What Is Your Proposal Writing Plan?

I am taking a break from writing a very long proposal that I really don’t want to write.  I don’t want to write it because 90% of it is fluff and nonsense.  Some time ago when building my business I went through the “Wants-Don’t Wants” process as it relates to my business.  This type of project was on my “Don’t Wants”.

While reading the biography of John Boyd, simply titled “Boyd”, he had a similar complaint about Pentagon work.  He called it “gold plating”.  He and his team would establish the criteria for a great fighter, and someone would add unnecessary equipment or requirements to curry favor somewhere.  “Gold Plating”.  

In the tech world, specifically the online world, these big long proposals are a form of gold plating.  For instance it, an big proposal justifies the legal department, IT and even public relations charging x hours to look over the Request for Proposal (RFP) along with a host of other jobs.

On the vendor side, it means I too must spend money with Lawyers, Accountants, and Project Managers to get every ones buy in.  On both sides a virtual committee is formed.

Committees are by nature – timid. Based on the premise of safety in numbers, content to survive rather than take risks and move independently ahead. - Ferry Porsche

When we are stripped down to our essentials we perform our best.  This is true of any endeavor in life whether it is man or machine.  The success of Apple has been based on this simple truth until recently.  Where they go from here is anyones guess.

Look at a race car.  Everything you don’t need is taken out to save weight allowing the car to perform better.  Why have insulation when earplugs will work for an hour?  

When you know your business, you can write a profitable quote on one page in a few hours.  When you get the job, then you create the plan.  Much less time consuming for both sides, and therefore less expensive for the client, and likely more profitable for you.

The email from my attorney just came in, so I’ll go back to my proposal writing.  I can’t help but here my own advice in my head: “Learn to say no more often.”

So You Want To Start A Business? Get Ready Then!

The spirit of freedom and responsibility that drives many people to start a business, is what drove the founding fathers to break away and start this country.  The battle cry of "Taxation without Representation" was a catch phrase that simply asked for freedom and responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, you can't have one with out the other and have society progress.  These days too many people are willing to give up both for security.  Security is a myth that can never be achieved completely.  The most secure people in the world are locked up in solitary confinement somewhere.  I bet those guys would trade for freedom any day.  The question is, would that take the responsibility that goes with it?

Benjamin Franklin is attributed to saying that you can't have Liberty and Security at the same time.  He is right.  They are polar opposites.  With responsibility comes a little bit of risk.  The key to success for today is understanding that you must manage risk in order to succeed.

Most people live in fear of the risk and responsibility of owning a business and therefore never enjoy the freedoms you can earn as the reward for managing the risk and accepting the responsibility.

The barriers to entry form many businesses also keep people out.  Lawyers have to go to law school, pass the bar and still there are hundreds if not thousands of out of work lawyers or lawyers that have a different job.  Just because you make it over the barrier doesn't mean you will succeed.

In a previous blog I encouraged you to act like an independent contractor at your job.  Take more responsibility and manage more risk in exchange for a bit more freedom.  If you could look back through time and watch me when I had a job, I learned to do exactly that from my mentors.  I managed to work a 3/36 schedule so I could fly and play more while at one company.  The deal was I had to outperform the 40 hour scheduled workers by 10% as well.

The company got 44 hours worth of work and only paid 36.  It was a win-win. That mentality gave me the confidence to start my own business.

There are many businesses with very low barriers to entry, such as real estate. You can become a Realtor after a few classes and a test.  Your total investment might only be $300 or so.  The problem is that with such a low barrier to entry there are a lot of people doing it.  This means starting out you will need a lot of patience and persistence to succeed.  Or you need a much better way to get the job done by working smarter, not harder.

The best way to prepare yourself for starting a business is to look at all of the places in your life where you have traded liberty for security.  Do you use unemployment regularly because you can't manage money?  Do you "need" health insurance provided by your boss or the government?  Do you work for someone else for the "security" of a paycheck every two weeks?

Can you manage your life if you didn't have any of these things?  Stepping out on your own can be a scary thing, and at the same time getting over that fear is one of the greatest accelerators on the road to success.  Many of the most successful business owners I know have done the "credit card shuffle" trying to pay bills they didn't have money to cover.

