a consultant to learn the strategy of business.

Where does the consultant information come from?

The Consultant is THE EXPERT.

Someone who has studied and has real world experience…

• School
• Experience
• Authors
• Courses
• Conferences
• Fellow business people
• Trial and error and trial and success…just doing it.  Being bold enough to be ok with failure…

You stand on the shoulders – of men who are standing on the shoulders of others…

My Consultants…My Experts

1. Micheal Gerber.  The E-Myth
2. Peter Drucker – “Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things.”
3. Edwards Deming – It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and Then do your best.

When I think of strategy I Definitely have a Certain Bent in my thinking – it is Vision and Systems

And you need both…Vision and Systems

I have a process that I teach it is called “Your Best Work, The Best Way”

The inspiration for that process was those three men – all super smart business men

My favorite quote on vision and systems (tasks) and why you need both.

A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, But a vision and a task – that is the hope of the world.   – inscription on a church wall in Sussex England.

Business is a multidisciplinary enterprise

You have to be good a lot of different things – only one of which is the technical skill of the business.

Business is Multifaceted – You need to be EXPERT in a lot of different things.

Here are my Top 3 – you need to be Expert in.

• Order fulfillment

• Marketing

• Sales

You have to be really really good and several things.  Here’s some others – – – that get little attention

Staff Development

Finance and accounting

Office Admin

But you need a strategy for these

It’s not enough to do your best, you must know what to do and Then do your best.

Your Best Work = Vision

The Best Way = Systems

First:  Order Fulfillment

What is your Vision for Your Customer Experience?

• I tell the story in my book about Dr Ken McCaffry – who have a new bigger Better vision for a patient experience.  You are a guest at a first class hotel…

Vision FIRST – – – then the systems to make that happen

1. What’s your vision?
2. Whats the WOW to your work?
3. How have differentiated your work – you defy comparison
4. How do you Plus It
5. THEN…how do you make sure that happens EVERY TIME!  You have the systems too.

Second:  Marketing

• Marketing is Lead Generation!
• Marketing starts with really understanding What you sell – Then Who is the best customer for what you sell

There is an Equation for marketing – – –

• Interrupt
• Engage
• Educate
• Offer
• Close

You can Create Marketing Systems. Predictable with Follow Up and Follow Through

Third:  Sales

• Sales is lead conversion

It is different from Marketing.

Sales is putting the numbers on the board – Score!

Sales Training is a Life-Long Pursuit!

The difference between coaching and consulting – And why you need both – TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS.

Coaching and consulting are really two different things.

• There is some overlap, but the two serve very different purposes
• The two can come from The Same person – your coach can also be your consultant.

A Sports analogy

Consulting is the pregame practice sessions – the conditioning, the drills, the blocking and tackling – The play book.  It is studying the game films of the team you’re going to play – AND your own game film…

That’s ALL before the game starts

Coaching is the head game

Coaching is the head game of Encouraging your team – You can do this!  You are Champions.

Especially…

When the game plan is not going as planned

– it’s halftime and you’re down by 24 points and the momentum is not with you

– And you want to Give Up.

That’s when you need a coach to Get Your Mind Right

• Your coach teaches to Mental Toughness!
  • Tom Brady QB of the Patriots – – – understands this.  After every big win, you’ll hear talk about mental toughness.
• Coaching is the heart matter DIGGING DEEP  – Consulting is the head matter of strategy
• COACHING IS EMOTIONS – – – CONSULTING IS LOGIC

• Think of an exercise Personal Trainer

Our personal trainer Barry.

• They need to have knowledge of the body and muscles and nutrition and exercise – Both strength training AND cardio and stretching
• They also have to have the ability to Motivate you and Encourage you – You can do this!  You are doing this!  Awesome…way to go.

• The Best piece of exercise equipment won’t work – if you don’t.

• You can have the Very best Business plan and Market opportunity – BUT, if you don’t have the mindset that you deserve this – you can do this…IT will fail

This Truth of the fact that you need both – is a core belief of MMT – it is in our Vision Statement…

The reality that you need both Coaching and Consulting is a core belief of Miller Marketing and Training – it is in our Vision Statement.  Rather, it is our Vision Statement 

Vision

Miller Marketing and Training helps people get a bigger vision of their life and business, then teaches them how to make that vision a reality.

