T. Harv Eker's Blog, page 20

By this point, we can talk for days about our money blueprint, yes?

It's that program we created, or way of being that we've grown accustomed to, in relation to money—mostly without us being aware of it. Our money blueprint manifests our financial reality. Like the blueprint of a physical structure, it's either going to be drawn up big or small—to accommodate a lot of money, or little.

That kind of blueprint is about the mental game of money, but let's take a look at a different kind of blueprint—the one that encompasses the machine, the vehicle that will build your wealth—that is, your business.

A lot of people start their businesses without any blueprints. They say, "Well, I've got a couple of clients. Then I'll figure out all the marketing stuff and get some more clients."

That actually could work, but the downside of that kind of success—without a system in place that can handle the new volume—could lead to having so many customers that you literally don't know what to do with them. You could end up losing as many potential repeat customers as you will the additional word-of-mouth customers those lost repeaters could have served up for you.

Designing a basic blueprint for your business allows you to get the lay of the land for your enterprise and understand how your business is organized. Maybe even more importantly, your business blueprint can show you those critical success factors that aren't in your business. Enjoying the fruits of owning your business is much different when you can take a six-month vacation from it, yet it's still running the way it should when you get back.

No matter what the business, there are four basic blocks that need to be included in the foundation of your business' blueprint:

Leadership. This is the part that provides vision, inspiration and makes most of those key, highest-level decisions about how things should be run.
Business development. This is mostly marketing and sales. That's where all the business comes from. These are the team members—and the processes in place—who find those prospects that want your product or service. Business development is where your promises are made and disseminated.
Delivery. Once those promises are made, somebody's got to do the work, yes? In manufacturing, those are the people who create the product. In other businesses, it'll be those people who provide the service. Those are the fulfillment people, those who deliver on the promises.
Administration. These are the often unheralded (don't take them for granted, though!) people behind it all: accounting, legal, payroll, etc. It's a separate yet very important group because that's exactly where a lot of systems and processes often go awry.

Again, no matter what the business, every one of them is going to have these four essential components.

Similar to our psychological blueprints, what's under the ground creates what's above the ground. So many of the obstacles we come across in business can be tracked to structure and systems. As intensely as we work on the mind game of money, so to we need to pay special attention to the actual structure of our money making machine.

What do you think? We want to hear your comments and stories!!!

By this point, we can talk for days about our money blueprint, yes? It’s that program we created, or way of being that we’ve grown accustomed to, in relation to money—mostly without us being aware of it. Our money blueprint … ... read more

Of all the things that occur in your business, which ones make the most difference?

If your top value is revenue, for example, which parts of your business make the most difference toward revenue? Is it lead generation? Is it having a good sales process? Is it knowing how to close and eventually sell the business?

Those critical factors that lead to success in your business—or really in anything—are those practices where you put more time, attention and effort, and where afterward you get even more in the return for that time, attention, and energy you put in.

For example, adding legal services might not transform your business, but adding lead generation systems (i.e. systematic marketing!) could really transform it. Adding a referral generation system could totally transform your business at an incredibly low cost.

There are some fairly broad success factors that really make a business hum to the tune you want to hear. Those factors include:

- Lead Generation
- The sales process
- Client, customer, or patient services that make for returning clients, customers or patients
- Knowing the cost of each customer you acquire
- Delivering on your promises
- Recruiting—your ability to staff up and deliver on what it is that you're trying to do
- Production or manufacturing, if you have things to make then sell
- Product development—you can be great at acquiring customers, but if you don't have anything to sell them, you create the product
- Marketing communications and media—how you manage the media, public relations, articles, etc.

Compare each of these things to the things that tend to frustrate you in your business, or those factors that you consider to be most important to you. If revenue is your top value, lead generation is going to take on greater importance, but if it's client services, then recruiting will be more important to you than lead generation. There is no fixed, one-stop shopping solution.

Your selection of criteria could be vastly different from everybody else's, so you select your criteria first, and then you go through the list and you consider, "What are the pieces that are most important to how I get what I want out of this thing I call my business?" Naturally, the list above isn't all inclusive; there are many others.

