- World's number one small business guru
and the author of the book "E-Myth",
Michael Gerber talks about that,
most entrepreneurs, they are not actually entrepreneurs.
They are technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure.
Meaning suddenly they are working a job,
they're doing something,
and then the entrepreneurial bug just bite them,
and they're like, you know what, I can do better than this,
that I should go out there and start my own business.
And what happens is then you have
a plumber starting a plumbing business,
or a chef starting a restaurant business.
So they understand the technical aspect of a business,
how to do the technical work,
but they actually don't have the necessary skills of
a business owner of an entrepreneur
on how to actually run a business.
So then what ends up happening is
they get busy and busy, busy, busy,
and doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it.
And they never understand how to build a business.
What Michael talks about that
most entrepreneurs, they spend way too much time working
in their business, but not on their business.
In fact, that recently I've had the honor
of having Mr. Michael Gerber and his CEO,
his wife coming to my training, mentor,
learning from mentor and Michael
has not attended anyone's training for 30 plus years.
And Michael's work has had such a profound impact
in business career that I am happy
that I'm able to share a couple of key insights
with him that has helped him as well.
So here's has what he has to say.
- It has been totally amazing, my husband never sits
and listen to speakers because he's the big mouth,
he's the speaker, and I am so proud of you Michael,
to sit here and listen to Dan, it's totally amazing.
- One thing he said at the very outset of today
was about the personal brand, and it struck me so hard
because I've been speaking for 50 years
about the impersonal brand.
Dan to know and I want you all to know
that from this point forward, it will be me sharing my name,
my message, my meaning to everybody worldwide
in ways that are just absolutely astonishing.
- In order to build a business that runs without you,
day one, your intention must be building a business to sell.
Even though you may never sell the business,
but day one, you need to plan,
you need to structure your business in such a way that,
hey, if I'm going to sell it someday,
what would that look like?
Right, what do I need to do differently?
Well, one thing for sure that you know,
you can not just be the one
that's doing and doing and doing.
That's just driving the business.
Yes, in the beginning you have to be
the driver for the business, same as me,
but later on, what does that actually look like?
What does the end product look like?
Meaning what does your business look like when it's done?
That's correct, you have to have a picture,
what does your business look like when it's completed?
When it's finished, when someone can step in
and actually take over,
even though you may never sell the business,
but what that means is if you could build your business
in that way, that automatically
makes your business more valuable.
So when you do want to retire,
when you do want to have a successful exit,
cash in, you could do that,
even though you never do that just by thinking
and structuring and building your business in a way
that is sellable, it makes the business more scalable,
it makes the business more efficient,
that gives you more freedom,
freedom to do whatever you want.
Maybe you want to use the free time
to start another business,
maybe you are a serial entrepreneur just like myself,
or maybe you want to focus your time
on building your investment and taking some
of the profits and grow your portfolio,
or maybe just want to spend more quality time
with your family, but now you have a choice
you're working in the business not because you have to,
but because you want to because you enjoy it.
But you know that you can also step away
if you want to as well, that's what we need to do.
You see the nature of business, technology
and people and the world that we live in,
it means that there's always a degree
of unpredictability that is very, very normal,
but most challenges, most problems in business
usually they are not a one-off event.
So if you find yourself solving the same problem
in a business again and again and again, and again,
usually it is a sign of lack of business system
in your company.
As a CEO of your company, you don't want to confuse
what you don't want to do with what you need to do.
Yes, I am a visionary like yourself as well,
I like a big picture, I get it.
But someone, it could be you or someone
within your organization better know how to create systems.
One of the most powerful mindset shifts
that you need to have, is instead of asking
what I need to do, ask yourself,
how do I solve this problem not once, but forever?
You must realize that business is an intellectual sport.
That in order to create a different result,
we have to think differently.
That means that we have to ask ourselves
a different set of questions.
So let's talk about exactly what is a system.
Regardless of what business you're in,
there are best practices,
they're best ways of doing something
that have the highest chance of bringing about
a particular result that you want consistently.
So if you look at the best practices
and you're identify those steps
and you break it down into things and in ways
that could be written down, that could be illustrated,
that could be document, that could produce
those results again and again,
that is a system, it's that simple.
Think of it like baking a cake, right.
If you want to bake a cake, you want to have
the same flavor and same taste all the time, right.
There is a recipe that you know exactly
what ingredients and how much ingredients
and how long you want the cake to be in the oven, right?
There are steps into doing this
and you could illustrate the whole process in a recipe,
in a checklist, or maybe even a grocery list of
where to get those ingredients
in order to create that cake consistently,
you to have that consistent performance and outcome.
Well, that is a system, it's that simple.
Don't over complicate it.
And in business, there are many,
many, many forms of systems, I don't want to
go into too much in depth
because that would be a long, long video.
I'm just going to give you at the most basic level,
three types of systems.
First, hard system, hard system means
it's what something looks like visually, what it looks like.
Your logo is a hard system, right,
if you walk into a store in McDonald's,
you see a certain theme, the decoration
that is a hard system, a uniform that is a hard system.
If you are a web designing company,
your template, that is your hard system.
If you are a digital marketing company
and you built funnels for people,
that funnel template, that is your hard system.