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

Consulting VS Coaching

Consulting:

Miller Marketing and Training helps people get a bigger vision of their life and business, then teaches them how to make that vision a reality.

Coaching:

We set people free from lies and limiting beliefs that are holding them back from becoming everything they were created to be.

Let’s start with Coaching:  Getting Free from Lies and Limiting Beliefs

Starting HERE because a lot of people – jump right to the strategy – and don’t deal with the Junk of their mindset!

We all have Junk!

• Too much success will ruin me
• I can’t raise my prices
• Too much money is bad
• I always have to be an employee in my business
• My customers Only want to work with me
• I Can’t expect too much
  • Small expectations
    • Making payroll
    • Paying the bills
    • Making just a little more than your employees is all you can expect
    • I can’t say NO to a customer

• If the economy is bad, then my business has to me bad too

You Your Business and the Bible

Hebrews 11:1

ESV: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

NIV: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.

KJV:  Now is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith – is a huge part of business success.

If you don’t believe – Forget it!

Things NOT SEEN!  That’s the reality of what business does – we create things from our ideas.

More Lies and Bad Beliefs…

• I will always struggle
• Putting out fires every day is just part of business
• Business has to be difficult
• Making money has to be hard

The Positive Spin:  how to break free…

• Think about what you’re thinking about….
• Don’t believe Everything you think
• Create Positive Affirmations…
• Some Lies and Limiting beliefs NEED a lot of intention and effort – OVER TIME to Demolish
• WE can be transformed by the renewing of our mind…Romans 12:2

All customers are not created equal – 7 Prospecting Tips to Create The Best Customers

Show notes:

If you don’t like your customers, you only have one person to blame.

The topic of this podcast is not about customers – it is about the pre step – the prospect.  Every customer was first a prospect.

Prospecting does not get enough attention – it is an essential activity for every business.

BUT not just an Activity – it is a Skill.  Meaning: You can learn to do it better.

Prospecting needs both attention and intention.

You only have a limited amount of time in the day to do your work of selling – Don’t waste it on prospects that won’t turn into great customers.

How to Do Prospecting BETTER – 7 prospecting tips to create the best customers

• Every time you make a sale, you’ve just lost your best prospect
• Its hard to sell something if you don’t have a prospect to talk to
  • Prospecting Every Day – always planting seeds
  • Great Business friend:  committed to “5 income producing calls each day”

The Goal for this podcast is this:  The Golden Rule for Successful Selling is to spend more time with better prospects.

If YOU ARE a Business Owner, not just a salesperson – REMEMBER it is about better customers too.

Title:  All customers are not created equal

7 Prospecting Tips to Create The Best Customers

Prospecting is planting seeds…

Before You START planting the seeds – know the soil

You, Your Business and the Book

LUKE 8:4- 8  The Parable of the Soil

Sometimes Called the Parable of the SOWER

So then the Sales Person is the sower

4 kinds of soil… only 25% of the seed took root and became a huge harvest

It says 100 times harvest.  WOW!

NOT ALL SOIL IS GOOD SOIL.  All Soil is not created equal.  All Customers…same.

That’s what we are doing here – WE ARE EXAMINING THE SOIL

DON’T WASTE YOUR GOOD SEED ON BAD SOIL.

7 Prospecting Tips to Create The Best Customers

1. You have to understand your What it is you sell!  Not just the features – THE BENEFITS.

• The curse of the familiar
• Spend some time with this – really thinking through.
• How awful would it be if you didn’t exist
• YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IT IS THE BEST – if not

2. Understand why your current customers buy

• Ask them
• What do you like – What Frustrates you about our work
• Ask the Key Question

3. Describe your ideal customer – THIS ONE IS BIG!  Dream BIG!

My dream customer:

• I am serving them in a deep and meaningful way – my service is essential to their success!  I am making an impact on them and their customers.  THOSE KIND OF CUSTOMERS NEVER LEAVE YOU
• They are customers for a very long time.  Decades – measured in.  Now you’re talking lifetime value! What is a customer worth?  Not just a one time sale – $500 a month – but 6K a year – ten years = 60K.
• They are in a stable industry – Restaurants are not a good client for us.
• They pay their bills on time – every month.  It’s not what you invoice – Its what you collect!  AR is essential
• They are NICE people.  You like them.  You welcome their call.  They appreciate the work you do.  Some Business people think IT IS THEIR JOB TO BEAT UP VENDORS…
• They are Profitable.  Doing work for them is In Your “Area of Expertise” – your margins are high – – – You are charging them a High Price – and they are totally OK with it.
• They are happy to refer you – or give you a testimonial any time.