Once you figure out your criteria and then start looking at how to systemize whatever process you're focusing on, that's permanent. The hardest part of that is already done. You might look at your critical success factors every half-year or so—you don't want to just do this once and get complacent in thinking that adjustments won't be necessary along the way. But doing it in the first place is a key step in creating those systems that not only grease the wheels of your business for smoother function, but also those reasons why we started doing all this to begin with; more profit, more time, and eventually freedom from the business so you can do whatever you really want to do.

What do you think? What are the success factors that have been critical to your business, or where do you find yourself focusing your time? How does that pan out? What adjustments did you or do you have to make? The Millionaire Mind community wants to hear from you!!!

Of all the things that occur in your business, which ones make the most difference? If your top value is revenue, for example, which parts of your business make the most difference toward revenue? Is it lead generation? Is it … ... read more

Last week we explored how sometimes we just need to be able to identify what we're frustrated at in order to begin addressing it. When there are consistent frustrations in a business, we can usually address them but putting systems in place that minimize inconsistencies and produce more of the results we're really looking for.

It's another one of those no-duh, no brainers that may not appear like much until those frustrations build to the point of blinding us from the most direct solutions.

But we now want to articulate the impact of that frustration on our business condition. How does this thing impact you? What results aren't you getting? What's happening? What's not happening that you want to happen, or don't want to happen?

We don't want to be working on anything that doesn't really matter. If you're frustrated because your partner starts their day later than you do, does it really matter as long as the work is getting done? But if that lateness means missing calls from earlier time zones, that could have an impact, yes?

So it's one thing to name a frustration, and it's another to know exactly what that frustration translates into toward your bottom line. You've got to probe, measure, and quantify that frustration. You might find at the end of the day, you're really getting bothered over something trivial—or you could find that your frustrations are indeed warranted.

If you have a complex system you're looking at, this process can take months. So how about a more simple formula?

"The real problem in my business is the absence …" It could be a system that will cost-effectively generate leads rather than be a costly guessing game every time. Or a system that staff can follow consistently rather than doing it their own way each time, producing mediocre or inconsistent results. Or it could be the absence of a system for strategic planning rather than primarily responding to a competitor's moves.

It's just a generic way of focusing. You're not actually formulating a system yet. What you'll find is some of these things that you describe can actually be purchased as software programs, or you can easily hire consultants who do them much better than you would. But once you've figured out what the problem actually is, reformulating starts to become easier.

"The real problem in my business is the absence of a system that will …" Fill in the blank with that generic system solution and then write down your original frustrating condition.

You should start to feel a shift in your energy in terms of some of these things that are frustrating you. The question that you simply have to ask now is: Is this frustration worth fixing? Is this frustration that you named—if it's not stemming from within you—something you have to address quickly or is it lower on the priority scale?

Do you really want to remedy this frustrating condition or would you rather just live with it? That's the question that you have to answer.

What do you think? What are some frustrating aspects of running a business that you've encountered, and how did you remedy them? Did you find value in naming and understanding the impact of those frustrations? Were some of them really nothing? We want to hear from you!!!

Last week we explored how sometimes we just need to be able to identify what we’re frustrated at in order to begin addressing it. When there are consistent frustrations in a business, we can usually address them but putting systems … ... read more

When we get frustrated by our conditions, we inevitably end up becoming frustrated with ourselves. It can take us over and we tend to run with it. It can creep into every aspect of our lives, from how we relate to the people around us, to how it will impact our business.

If the frustration builds for too long, pretty soon we might forget altogether what the hell we were frustrated at in the first place, yes?

This happens in business all the time, especially when, in the early stages of the business, cash flow can fluctuate maddeningly, which then leads to all other kinds of frustrations from payroll to profits.

There's an energy attached to frustration that sucks the life out of your business, and if you're not dealing with this as a business owner, it's only going to go downhill from there.

Moving back away from whatever the problem is, step one toward a solution is simply being able to classify your frustrations. Is it with your team? Your results? A process that doesn't seem to flow efficiently?

