How To Get To It, Now!

Have you ever come to the end of your workday asking yourself, “Why didn’t I get anything done today?” Yeah, me, too. Two posts ago, before we had an interruption for exigent circumstances, I promised you I would teach you how to get to it now and get your customer’s paying work done as timely as feasible. So, let’s get to it now and see how we can make that happen for you.

If you read my book, you will find The P10 Principle, which states, “Proaction, perception, planning, preparation, practice, and persistence promote practically perfect performance.”  I conglomerated this concept from a variety of sources including Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits, W. Edwards Deming’s Out of the Crisis, John Norcross’s Changeology, and Thomas Greenspon’s Moving Past Perfect.

We can easily assume you are being proactive in your desire to get to doing your paying work done as timely as feasible. So, let’s move on to the perception part of the P10 Principle.

In order to do anything, you have to perceive three things.

  1. First, you have to perceive, in immaculate detail, your practically perfect performance of what you want to do. In this case, it will be the practically perfect performance of getting your paying work done as timely as feasible.
  2. Once you have perceived your practically perfect performance of doing what you want to do, you have to then, second, perceive how you are obviously much less than practically perfectly not getting your paying work done now.
  3. Once you have perceived what you want to be doing and what you are actually doing, then you have to perceive what of your life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people you can and must apply to get from what you are doing to what you want to do.

Making the change from what you are doing to what you want to do is where most of the work of the P10 Principle comes into play. This working part of life, both personal and professional, is where the planning, preparation, practice, and persistence “P’s” of the P10 Principle come into their necessary use.

As with almost anything else in life, the exact details of how one performs each of these steps varies with the specific facts and circumstances that present themselves to anyone who needs to get their paying work done as effectively and efficiently as feasible. Most of the time, if you have the requisite skills to qualify yourself to get hired to do paying professional work, you really should not need much planning, preparation, practice, or persistence to get started.

The truth is, in most situations where you are not getting your work done timely enough, you already know what it is need to do and you already know how to do it. The real problem, however, is you just can’t get yourself to work doing it.

Why not? Why can’t you get yourself to work doing your paying work? Usually, it is because you don’t really like what you do for a living or because you cannot see yourself making any progress in your life doing what you are doing the way you are currently doing it.

This is a vicious cycle, the breaking of which, requires you to admit you need some help and resolve to go get it. You can get help internally, but you are probably presently failing at that, or you can get help externally, which is going to require you to invest something, sometime, somewhere.

The secret at this point in time, however, is to “Get To It, Now!” either doing your paying work or getting some help getting past whatever is blocking you from doing your paying work now.

 

If you need help, contact me and I will be willing to help you. But you have to ask and commit to working on the problem yourself with my help.

I look forward to hearing from you.

5 “Gets” Any Business Must Get To Get Ahead

Have you ever known what business you wanted to run but couldn’t figure out how to get it running already? Yeah, me, too. But let me tell you what I found out.   To succeed at any business, you only need to get 5 things.

  1. You must get known
  2. You must get called
  3. You must get hired
  4. You must get done
  5. You must get paid

If you do these five things effectively and efficiently, then almost always, you will succeed in your business.

My good friend Linley Richter tells me does almost all of these things almost all the time and he is damn near perfect. I hate to tell him, however, “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and if you don’t do all five of these things persistently and consistently, then whatever you are doing will most likely be wasted.

Get Known

Getting known is all about branding your company, your products, and your services. Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article on branding. Read it. Apply it. No need for me to repeat the whole darned thing here.

Get Called

Getting called is all about marketing your branded company, products, and services efficiently. It’s a digital world, folks; but, don’t forget about traditional media as well. Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article on marketing in this modern world. Read it. Apply it. No need for me to repeat this whole darned thing here either.

Get Hired

Getting hired is all about taking leads who respond to your branding and marketing and converting them to customers who order what products and services you are selling. Holy cow! Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article on converting prospects. All you have to do is read it and apply. No need for me to even say there is no need to repeat the whole thing here.

Get Done

Getting done is something a lot of service-oriented business people like lawyers have a problem getting done. (Yes, I intended that circular statement.) They are great at starting cases; but once they get started, they get distracted getting hired on their next case and put the last case on a back burner. I bet you already know what I’m going to write next. But I’m going to fool you just a little bit. Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article on this. Read it. Learn from it the importance of spending most of your time actually doing the work that directly produces income. Then, take the oldest project you have taken on and get it the heck finished already. That way you and I can both get on the last “Get” you need to get to ahead in your business.