4. Focus on Customer Segments –

• This is owning whole industries in your market
• In my neighborhood – Hendry Creek – access to the Gulf of Mexico.  Realtor called – waterfront/authority.com
• For us We Specialize in Hospitality – Country Clubs
• Learn the language and the Hot buttons for that industry

5. Differentiate Your Business

• How is your business different?
• Never apples to apples ALWAYS apples to oranges.
• We defy comparison
• Innovation:  Where is the untapped Secret of my business

6.  What must your prospect BELIEVE – if they are going to buy from you?

• Selling is more than 80% emotional reasons – then Logic
• Tap into the emotions of their beliefs
• Customer Experience is important

7. NOW…focus your energy on your best prospects…

• You’ve done all this work – NOW use it
• Before you invest yourself in planting a SEED – examine the soil.

Go and See for Yourself!

5 ways to Show UP Big in your Business

Go and see for yourself – So that you can Really understand what’s going on.

Genchi Genbutsu – the term comes from Toyota Lean Manufacturing.

The whole idea of Lean Manufacturing – is to maximize profits.

Your business Top Line and the Bottom Line.

Top Line = Revenue growth/New sales

Bottom Line = Net Profit/What is left after all the expenses

How to grow the profits of the business from both sides.

What does lean manufacturing look like in your business?

• Eliminating waste

SOME TIMES ITS JUST DONG THE WRONG THINGS!

Drucker Quote – “there is nothing quite so useless as Doing with great efficiency – something that does not need to be done.”

• Make sure what you’re doing – THEN… do it with efficiency

Go and See for Yourself!

5 ways to Show UP Big in your Business

Genchi Genbutsu – go and see for YOURSELF – WHY???  In order to thoroughly understand the situation.

UNDER Cover BOSS – the TV Show = Genchi Genbutsu.

1. Marketing –  GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand your prospects
   1. Every customer is not a good customer – Every prospect is not…
   2. All customers are not created equal –
      1. some are easier to work with
      2. Some are way more profitable

WHICH ONES DO YOU WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH?  THIS SUBJECT WILL BE THE TOPIC OF A WHOLE PODCAST.

But – First, you must believe this is true – and that it deserves your time and intention

2. Employees – GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand your STAFF

1. You can not build a great business without Great employees –
2. It is hard!  Employees are People – and people come with their own lives behind
3. But Employee are also Amazing!  Imagine if you could not hire Anyone to help you do your work – You had to do et.  That would be bad!
4. SHOW up and learn and ask questions
   1. What’s going on in the business?
   2. What am I not seeing
   3. What is frustrating about your work
   4. What’s the best part of your work

DON’T ask about other employees – Snitch.

3. Customers – GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand your customers

1. Customer retention is Marketing!  GROW and PROTECT.
2. Wait Wait – – here it is.  This is a perfect place for
3. YOU, You, Your Business and The Book.  Connecting the dots between your business Conundrums and Biblical Truth.
   1. PROVERBS 27:23-24 – KNOW well the condition of your flocks – and give attention to your herds.   For Riches do not last forever, and does a crown endure to all generations?

You have this FLOCK – your customers – Your livelihood.  Give careful attention to your herd

KNOW your customer – Go and meet with them FACE TO FACE..

1. But Not just Retention – but to GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand your customer – and what they Love!

…WHICH LEADS TO THE NEXT….

4. Your PROCESS or Your product.  GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand what you sell

1. What is it like to do business with you?
2. What is your customer experience like.
3. What is it like to call your office?
4. WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT DO HARD TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU?
5. SECRET SHOP YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

5. Sales Process.  GO AND SEE FOR YOURSELF TO thoroughly understand HOW TO SELL

1. Sales is not marketing.
2. THERE is So Much that could be improved – It Is a Lifetime of Learning
   1. People and persuasion.
   2. Emotional Buying – very good authority that 90% of the reasons people buy are emotional – BUT… WILL SELL USING LOGIC.
3. Cart Abandonment… GO AND ASK!  Why didn’t you buy?