Some typical early-stage business frustrations include time (there never seems to be enough of it), feeling like you're too bogged down with menial detail-work instead of bigger-picture tasks, or relying on people to get things done that don't follow through. Just to name a few.

This is where the importance of systemizing your business processes plays a huge role. First you name your frustration, and then you develop the system to address it.

So if you're having problems with freeing up your time yet ensuring that essential tasks still get done, then the real problem is the absence of a system that will hire the right people rather than you doing it all yourself. That way, not only is your time freed up, but the right people will also help micro-manage the way processes continue to develop and flow.

The good news is that frustrations within your business are fairly easy to identify and deal with, though they may take time. Inner frustrations, on the other hand, not only take more time and energy to deal with, but may also be harder to identify in the first place. You could be mad at yourself because you've done something poorly for so long, and you get frustrated about not seeming able to turn the corner. Or worse, you externalize that frustration toward everybody else—the customers, the suppliers, the vendors, the client; everybody but yourself.

We know the power of blueprints, so we won't address that here.

When it comes to outer frustrations that we can identify, though, the questions are much simpler. What's my frustration? What's the gap in the system? What system is missing altogether?

If your frustrations begin with 'I', it's about you. It's inner directed. If it's about 'them' or 'those people' or 'those lousy clients' or 'those suppliers' or 'that lousy machinery' or 'that way' of doing something, it can then be addressed systematically and objectively.

What do you think? Have you experienced similar or even different kinds of frustrations, and how did you address them? Did systemizing play a role? The Millionaire Mind Community wants to hear from you!

Register for a Millionaire Mind Intensive near you HERE

When we get frustrated by our conditions, we inevitably end up becoming frustrated with ourselves. It can take us over and we tend to run with it. It can creep into every aspect of our lives, from how we relate … ... read more

I wonder how many would-be entrepreneurs consider—while they're thinking about running a successful business—that ultimate success means not running that business?

Building a business that has you stuck in the middle of it isn't much better than working for someone else under their terms. It gets to the point where you look up one day and you find that you might make some money, but now you have no life! You're a slave to your business. Money with no life, or vice versa, is brutal.

When you are the one running your business, you are at the very center of it. YOU make all the key decisions. YOU manage all the key relationships with all the key customers. You have to deal with the key suppliers and every key problem in your business. You're the only one who you really trust, and the pressure just keeps mounting. And there's not much of a way out because you've built a business that's based on experience and expertise.

Every new customer requires more work. Results are inconsistent and sometimes you don't even know why. Your customer service may be kind of iffy because you're the only one who really does a great job of it.

And when you're away, you're anxious about what'll happen when you're gone. You don't have time for anything as it is, and when you do, you feel like you probably should be working on the business. And then it's hard to get good people, yes? That's especially true if you're trying to hire superstars to cover you when you're gone.

Think of the difference between hiring someone who's honest rather than teaching them to be honest, or hiring someone that's enthusiastic rather than teaching enthusiasm. Imagine you had a staff where you hire them with the values that you share, and they are capable of doing what you need them to do while you actually do what you want to do and should be doing—which is focusing on keeping that business on the success track.

The definition of a successful business is simple: when it works with or without you. It doesn't depend on you and that translates into increased growth, increased profits, and most importantly, increased satisfaction.

It delivers consistent, predictable, and superior results. There's a good team in place doing what it needs to do without uncertainty or undue pressures on you to make decisions that they should be making.

The only way this is possible is to have systems in place that speak for you and your business. If you have a system, you smooth out the ups and downs. You're able to have predictability in your results, and you're not held hostage to yourself by needing to 'over-the-shoulder' manage. Systems free you from the day to day. It allows you to work on developing the future.

Over the next couple of weeks we'll take a look at some of the different aspects of systemizing so that if you choose, you can sell it for much more money than you would have without having those systems in place.

Remember: what did we get into this for? To have another job?

What do you think? Has the power of systemizing affected the growth or success of your business? If so, how? We want to hear from you!!!

I wonder how many would-be entrepreneurs consider—while they’re thinking about running a successful business—that ultimate success means not running that business? Building a business that has you stuck in the middle of it isn’t much better than working for someone … ... read more