Get Paid

Getting paid is another thing a lot of service-orienting business people like lawyers have a problem getting to. Some folks are so busy getting known, called, hired, and done they forget the last, but certainly not least, thing any business needs to do, which is getting paid. No doubt, Entrepreneur has a great article on this. Read it. Do it.

Figuring out that these five things exist is not what’s important, however. Reading the articles is not what’s important either.

We know all these things. We’ve heard them all before. There are no secrets to any of them. Entreprenuer magazine didn’t make them up. Neither did the authors of their Entrepreneur’s great articles on them.

After you get done reading about doing all these things and perceiving them, planning them, and preparing to do them, check in tomorrow and read about “The Most Important Get To Get To Get Ahead In Your Business.”[reminder]What do you think the most important Get is?[/reminder]

 

The First 21 Questions Any Prospective New Small Business Owner Should Ask

Have you ever played 20 Questions with yourself about a new business venture? Yeah, me, too.

Do you still think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur and start a new business? Great! Now, ask yourself these 21 Questions to make sure you’re thinking about the right key business decisions:

1.     Why am I starting a business?

2.     Am I prepared to invest the require amounts of my life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people needed to get my business started?

3.     What kind of business do I want?

4.     Where will my business be located?

5.     What products or services will my business provide?

6.     Who is my ideal customer?

7.     Who is my competition?

8.     What differentiates my business idea and the products or services I will provide from others in the market?

9.     How will I brand, market, and advertise my business?

10.  How many employees will I need?

11.  What types of suppliers do I need?

12.  How much money do I need to get started?

13.  Where will I get my startup capital?

14.  How soon will it take before my products or services are available?

15.  How long do I have until I start making a profit?

16.  How will I price my product compared to my competition?

17.  How will I set up the legal structure of my business?

18.  What licenses do I need to obtain?

19.  What taxes do I need to pay?

20.  What kind of insurance do I need?

21.  How will I run my business?

Do You Have What It Takes To Start Your Own Business?

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to start your own business? Yeah, me, too.

Starting your own business can be an exciting and rewarding experience. It can offer numerous advantages such as being your own boss, setting your own schedule, and making a living doing something you truly enjoy. But, becoming a successful entrepreneur requires many things.

Consider whether you have the following characteristics and skills commonly associated with successful entrepreneurs:

Are You a “Smart Creative”? Are you able to think of new ideas? Can you imagine new ways to solve problems? Entrepreneurs must be able to think creatively. If you have insights on how to take advantage of new opportunities, entrepreneurship may be a good fit.

Are You a Calculated Risk Taker? Being your own boss also means you’re the one making tough decisions. Entrepreneurship involves uncertainty. Do you avoid uncertainty in life at all costs? If yes, then entrepreneurship may not be the best fit for you. Do you enjoy learning about the opportunities available and obstacles you might have to overcome so you can enjoy the thrill of taking calculated risks? Then read on.

Are You Independent? Entrepreneurs make a lot of decisions on their own. If you find you can trust your instincts — and you’re not afraid of rejection every now and then — you could be on your way to being an entrepreneur.

Are You Personable and Socially Persuasive? You may have the greatest idea in the world, but if you cannot persuade customers, employees and potential lenders or partners, you may find entrepreneurship to be challenging. If you enjoy public speaking, engage new people with ease, and find you make compelling arguments grounded in facts, it’s likely you’re poised to make your own new business succeed.

Are You an Effective Negotiator? As a small business owner, you will need to negotiate everything from leases to contract terms to rates to getting employees and others to do what you want when, where, why, and how you want it done. Polished negotiation skills will help you save money and keep your business running smoothly.

Are You Open To Being Supported By Others? Before you start a business, it’s important to have a strong support system in place. You’ll be forced to make many important decisions, especially in the first months of opening your business. If you do not have a support network of people to help you, consider finding a business mentor or consultant. A business mentor is someone who is experienced, successful, and willing to provide advice and guidance. Business consultants do the same thing professionally, meaning they expect to be paid for their services. If you are buying a franchise in order to start your own business, then your franchisor should be a major component of your support team.

Do you think you have what it takes to start your own business?

Why Turnkey Processes Yield The Best Results

Have you ever wondered, “How can I go big in my business without a technological breakthrough?” Yeah, me, too.

In his book Discipline Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup, Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, posits only two distinct types of entrepreneurship exist. Aulet’s first type includes small and medium enterprises usually started by one person to serve a local market seeking the rewards of personal independence and cash flow from the business.