The pain and embarrassment of not making your bills is a defining moment for every entrepreneur.  It is at that moment, you push a little harder and make it, or you give up and "go back to work".  Like many successful people, I have done both at least once.  The difference is that the minute I went back to work, the embarrassment didn't go away.  There was no joy or happiness when that first check came in.

The last time I was shuffling money and missing payments, I dug in, and when that next client signed on, and that next check came in, it was a rotating beacon of emotions.  First it was relief that turned to joy that turned to ecstasy, and within weeks, more clients, more books started selling, and more work came in.

If I didn't have to scrape to find quarters for the dollar menu, would I be where I am now?  I can't say for sure.  The biggest mistake you can make is getting locked into a failing method.  I will admit when I dug in, I also changed my approach.

Don't get locked in on one idea, try to listen to the clients and figure out why they aren't buying and adjust accordingly.  More importantly, in the infamous words of Winston Churchill, "Never, Never, Never, Give Up."

Is It Possible To Make Too Much Money?

I have had an entrepreneurial drive as far back as I can remember. Like a few of the entrepreneurs of my generation, I started with a paper route. The last of the dinosaurs. At least I don't think kids right around on bicycles delivering papers at 5 o'clock in the morning anymore.  

At a very young age, I learned a lesson that it was possible to make too much out of the deal. My neighbor's father was an attorney who told me something I had done wasn't "fair".  It took me many years to understand how I misinterpreted the lesson.

To begin with, "fair" has nothing to do with a good deal.  Fair is simply someone's perception. When an attorney is involved that perception usually isn't anybody's perception who is involved in the transaction. In this case it was worse because he was the wrong person to listen to and it was an incomplete lesson.  I am a believer in “win-win” negotiations.  This is a very important lesson (and embarrassing) for me to share.

The lesson started when I traded one of my “Hot Wheels” with the kid next-door. About two hours later his attorney father was standing at the door chastising me for taking advantage of his son. His father felt that his son did not get a good deal and was very aggressive about letting me know that it was not okay to trade toys.  He made me trade back.

Now I say that the attorney-father was the wrong person to listen to because he was not a trader, he was an attorney. An attorney writes contracts and charges a fee. While there is some entrepreneurial aspect to the business of law, most attorneys, doctors and dentists are simply professionals. They are self-employed with a job. They aren't dependent on buying right, adding value and selling at a significant profit.  Now this isn't to say that there aren't some very good and entrepreneurial professionals out there.

Since I was only 10 or 11 years old at the time, I took the lesson very wrong. And that lesson was ingrained into my psyche as a business owner in a way that negatively affected my business. Again I am sharing this because I see it on a regular basis.

What I took away at that time was that making too much money or coming out too far ahead on the deal was ripping people off. If you have ever said to yourself or to somebody else, "I can't charge that much" or "That is just too much money for that" then you have the same wrong thinking.

What I overlooked was the fact that his son was crushed because he had to give back the toy he really wanted and take back the toy he had all ready grown tired of.

It wasn't until many years later, that I understood how this was affecting my business. I was underpricing my services and undercutting prices on products for no reason. We worked hard to deliver the best value and still reduced our profit for no reason. Many of my competitors were making more money and I really couldn't figure out how they were doing it. The day I realized it was in my head, And it was okay to make money when you deliver real value my business life changed. 

I bring this little story up because this is an issue that I see over and over working with business owners today. Our society inflicts guilt upon us for being too successful. When you stretch to deliver something great and end up making a lot of money people around you will be offended. They are offended because you effectively have told them they are not doing good enough and there is a new standard to achieve.

When you start out in business most of your friends and associates will be in a similar financial situation. When you break away and leave the group, you are telling them that it can be done and they might be the problem. 

One very said truth of success is that you will need to find new friends. This isn't because you've changed, in fact you haven't. Your drive just helped you to succeed. The issue is your old friends attitude towards you will change. They will not respect what you've earned nor will they respect you any longer. 

Some years ago A business owner told me about the first party he had in his new house. He expanded in great detail on the destruction caused by his so-called friends. He was rather depressed when he realized that all of his old friends were no longer friends. 

If you want to see how this applies to the entertainment world take a look at ESPN's BROKE.

Don't be "Broke".

