Starting Business Over - Trends [0:00:00]
Have you ever heard the saying, “burn the ships”? In a nutshell it means if you’re
going to do something, commit to it. Now, if you know your history you’re probably
aware this saying originated in 711 A.D. when Tariq bin Ziyad, he was leading a Muslim forces
in Northern Africa. He crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and invaded the Iberian Peninsula.
When he did this when his ships landed, the guy basically burnt his ships.
He said, “You know what? There is no way back. We are going to take this kingdom.”
Fast forward a few thousand years in a galaxy far, far away, we have Yoda saying, “Do
or do not. There is no try.” Gents, the first piece of advice I give anyone
starting over and trying something new is to give it your all, give it your sacred effort.
Seriously, when life knocks you down and you’re broke and you’re having to start over, you’ve
got to resolve, you got to commit to yourself deep down inside that I am going to find a
way to make this happen. Gents, the belief the mindset that you can
do something or you can’t is where it all starts.
All right. So, at this point you’ve committed to pick yourself back up, you are resolved
to make change. Now, take your head out of the sand. What am I talking about here? You
probably heard that when ostriches are threatened, they put their head in the sand.
Well, guess what? Human beings do this a lot more. Whenever all of a sudden we are fearful,
we’re about to lose our job, our business is going down, what happens? Our minds narrow.
We fall into this fight or flight mode and we just say, “Okay. I’m already working
50 to 60 hours. Guess what? I’m going to find a way to knock it up to 80 to 90.”
Doing the same thing which isn’t working. Would you rather be in a room for an hour
just to think or would you rather be distracted with your television, with your phone, with
all the other things out there? The vast majority of us, me included, many times I fall into
distraction versus actually taking the time to think about where I’m going, what I’m
running towards. The ladder that I’ve gone on a wall, do I want to be at the top of that
wall. This may be a blessing in disguise that you
are going to lose that job, that you have lost that job that your business is going
down in this industry that you weren’t even happy when you were making money with being
here. And that’s the thing is you need to take
a step back and think about where am I going and is this the right direction because it’s
going to be your brain. And coming up with a new plan, the plan isn’t going to save
you, but actually going through the planning process and then being a human being that
can deal with obstacles and find a way to overcome them, that is what is.
Next up, let’s talk about runway. And this comes from the analogy that you are an airplane
and you’re trying to take off. And if you can imagine when an airplane is taking off
on a runway, the longer the runway, the more chance the airplane has to take off. Because
the way it works is wind that goes over the wings and this provides lift.
To do that, you need speed. To build up speed, you need a little bit of a longer runway.
So, that’s the key point, how can you make sure to give yourself time to allow your business
for you to be able to go out there and find that job that you’re looking for.
Well, first up, you got to have some money and, next up, you’ve got to have some time.
So, what about the money? One of the best things you can do to have more money is to
cut down on your expenses. I know for me, living in a small town, keeping
our expenses in check, keeping my office in my house, filming my first 300 videos in the
basement of my house, not having an expensive office or a new car that I had to make payments
on, that right there saved us a lot. Next up, I sold a lot of things. I sold my
motorcycle, sold all of my camera equipment. Not my video filming equipment, but all of
the stuff I didn’t need and that helped to fund me being able to make things happen.
Now, the second part of the equation is time. And this is often ignored, but incredibly
important. And it’s not just time, but it’s energy. It’s your ability to focus in what
you need to do. I mean just basic math here, if you’re focused four hours a day on making
your dreams a reality versus eight hours a day.
The guy that’s focused eight hours a day is going to achieve it twice as fast. And
that can mean a big difference because his runway is going to run up pretty much the
same. Now, here’s the thing. So many of you guys
are distracted because you’re working in an environment in which, yes, your wife, you
know, means well, but she’s disturbing you once an hour. Your kids are all over the place.
You got to find a way, I know, I did whenever -- I just simply found a park bench. I went
to a truck stop and sat there by myself drinking stale coffee late at night.