The MIT professor’s second type, innovation-driven enterprise (IDE) entrepreneurship, involves more risk-taking and more ambitious as entrepreneurs, working in teams build a business off some technology, process, business model, or other innovation that will give them a significant competitive advantage over existing competitors. IDE entrepreneurs seek to create wealth through exponential growth more than to remain in control of their companies as they drive to become big and fast-growing to serve global markets with the help of venture capital from a limited number of new part-owner-investors who insist on seizing control of the enterprise.

There is, however, a third type of entrepreneurial enterprise that blends these two extremes. This third type, which is achievable by every small and medium enterprise owner, is to start, buy, run, and grow a turnkey business in order either to sell it for profit or sell duplicates of it as franchises.

Rather than being based on a technological breakthrough, turnkey businesses based on quality management improvements drive the success of the clear majority of small businesses in America and around the world today. Quality management improvement drives better businesses to be more effective, more efficient, and, therefore, much more profitable than their competitors in many ways.

Unlike Aulet’s SME model, the turnkey model blends the best of both entrepreneurial worlds. It begins with a focus on local, then regional markets, but has the end game of letting others rent the business process the turnkey entrepreneur innovates. The turnkey quality management system innovated allows for duplicable jobs, instead of tradable jobs, which multiply employment instead of merely relocating employees. And, most importantly, it grows exponentially with the franchisor staying in control of his or her business model and operations, while each franchisee begins with and maintains control of his or her own personal risk, reward, and destiny.

Whether you want to be a small business owner, an IDE entrepreneur, or an owner/franchisor, if you want to truly own your own business and get the biggest return on your investment of your life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people in your business, then you must use the P10 Principle to start, buy, run, grow, and sell your business as a turnkey operation and begin with one location and let other people rent your business processes as franchisees.

[reminder]What are you doing to turnkey your business?[/reminder]

10 Reasons Why You Can Hire Us

Here are the top 10 reasons business owners hire us:

1. You can hire us because of our expertise.

2. You can hire us to identify problems. Sometimes you are too close to a problem inside your business to identify it. That’s when we ride in on our white horses to save the day.

3. You can hire us to supplement your staff. Sometimes you discover you can save thousands of dollars a week by hiring consultants like us when we are needed, rather than hiring full-time employees. You realize you can save additional money by not having to pay benefits for consultants like us. Even though fees are generally higher than your employee’s salary, over the long haul, it simply makes good economic sense to hire us as consultants.

4. You can hire us to act as a catalyst. Let’s face it. No one likes change, especially small businesses. But sometimes change is needed, and we may be brought in to “get the ball rolling.” In other words, we can do things without worrying about the corporate culture, employee morale, or other issues that get in the way when an organization is trying to institute change.

5. You can hire us to provide much-needed objectivity. Who else is more qualified to identify a problem than a consultant? A good consultant provides an objective, fresh viewpoint–without worrying about what people in the organization might think about the results and how they were achieved.

6. You can hire us to teach. We canteach employees any number of different skills. We keep up with new discoveries in our fields of expertise–and are ready to teach new clients what they need to stay competitive.

7. You can hire us to do the “dirty work.” Let’s face it: No one wants to be the person who has to make cuts in the staff or to eliminate an entire division.

8. You can hire us to bring new life to your business. If you are good at coming up with new ideas that work, then you won’t have any trouble finding clients. At one time or another, however, most businesses need someone to administer “first aid” to get things rolling again.

9. You can hire us to create a new business. We have great experience in this field. Not everyone has the ability to conceive an idea and develop a game plan. We do.

10. You can hire us to influence other people. We can get your message in places you cannot send it yourself.

 [reminder]What’s holding you back from getting our help?[/reminder]

Running Your Own Business – Part 2

RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESSIn Part 1, we discussed the “big picture” of Greatness! Now, in this Part 2, let’s begin with the end in mind and discuss in just a bit more detail the concept of Greatness!, which must drive you to be Great! in business.

Before we start doing “whatever it takes!” to make you Great! in your own business, let’s agree on our definition of Greatness!

Because you are not with me writing this blog, let’s start with my definition of Greatness! Continue reading “Running Your Own Business – Part 2”

Running Your Own Business – Part 1

RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESSIn the Business Facet of this Great! All the Time! blog, you will learn in detail the following ideas:

  • The concept of Greatness! must drive you to be Great! in business.
  • A Great! business leader fulfills the five functions of mentoring, marketing, management, money, and moving on.
  • To be Great! in business, everyone in your business must brand, broadcast, attract, connect, relate, serve, Cha-ching!, Cha-ching!, and repeat.
  • The P10 Principle is the best way to set up and run a Great! business, allow the you to fulfill the five functions of a business leader, and allow everyone in your Great! business to enjoy The Overarching Concept of Greatness!