Your Business is a Train Wreck – 7 Training Pitfalls that could Derail Your Business

You, Your Business and The Book.

Connecting the dots between your business Conundrums and Biblical Truth.

Sometimes you have the Perfect bible verse that makes your point

Training is Transfer

II Timothy 2:2

“The things you have heard me say, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men, who will also be able to teach others.”

1. Pitfall #1 – Treating training like an event – not an ongoing program.   Training is not somethng you did – it is something you do.

• CEU’s
• You have Meetings where you come together for the purpose of Training!
• MEETINGS are essential.  CLASSROOM TIME

2. #2 – Not having a training program.

Elements of a Training Program:

• A start date and end date
• A Trainer
• A Standard. A recipe.
• A desired outcome
• Information.  Verbal and Written
• Forms
• Training Aids

3. #3 – not having a Trainer – a train the trainer program.

• NOT JUST trained in the Work – BUT … trained in how to train.
• Don’t assume your top employee is a good trainer.
• Proficeincy in Doing the Works does not equal proficincy in Teaching the work
• How to know?
  • Ask the trainee
  • You have a STANDARD – the manual

4. #4 – not Inspecting what you expect – What you Tolerate You Encourage

• Training Requires Follow Up
• Follow Up MANY TIME …SHOWING UP.  Go to the place where the work is happening…
• Genchi genbutsu – The Japanese word for – Show up and Go see.  (pronounced: JEN-CHI JEN-BUTSU)

5.  #5 – Not using Forms – FORMS ARE KING

CHECKLISTS – the checklist Manifesto

MEMORIZATION

6.  #6 – Not using systems

• Systems are what create great companies
• Systems are Recipes
• See EPISODE 4 on systems

7.  #7 – Not having documented training manuals.

• A training manual increases the level of respect instantly
• THE WRITTEN WORD

• See EPISODE 5 – on systems manuals

Your business is broken.  5 Warning signs that you’re business isn’t working. Or isn’t working as well as it could 

THE FIVE WARNING SIGNS THAT YOUR BUSINESS ISN’T WORKING…

1. You are the key employee.

2. Your business is in your head and not documented.

3. You cannot ask almost every customer for a testimonial today 

4. Your don’t have a prospecting system to bring in a steady stream of customers 

5. You have to take on customers you’d rather not

Order is the sign of intelligent design.  We were created by an Intelligent Designer, with the ability to create intelligent design, and hard-wired to love and function best with intelligent design. IF YOU HAVE A BUSINESS, THIS TRUTH WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD.

With an intro like that – you may think this is an episode about intelligent design – that I want to make some grand statement about Creation VS Evolution – that would be a good guess – but wrong

This Episode is about ORDER!   Order in business is a beautiful thing

3 Life Changing Truths about Order

I want to talk about Order – but I want to talk about it in the context of your business…Growing YOU, Growing Your Business.

Order is the Best Way to Grow your business.

“The Systems Manual Blueprints”

I have a new online digital course – it is the culmination of my best practices and best thinking of the last 25 years or learning and implementing A SYSTEMS STRATEGY in my business.

This course is called The Systems Manual Blueprints – and it is about how to create ORDER in your business.

• Order comes from beginning with a Vision
• Then creating systems to make that vision a reality
• And NOT just systems – THOSE SYSTEMS HAVE TO BE TRAINED TO SOMEONE
• SYSTEMS MANUALS are how you train

LINK to The Systems Manual Blueprints

https://brad-miller.mykajabi.com/p/systems-manual-blueprints-sp

Again – I am going to dig deep into ORDER, but every bit of what I am talking about is applicable to your business…

3 Life Changing Truths about Order

1. DIS-ORDER IS OUR GREATEST ENEMY –

It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human and Disorder is our greatest enemy.  Hesiod 650 BC

• We are only human:  we are undisciplined, emotional, subject to error, laziness and low energy.  We are not machines.
• Do things systematically: according to a fixed plan
• Disorder is our greatest enemy: we were designed to live in order

As humans, we naturally like and are drawn to order.  ORDER CREATES TRUST.

Driving to North Carolina – my wife could always tell which Gas Station had the cleanest Restrooms – – –

Broken Windows, Broken Business, Book.