Something that you could replicate
and duplicate for other clients.
Then number two, you have what I call soft systems.
Soft systems meaning what something sounds like,
example, it could be how you greet a customer,
how you handle complaints, how you sell,
how you upsell, how do you cross-sell,
how you communicate with your prospects,
your closing script, that is a soft system.
Now, every single time your sales person gets
on the phone and just says whatever he feels like,
aah, I'm just, he's just winging it, well,
that is not a system and depends on his mood,
some day he closes well, some day he doesn't close so well.
That is because you're not giving him a system to follow.
Now, I'm not saying that you have
to give him a script to follow word for word,
and he's talking like a robot,
but there should be some standard questions,
some standard script that you know,
kind of an outline that he's going to follow
every single time he gets on the phone and close somebody,
that's a soft system, that's how you get predictable sales.
You don't want, if you have a team of 10 sales people,
you don't want all of them close differently.
Yes, they have their own little style,
but they should all follow the same soft system.
And third, you have information systems.
When I say information systems,
I'm referring to your standardized processes and reports.
So if you have your KPI report,
your key performance indicator report,
that is a form of soft system, your training program,
that is a form of soft system.
For example, within our organization,
we have a 30 day onboarding process for team Dan Lok,
any new hire that we hire, they go through a 30 day process
that immerse them into our culture, our core values,
our mission, what we about what we are not about,
how we do things, so that we don't have
to manually train someone all the time.
They're going to go through this process,
there are different assignments,
there are books that we recommend to read.
And in 30 days they can then hit
the ground running very, very quickly,
then all we need to do is just integrate them with
whatever that we are working on
and they could get started very, very quickly.
Because think about this,
people come and go and that's life.
But the jobs that people do will remain
even though those people are no longer with you.
Isn't it a lot easier to find someone
to fill that position, if you have systems in place,
someone could hit the ground running,
versus what most business owners do
and this is what I used to do, I made that mistake.
That when someone leaves right, their capabilities,
their skill sets all going with them,
and now you have a void.
Now you need to start from scratch,
you hire the person, you spend a lot,
a lot of time training that person, right,
very, very costly, versus every single time
someone leaves your company, it creates a huge burden,
it creates a massive amount of chaos,
that you got to clean up that mess
and you got to go in every single time
to be the hero to save the day, you do not want to do that.
Thing about this, how most business owners operate,
think a bit like a car right, without systems,
what you do is every single time you're going to hire someone,
you're going to have him or her,
or you build this car together, right,
and you going to teach that person how to drive.
And finally, after a long period of time,
you've got a car and that car is kind of going
and the driver is there, but the problem
is when they leave with our systems,
they take the car with them, they take their skills,
they take their resources and capabilities all with them,
Now, guess what?
You got to build another car again,
you got to find the person, you got to work together,
you got to build a car before
you have something running versus,
think of the car as the system.
And if a driver has basic driving skill,
you could bring somebody to drive that car,
so you lose a driver, okay, you lose a driver,
kind of sucks, but you still have the car,
that's the system, you could bring another driver
who has some basic driving skill.
That person just kind of needs to learn, get familiar,
okay, well, this car is a little bit different
from my last car and my last job,
but the mechanics are saying right,
kind of the basics are same,
all I need to do is just kind get familiar
with just the feel of the car,
that person can get up to speed so much quicker,
versus someone takes the car with them
every single time you lose someone
that is very, very costly.
So the system would run the business
and your people would run the system,
that's how you build a business
that runs without you, a business that scales
and air free level is an other devil.
What got you to a $100,000 a year in revenue,
won't get you to 1 million.
What got you to 1 million, won't get you to 10.
What got you to 10, won't get you to 30 million and beyond
because the very team, the very same team
that you have at a $100,000,
won't be the same team at a million,
and it won't be the same team at 10 million,
and it won't be the same team at 30 million.
What you need to focus on as an entrepreneur,
as a business owner at every stage of your business,
they're completely different, and that's the challenge
most business owners face.
They don't know how to shift from an entrepreneur to a CEO.
If you want a proven path of exactly
what you need to focus on
at every stage of your business growth,
and also, how do you shift from the entrepreneur to the CEO?
How do you wear the CEO hat?
You could download our Dragon 100 Path with the link below.
- Dan's a force of nature.
- He's improved arguably millions of lives,
where they can provide themselves with more money.
His materials are great,
excellent he's at the top of his game.
- For everything he says has a purpose
and everything he does is done with heart.
- So what I've seen from Sifu Dan Lok
I didn't see us from anyone else, he's done it,
he's been there and he's still doing it.
- Because of Dan Lok, my revenue went 30% up.
- I actually get like a clearer picture
of how I should run my business.
I can feel it that he really want to help his student.
- Start taking hold of more advanced strategies,
on building our brand and creating content,
leveling up our team.
- In an environment where I could actually be around people
that were going to support that, encourage that
and hold me to a higher standard.
- Dan is a great mentor to get you not only
in the right frame of mind, but then to give you
the knowhow, the tools, the skills to get there.
- If you will just follow his advice.
Go step by step according to his blueprint,
you will achieve results more than you can imagine about.