Continue reading “Running Your Own Business – Part 1”

The 1 Way To Get Your People To Admit Their Mistakes

Report errors and love the errant
Report errors and love the errant

Have you ever been overly severely chastised? So severely reprimanded that not only you felt guilty (because you felt you had done something badly), but also, and worse, you felt shamed (because you felt you were a bad person for having done something badly). No one likes heavy-handed reactions to their mistakes in life, even well-deserved ones. So, if you would much prefer your people feeling empowered rather than ashamed, then you must consider this.

Continue reading “The 1 Way To Get Your People To Admit Their Mistakes”

Alberto Maldonado – A Great! Example of the Aloha Way

AlbertoMaldonadoHave you ever thought, when God mysteriously sends you the perfect opportunity to do something new and different, “Should I or shouldn’t I snap this up? It’s almost too good to be true.” Yeah, me, too. And the times I have passed on such things still haunt me to this day.

But not today, my friends, not today.

Meet Susan’s and my new best friend on Oahu and in our Marriott Vacation Club family, Alberto Maldonado, who quietly and magnificently serves a small tribe of less than 500 clients as a Senior Sales Executive for Marriott Vacation Club in Ko Olina, Hawaii. More important than having just sales education, training, experience, and success, however, Alberto has a winning personality, expert credentials as a surfer (he is the former Peruvian surfing champion pictured here to the right), and the Aloha spirit of being willing to serve people without expecting anything in return.

Which is how I came to be standing atop his soft top board in the picture below. Wait for it.

For the last week of every year since the 2000, Susan and I have gone to one of our Marriott vacation villas located around the world for our annual “Last Year – Next Year Think Week,” where we recap what all we did over the last year and set our course for our happily married adventures during the next year. During each of those visits, we schedule a meeting with a Marriott sales associate to stay up on what is new in the Marriott Vacation Club program so we can squeeze as much value as possible out of this key item of property we count among our life’s precious resources. Because we are experienced owners who aren’t necessarily looking to add to our portfolio, we usually get assigned to some of the newest, greenest associates in the ownership center. This year, however, we got picked up by a senior sales associate, to wit Alberto Maldonado.

A lean, well-tanned Peruvian, Alberto chatted us up with his romantic South American accent in the reception area over our complimentary hot tea and then invited us back to his office. As he slid up to his side of the desk across from us on the other side, he asked the perfect salesman’s question, one I have tried to teach sales training clients to put first and foremost in their minds, one I have planted on the top of my branding for decades. Alberto asked, “How can I help you today.”

“Well, I’m glad you asked that just the way you did,” I replied. “Because it makes us feel so much more cared for than you just trying to sell us additional weeks.” He nodded with gratitude, as I continued. “In fact, we are trying to decide whether to sell our weeks, convert to hybrid weeks to access the newer resorts, or just sit still.”

Alberto did next what I have taught salespeople to do for years. He turned over his information sheet on me, picked up a pen, and put the pen to the blank side of the paper, and said, “Okay, tell me what you want to do and let me see if I can help you do it.”

Long story short, he fashioned a solution for us that was better than we had imagined. The GRRRRReat! part of the story, however, was Alberto’s interest in deepening our collective connection after we had closed the deal.

“Have you ever been surfing, Ken and Susan. Because I like taking my customers out surfing. I’m a great instructor and I know a great place, where only the locals go. If you want, I can take you out there tomorrow and teach you how to surf.”

It just so happens, I have always wanted to learn how to surf, and the warm weather of Hawaii made the prospect even more promising than my experience of learning how to snow ski in Breckenridge in 1982 (but that’s a different story). The next afternoon, Alberto took us to a beach with a great view of Diamond Head, sat us down for the pre-ride class, went over the basics, strapped his board to my left ankle and off we went into the water.

Cowabunga!!!!!
Cowabunga!!!!!

Here’s the result of my second attempt.

I’m the guy riding on the front of the wave. The real victor, however, is Alberto Maldonado, the guy in middle right side of the shot with his hands in the air holding me up from yards away, having helped me, in his own Aloha way, serving me and expecting nothing from me in return.

My new lifelong friend. Not lifelong because we’ve been friends for long, but rather because, we will be friends forever.

[reminder]What’s your most recent example of someone else living the Aloha way, only doing something for the service of others? Tell us about it in a comment below. [/reminder]

In the meantime, you GOTTABGATT!, so go out there today and be Great! All the time!