What Is The Value Of An Idea? How Do You Sell It?

Just about every conference I go to where there are serial entrepreneurs and business owner the question about the "Value of an Idea" pops up in one form or another.  It usually isn't that direct.

Normally it starts out with someone approaching me and telling me their great idea.  They will spend several minutes elaborating on how this idea can be monetized and how they are going to get rich.  At some point the conversation turns and they say something like this, "So what do you think?  Do you want to take this and run with it?"

To begin with my answer is always a resounding "No".  The funny ones are the people who come back year after year.  Sometimes they are worried I will "steal" their idea.  One guy wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me anything.  Obviously I have no idea what his great idea was.

When this happened last week it occurred to me that all these people are really asking is "What is the value of my idea?"  They are also indirectly asking if it is good enough for me.

I have a couple of simple rules that I live by, mostly because I figured out doing otherwise meant I ended up working for free for someone else.  The first rule of course is "follow the money".  Anytime I see something crazy on the news or in politics, it is easy to follow the money to find the real issue.  Most people won't do the homework though.

The second rule is that I don't take financial or business advice from anyone making less than I do.  In fact, I use 5x as a rule.  All of my coaches make at least five times the money I make.  Yes the coach has a coach.  In one area the coach makes less than I do overall, but makes several times what I make in that specific area, which passes the litmus test.

So how does this relate to the value of an idea?  Basically if your track record is that of Sam Ginn, then I'll listen, and maybe want to get involved.  The first time I met Mr. Ginn, I wasn't following that rule and it cost me.  Instead I listened to me. The same was true when I met Sandy Lerner.  Two strikes is all I needed.

For everyone else, until you have proven that YOU can add value to an idea, it is just that, an idea.  Nothing more than electrons in your brain moving around in a way that only you can truly understand it.  Even if you have a working product, it may not have any more value yet.

The value of an idea has two main variables.  First is the number of people it solves a problem for.  The bigger that number, the bigger the potential value.  Second is a factor on which you are able to execute.  If your ability to execute on your idea is zero, and you know how to deliver clean water to everyone, guess what?  The value of your idea is zero.

Last year a friend of mine presented a nice little office product.  It was something he wanted and felt the world needed.  I looked at it for several days, talked about it with other potential users and asked if they would buy it.  The answer was no across the board.  The problem it solved wasn't a pain point with any of us, so the idea, while nice, needed to compete on price alone with existing products.  How fun is that?

Occasionally someone gets lucky and sees the value of an idea and buys it or rents it from the person who had the idea.  Bill Gates saw the value of PC-DOS and bought it, making himself among the richest in the world.   Ever hear of Seattle Computer Products?  Didn't think so, they created QDOS and later PC-DOS which is what Bill Gates bought to create MS-DOS.

To Seattle Computer Products, PC-DOS was a necessity for them.  They didn't see the real value.  What they did though was have a working product that someone could buy, and Bill Gates did.  Even PC-DOS was more than an idea when Microsoft took it over.

The genius of Microsoft was asking IBM for a very small cut of the PC sales at IBM in exchange for MS-DOS.  I am amazed at how many times people ask me to take over their idea and give them 50%.   50% of an idea that has no value is still $0.  The value isn't the idea, it is the execution.  The idea is simply the starting point.

That is why Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Ginn and Sandy Lerner can all give me advice anytime.  They know how to execute.  The value is 99.995% in the execution.

So what is the value of an idea? Nothing.  Absolutely nothing until you build it to prove it works to solve a problem or convince someone else of its ability to solve a problem.  Even then the value is still very close to .005% until you execute.

While it is true you can't execute without an idea, the idea doesn't solve a problem for one person without exection.  Solving problems is where the money is hiding.

Farming One Crop, or Multiple Crops For success which is better?

Have you ever felt that school was a waste of time?  Have you ever been lost in a subject to the point you didn't know the time or even the day?  How can it be that you absorb some things very well, and others topics of education can be so uninteresting that you have to work just to stay awake?

The reality is simple, and the truth isn't easy.  As humans we are hard wired to have an interest in certain things.  Those interests create the desire to learn more.  No interest, no desire.  Great teachers create interest first, lessons second.  Boring lecturers spew out lessons and hope you can force or fake interest.