I wake up early in the morning because guess what? No one’s up at 3:00 o’clock 4:00
o’clock in the morning and then I would just take an afternoon nap. You’ve got to
find a way to have that time of undisturbed focus because once you get into the zone,
this is when you make magic happen. If you get disturbed, it takes you 15 minutes
to get back into that zone and it’s so much better to have that time that you can be focused
and concentrated. And to make sure you’re exercising taking care of yourself, so that
you’ve got the energy to put in a solid 8 to 10 hours. And you can have this done
by 2:00 o’clock, 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon if you wake up early and guess what? Then,
you can spend time with the people you care about, go off and entertain yourself. But,
you’ve got to make sure that you give the time so that you can make sure you’ve got
the runway. [0:05:08]
Next up, gents, you want to be really careful about the information that you’re allowing
and that’s going to influence your decisions. Because if you’re getting misinformation
from someone that has no experience, doesn’t know what they’re talking about, you can
bet that you’re going to make a lot of wrong expensive decisions, which are going to slow
down the process and possibly have you just run out of runway a lot quicker than what
you thought. Gentlemen, it is worth I think spending a
little bit of money to find the right mentor, to be able to find the right coach, to be
able to find the right community or the right information source that can help you achieve
what you want to achieve. Now, really quick, gents, I want to share
with you a community I found a few weeks back that I absolutely love called Trends. Now,
if you’re familiar with the newsletter, The Hustle, this is their community that they
created for entrepreneurs, founders, investors, and ambitious people who want to get together
learn, workshop, and collaborate, so that they can be more successful.
Now, gents, Trends is the sponsor of today’s video, but straight up, I bought access to
this community at full price because I know it’s worth it. I got in there, I love what
I saw. Let me just show you why this thing is worth the money.
So, first up and probably my favorite part about Trends is the community. They’ve got
this Facebook group that’s very well-curated, there’s about 7,000 members. And what I
love about this, there’s nothing spammy in this. There are a lot of successful entrepreneurs.
I know this because I’ve got a pretty extensive network and I see that probably ten of my
friends are already members guys like Andrew Warner. He runs Mixergy and other amazing
site. But I mean the fact that he’s in there answering questions engaging with people.
I saw James Altucher in here. I mean, amazing, you know, thinker and writer. This is the
quality of the people in this group. And it’s curated, like I said they’re going through
there’s no spam, they’re interacting. If you ask a question and it’s a good question,
you’re getting a lot of responses, real responses from people that are running businesses
making $500,000, $5 million, $50 million a year.
They’ve got some very successful people in this who simply want to interact and engage
because if you think about it, conferences aren’t happening right now. This is where
things are happening. If you want a workshop, meaning you want to talk to somebody about
starting your business and you want to get real feedback, not from your mom, not from
someone that’s going to tell you nice things, this group will immediately pay for itself
because the coaching people are getting here, this is worth a lot of money and to me is
what makes this, yeah, makes this community amazing.
Next up, I love the fact that their articles and their information is unique and well-researched.
So, they’ve got this whole section on databases and many of you guys know I just started a
new company, Vitaman, earlier this year. It’s on a Shopify platform.
Well, they had this whole database of the top 1,000 and it linked me over to the Google
Doc that actually had all 1,000 top Shopify stores that they put together this database.
If I would had somebody on my team do this, they wouldn’t have done it to the same level
and it would have taken them a month. They actually went to Kickstarter and identified,
okay, this is what has been successful in Kickstarter, they looked at all the data.
They’ve got these data crunchers that are putting out this amazing information. So,
guess what? I went and made a copy of this database and now, I can tear it apart, do
whatever I want with it. That right there, I mean that’s worth thousands and thousands
of dollars. I can tell you guys, this right here is amazing. These databases, I am going
to go in and use more of this. An example of an article I just read that
blew my mind. So, Nancy Whiteman, apparently she is selling cannabis gummies and she made
$25 million. So, they break out they talked to her in detail about how she’s doing this.
I don’t use drugs, I’ve never used any type of marijuana or cannabis, so I don’t
really pay attention to that industry. And that’s what I love about this is that
it opens my mind up to the possibilities and all these markets that I didn’t even really
understand or know existed. And I also love how they got these weekly
lectures you could attend. They are live events in which you can ask questions, you can engage
with the speaker. They’re really well put together and, again, on hot topics. So, if
you’re looking to start something, you want to find a career path in an industry that’s
growing, you want to check this stuff out. Gents, I’m linking to Trends down in the
description of today’s video with the best deal you’re going to find out there. Use
that link and you’re going to get access to all that Trends has to offer. You want
to go to Trends.co/RMRS. Again, that’s Trends.co/RMRS and for $1, gents, you can get a two-week
trial. All right. So, you’ve done your research,
you wrote your business plan, you’ve got an elevator pitch, spent a few days on this.
Now, it’s time to sell. This is where the rubber meets the road.
Don’t go out there and get those business cards printed. Don’t go out there and rent
an office space. Do not go out there and buy a new truck because, yes, that’s what you
need for your new landscaping business. [0:09:56]
First up, sell the dream, sell the service, get some money in. A deposit would be great.
That is how you’re going to give yourself runway and most importantly, you are going
to validate the offer that you have because all your friends told you it was a great idea,
but none of your friends will pay you for it.