2. ORDER IS THE SIGN OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Making the case for Creating a Systems driven business.

Start with the Vision.  What do you want the Customer Experience to look like, feel like – when someone does business with you?

Start with the Vision – – – then create the systems to make that VISION a reality

All Businesses have TASKS to make that happen

A system is a TASK on Steroids.

Systems are the intelligent design of how a task should be done.

WE have a Term in our company:  STO.  Strategic Training Objective

It is not a Task – – – it is an STO

That is the Intelligent Design of your Business.

3. ORDER REQUIRES LAWS

As humans, when there is Disorder, we become fearful and leary.

Hurricane ANDREW…YIKES!

There is no order.

People get fearful when there is no order

I am going to say two words and you fill in the third word

Law And ___________ (Order).

Law and Order go together.

Some people don’t like the word law.  Law is a beautiful thing.  Living in a land with laws is the Very best option.  Without laws it would be despots who rule – with terror and force and violence.

Law and order go together bc that is what creates Order.

The Systems Manual Blueprints – https://brad-miller.mykajabi.com/p/systems-manual-blueprints-sp

When you have a Systems Manuals, Training Manuals – you are saying, THIS is the law of the land, this is how we do things here.

Then you have to mean it!

Becoming Pitch Perfect, or the ideal answer to the question, “What do you do?”

Everyone has heard, “What’s your 30 Second Elevator Pitch?”  So why is it that when someone asks us, “what do you do?” we don’t have a very good answer”

Here’s why…what is common knowledge is not common practice.  Thanks Ray Edwards for that quote.

In this episode, why we do a terrible job answering the question, “what do you do?”

And how to fix that!

Victory Audiobook Chapter 12 – The Narrow Road to a Business that Works

Entering the funnel backwards

“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t”                   – Anonymous

“Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.”

– Jesus of Nazareth

Episode 21  Show Notes

Victory Audiobook Chapter 11 – Making Your Systems Stick

The System for the Systems

“What you tolerate, you encourage.  What you permit, you promote.”

What you tolerate you encourage!  WOW, wow, wow, what a life-changing truth.

This is why most businesses never make it to the level of excellent.  They tolerate mediocrity.

Think about all of the stuff that we tolerate.

Speaking about our businesses and exactly our systems.

• We create the system, but then do not enforce it

Why?  Why do we tolerate someone not following the system we created?

Because of the one thing that most people DREAD.  More than dread, they hate it!

I’m talking about confrontation!

This is how businesses are overrun by the employees.

Leaders LEAD.  And leading includes confrontation.

BUT, no one likes being the bad guy.  Most people like to be liked.  Instead of confronting – they would rather be friends.

This is one of the Very Best REASONS why you should invest your energy in creating Systems Manuals.

LISTEN… this is huge – you don’t have to be the bad guy – The System becomes the BOSS.

The system Confronts.  Because the system is the standard.  If you are not working to the Standard, the High Bar, you quickly know – if you measure your performance by the system.

Check out my newest online course available for purchase now to take you step by step through the process of creating your systems manuals.

The Systems Manual Blueprints

Available at www.MillerMarketingandTraining.com

Show Notes:

11 Rules and Reminders for Designing and Innovating Your Systems

“Your systems are perfectly designed for the results your getting.”  – Edwards Deming

Innovation Innovation Innovation

Innovate or Die!

Small business WINE List!  The whine list of why they don’t or can’t innovate

Wine#1

Yeah but my business is different, everyone’s already come up with all the good ideas.

Wine #2

My business is just an ordinary business.  There’s no Opportunity to innovate.

Wine#3

My customers are different. You just don’t understand my customers – they’re cheap and they’d never go for that

Wine #4

We tried that before and it didn’t work.

Wine#5

And the WORST Wine of all…My employees would never Go For that.

Victory Audiobook Chapter 9 – Your Life and Your Business Vision Becoming Reality:  The Value of Vision Part II

“Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.”  – Habakkuk 2:2

SHOW NOTES:

Vision Part two –

Before I begin to read this second chapter on Vision – I want to emphasize The  importance…No,  NOT just the importance – But the Power of Vision.

By the power of Vision – I mean the power of Imagination.

I believe this is something that we take for granted – We use our imagination every day – all day.

We are so familiar with it – DON’T ASK A FISH WHAT WATER IS LIKE.