Guess what? You don’t have a business, you have something that, yeah, your friends were
just patting you ego. That is not the way that you’re going to get success here. You
need to go out there and, yes, it is not, you know, here’s the thing. So many people
think that sales is a bad word. It is not. When you offer a solution to somebody’s
problem, they are more than willing to hand over the money if they view it as a great
deal. I mean, I do this all the time. As a business
owner, I have always problems I want solved and I would very happily put the money down
if you can pretty much guarantee me that you are going to solve that problem. That’s
the way it works. And when you understand this, you can go in
and it’s not anything personal when they say no, it’s just I don’t need this or
this doesn’t come with my business. But, here’s the thing. Once you hear 10
to 20 nos and you thought that this was your target market, you’re going to want to reevaluate,
you’re going to want to may be change the name of the business. Make sure – very good,
you didn’t get those business cards printed because that was, you know, targeting a particular
client who you realize is not your client. And then, after you hear 50 to 60 nos in 5
to 7 different types of clients, you may realize, okay, this idea this problem I thought I was
solving, I really don’t understand it as much. But, the sooner you can get those nos,
the sooner you’ll get to yeses. And yeses are going to be very happy, again, to hand
you that money and then you’ve got money coming in the bank. Again, these can be deposits,
these can be prepayments. Don’t get people 30, 60, 90 days, that’s
not what you want to do unless you are a huge company. No, if you’re a small business,
you want to get that money as soon as possible into your coffers, so that you can extend
out that runway and you can give yourself the time to survive.
Next up, you want to find a way to solve a bleeding neck problem for somebody that can
pay for it. It’s simple as that. Whether or not you’re looking for a job, you’re
looking to start a business, if you can do those two things, you are going to be making
money. Because when somebody is bleeding out of their
neck, guess what? They’re not looking around at which hospital is going to offer a discount,
they are not wondering which hospital is closest. No, they are getting to the hospital as soon
as possible, so that they can save their lives. You’re looking for to go into a business
and solve that problem. If you want to be able to get a job that they’re not going
to let you go, you solve a problem that’s going to keep them alive. You start a business
that helps to solve those problems that the business need. A lot of times, it’s sales,
other times it’s being able to deal with lawsuits.
I don’t know what your background is and, yes, you need to be obviously a lawyer to
deal with lawsuits or do you? Are there ways that you can actually connect lawyers with
companies and actually make an introduction service and be able to take the hassle out
of it? I don’t know. But, there is so much opportunity out there.
My wife deals with migraine headaches and that is one thing, if I forget to take her
or if she doesn’t take her vitamins in the morning, we’re not going to – I mean,
it’s not that bad. But, if she doesn’t get her migraine medicine whenever she started
to get that migraine, we’ve turned around and come back to the house 15, 20 miles away
just to get that medicine because it’s that important, so that she’ll be able to actually
make it through the day without that pounding headache.
You want to make sure whenever you’re going out there and you’re finding something that
you can do you can offer to the world, that it does solve that burning that painful problem.
Now, at this point if you’ve had a few sales, congratulations. But now, you’re in a dangerous
point because you need to evaluate and adjust. Let’s say you’ve had ten sales. Well,
let’s look at the ones that are actually with the customer that you want to serve.
They’re actually profitable because many times people sell services and they lose money.
Well, you want to get rid of those. You’re not going to make that up with volume. I know,
I run a company into a bankruptcy because I thought I can, yeah, it just doesn’t work
that way. Focus in on those two to three dream clients, they paid you very quickly, in fact,
they would have paid you more, they offered you more work, it was very profitable.
This – and this is where you want to evaluate and you want to adjust. You want to pivot,
you want to try to aim your business to attract more people like that. And that is going to
be a key turning point towards you being able to scale up and you being able to grow.
Now, another thing that happens at this point is you start to get sales and you’re starting
to bring in a little bit of money, all of a sudden, you start dealing with overwhelm.
You’ve got too much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it. So, you go out
there and hire someone, so that you can be more productive.
Well, that is one route, but I would say be very careful about that. Instead, look to
can I cut things off, am I actually being productive with the time I have, and is it
essential to be doing what I’m doing? [0:14:56]
That’s the easiest thing to do is to realize that we fall into this fallacy of, oh, I’m
staying busy. No, are you really? Oftentimes, we are doing things that are non-essential
and not important that can be cut off. Now, if there isn’t anything you can cut
off, then, yes, it makes sense if you have the money coming in, maybe look in to hire
someone to be able to answer the phones, deal with customer service issues, be able to do
some marketing. But, it’s always less expensive and I think
a much lower risk and a better idea to look around and say, what can I cut off that is
just stealing my time, and then allow you to just be more focused on what really matters.
Now, gents, if you want to be more productive, you’re going to want to watch this video
right here where I lay out eleven things that super productive people do every single day.
So, to find out whether or not you’re doing them, check out this video right here.
[0:15:45] End of audio