DON’T ASK A BIRD WHAT AIR IS LIKE.

It is such a part of us, we are so close to it  – we don’t even know it’s there – AND don’t use it for Good in our lives.

Our imagination is responsible for every good thing that has come into our life!

Everything we want – Begins first with a Thought!

What if we could harness the power of our imagination!

We all have it and use it every day – BUT IT LIKE A POWERFUL HORSE – UNTAMED AND UNBRIDLED.

Most of us use our imagination in a nagative way!   We have this amazing power – but it is running wild – it is called WORRY

WORRY is the negative use of our imagination. The imagination is powerful and influential – both for good and for evil.  For positive outcomes and negative ones

Who hasn’t had to deal with some unpleasant circumstance – a meeting, a co-worker, a difficult client – But you put it off, because in your mind it’s awful and you don’t want to deal.

But then, you finally confront it – and BAM! Its done and it was EASY.  Why why why did I give that thing so much power over me?

Because of the power of your imagination – THE NEGATIVE use of it

Mark Twain – “I’m an old man and I’ve expereinced many difficult trials – most of which have never happened.”

ZIG – “Economists have predicted 17 of the last TWO recessions!”

What does this have to do with VISION?

FOR US – this same Power – When harnessed and tamed – has the potential to change our lives!

VISION is the positive use of your imagination!  It is the ability to SEE with our Eyes Closed!  THINK ON THAT.

Vision is about the future.

When we Say Get a Bigger Vision of your life – it is a preferred Picture or Reality in the Future.

I’D LIKE TO RELATE THIS TO SAME AMAZING TRUTHS FROM THE BIBLE.

I think the Bible is the highest form of Truth – but if you don’t believe that, You will still benefit from this.

You, Your Business and The Book.  Connecting the dots between your business Conundrums and Biblical Truth.

When the word Imagination is used in the Old Testement – the Hebrew word is,   Yetser = conception.

Listen – the imagination is our Spiritual Womb.  It is where we give birth to Vision!

Wow – just WOW.

Recently heard a teaching on this by Andrew Wommack – he said, a lot of people want Big things to come into their lives – but they have never conceived it in their mind.  It is like a woman who wants to have a child but she has never had a physical relationship with a man – she have never conceived anything.

The Power of Vision –

Without a vision…the people perish

How about – the people never give birth to anything because they never concieved it.

“SITTING ON A FIVE GALLON BUCKET” AND THINKING AND IMAGINING THE DECK THAT I WANTED – Andrew

Then he used this verse from II Cor – 4:18 – Paul said, so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary – but what is unseen is eternal.

Do you do that?   FIX YOUR EYES ON WHAT IS UNSEEN!

THAT IS DOING THE WORK OF VISION!

THAT IS WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS!

BUT Not many do that work.  THAT is the INTENTIONAL USE OF YOUR IMAGINATION.

IT IS TAKING THE POWERFUL MAVERICK HORSE – THAT’S RUNNING WILD WITH WORRY AND FEAR AND FALSE IMAGINATIONS – – – –  AND TAMING IT.  PUTTING A BRIDLE ON IT – – – SO THAT YOU CAN STEER IT.

PAUL WAS TALKING ABOUT – NOT LOSING HEART.

You see, if we just Focus and see the troubles before us in the present – we lose heart – WE NEED A CLEAR VISION OF WHAT WE WANT THE FUTURE TO BE

READ:  II COR – 4:16 AND 17

THIS CHAPTER IS I’M GOING TO READ IS – NUTS AND BOLTS PRACTICAL.

IF YOU THINK THE WORK OF VISION IS TOO LOFTY AND NOT WORTH THE TROUBLE – HANG ON.

THIS CHAPTER WILL SHOW YOU STEP BY STEP HOW TO TAKE YOUR BIG VISION WORK – AND CONNECT TO THE DAY TO DAY SYSTEMS – – – OF DELIVERING PREDICTABLE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE!

Victory Audiobook Chapter 8 – Your Life and Your Business Imagined:  The Value of Vision Part I

Create the Vision of the life you want, then create a business that makes that life reality

“Where there is no vision, the people perish”  Proverbs 29:18

The Value of Vision – What exactly do I mean by that?

FIRST…from personal experience – I know what its like to work with no vision and I know what its like to work with Vision.

Everything is BETTER with Vision!

How to find meaning and money by Doing the WORK OF VISION!

What do I mean by that – The Work of Vision?

Go to Work ON your business.

What does that mean?  Working on your business?

OH… create systems!  Yes it’s that – BUT something else first!

GERMANS saying….”Never go to the second thing first”

The First thing is VISION.

VISION AND SYSTEMS – GO TOGETHER

EFFICIENCY IS DOING THINGS RIGHT – EFFECTIVENESS IS DOING THE RIGHT THINGS!

• DRUCKER

THEY GO TOGETHER – LISTEN…YOU HAVE TO HAVE BOTH!

“A vision without a task is but a dream.   A task without a vision is drudgery.  A vision and a task are the hope of the world”

Vision work is thinking work

It is THINKING Work – and so most people wont do it.

People will avoid “Thinking Work”  It doesn’t feel particularly productive!  People would rather be Busy Doing – than thinking.

Vision work is Thinking Work – PEOPLE DON’T VALUE THINKING WORK.

VISION WORK:

• Quiet meditation.  That dream that is inside of you.
• It won’t go away
• It scares you a little – or a lot.  If it doesn’t scare you at least a little…forget it
• Your Value Proposition.  This podcast is about Growing You and Growing your Business – – – most are business owners.
  • How does your business serve others
  • Who does it best serve
  • How are you differentiated?

VISION…IS FINDING THE FEW THINGS – – –

VISION IS GETTING CLARITY!

We are so easily distracted

We live in the age of Shiney Objects and SquirrelS – or as I heard it said – Shiny Squirrels

PHIL KNIGHT – THE CREATOR OF NIKE!

SHOE DOG – “IN the beginners mind there are many possibilities – but in the experts mind – there are few.”  SHUNRU SUZUKI – Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

Cash Follows Clarity – knowing exactly what to say yes to – and what to say NO to

Cash Follows Clarity

Victory Audiobook Chapter 7 – Knowing Your Numbers

Systemizing the Management and Measuring Process

“Whatever you measure improves” – Peter Drucker

Random Acts of Marketing VS Marketing Systems

Systemizing the Lead Generation Process

“If you can’t create a system that brings you a sufficient quantity and quality of leads on a continual basis, you can’t control your business”   – Dan Kennedy

This episode is about Marketing… but not just marketing, but the reality that you can create marketing systems, that bring in a steady stream of people who want to do business with you – And they are the Kind of People you want to do business with – Those are Called QUALIFIED Prospects

One of the things I say in this in this chapter is Fall In Love with marketing – that was my journey – at some point in my business journey – that’s what happened to me.

I fell in love with marketing.

And I think That happened because I realized that was the key to getting what I most wanted – a steady and predictable business – AND the key to that was customers!

When I first STARTED I didn’t have any customers – And worse, really had no idea how to Get them.  It was painful.  Really.

Many, if not most new small business people think – “as soon as I start my business, people will be lining up to do business with ME.   Bc afterall, it’s me – and the world has just been waiting for this moment for ME to go into business.

Then …reality.  Getting customers is hard.  Keeping them coming back is hard.

The only thing I knew to do was go Door to Door to businesses.  And I remember one time going to a Dr’s Office.  It was busy and had a lot of patients in the lobby. – I had some kind of small brochure or flyer – And I asked to speak with the office manager.  Then when she came out and I told her about my company.  She was visibly upset that I was wasting her time – pushed my brochure back into my hands and said, NO, we’re not interested in that – and you need to go.

That episode crushed my little EGO – and I hated it.  But looking back now I can see it was The WAKE Up call.  WOW, this is not easy.  I need to figure this out.

It took time obviously – and a lot of figuring it out – had to do with SALES too.  And I talk about Sales in this chapter a little.  BUT Marketing Saved my life!

I Fell In Love with Marketing Because… it gave me what I most wanted – “THE ABILITY TO CREATE A STEADY STREAM OF LEADS ON A CONTINUAL BASIS – THAT WANTED TO DO BUSINESS WITH ME”

That was a Game Changer for me. It meant my business was Going to Survive – and even more, Prosper and Be successful!

• It meant I could control my business
• It meant I could work ON my business – making it better bc I didn’t have to chase after new business all the time.
• It meant I was creating a Lifestyle Business