Technical schools and apprentice programs used to be the way of life, but corporations found these a bit too risky and pushed the responsibility to the government, which by the way gladly accepted.  The problem was instead of allowing people to find an interesting path and become great at it, we were all lined up on boring roads and received somewhat generic educations.  This is why the greatest technical companies like Hewlett-Packard, Bell Telephone (AT&T), Edison Electric and Apple were created by those that stepped out of the system and created their own learning path.  They stayed interested.

So what does this have to do with Farming and Success?  Much like school, life and business offer us a variety of ways to grow and succeed.   The two Steve's of Apple, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard, along with Mr. Bell and even Mr. Edison all showed us a different way to build success outside of the halls of education.

Ironically, farmers figured this out long before industrialization, and the lesson is one worth looking at.

In my coaching life, focus is a major element of my work.  I spend a lot of hours with clients getting them to simplify and focus on a small number of important tasks and goals instead of giant, endless to do lists that are really just busy work to avoid the hard work that needs to be done.

Lately I have been called a hypocrite more than once.  Besides coaching, I still fly, train our internet marketing staff, and am involved in real estate as an investor, trainer and agent.  So the question I get is "How can you claim focus is so important when you have so many irons in the fire?"

To start with, I don't look at these like irons in the fire.  I look at them like a farm.  You can build one giant farm with one crop.  As long as that crop does good, you will do great.  The better you do the more land you can buy and the better you get at knowing how to get the most money from that crop per acre.  You get the best prices on seeds, pesticides and labor because of the economy of scale and your ability to buy in quantity.

You can also build a farm that has several smaller crops of higher margin.  By learning how to grow crops that help each other in pest prevention, soil conservation and nutrient usage, you can also create a great farm.  You can never compete against the single crop neighbor on a price basis, and when the economy turns south, you might be in a riskier position. However, the single crop master farmer has to worry about a single shift ending his business.  What if he grows sugar cane, and the government decides to tax sugar 100% because it causes health problems.  He could be out of business overnight because you can't just change to tobacco in a day or even a month.

Starting a multi crop farm takes a different kind of focus.  You must have a big picture of what you are trying to do overall, for instance create an organic farm, or a farm store.  You must also focus on each crop one at a time until you learn them so each are a small success.  Your sugar might only yield 80% as much per acre, but your higher quality can yield equal or higher profits per acre.  Think Tiffany's.

When I sit down to write, I am a writer.  When I go to the studio to act, I am an actor.  I don't bring Real Estate to the studio, and I don't practice acting during open houses or when I am flying jets.  When I fly jets, I look and act like a pilot.  When I am in the Real Estate office working, training or attending a meeting, I look like a professional full time Realtor.

As I built my life, I did it in stages.  I worked at flying jets until I was highly proficient and only need a few hours each month to maintain my skills.  Then I could start classes for Real Estate.  I worked at that as an investor for years and know have my methods down to simple checklists.  I can evaluate an investment in less than 15 minutes.

Finally I could start acting classes and work at adding acting to my skill and income sets.  Writing is really just an extension of my experience just like coaching is, but I still take classes to be better at both of them as well.

I would probably make a little more money if I just picked on, and did it all of the time.  I am very fortunate to have started on my first path very early, and having stuck with it, was able to move on to the next with plenty of time on my life clock left.

In Flying will I ever be Bob Hoover?  Nope.
In Real Estate Investing will I be Donald Trump? Nope.
In Acting will I be Tom Cruise or John Travolta or even Scott Baio? Nope.
In Writing will I be Steven King? Nope.

Can I do quite well at all of them individually so that the income and lifestyle add up to something like they live?  Yes, and that is the life I designed for myself.

Because I built my life this way on purpose, I don't work at any one job.  In fact I don't work at any of my jobs.  They are all fun.  I am doing now almost exactly what I want to do when I am "retired".  It doesn't get any better than that.

So it doesn't matter which type of business or life you want to build, a single faceted super sized business/life or a multifaceted business/life.  As long as you pick one, do it with purpose and take the time to develop each facet or perfect the single face of your business, success can be achieved either way.  As long as there is a destination or goal to focus on you can do it.  No destination, no focus, no achieving the goal.

As you head into the weekend, really take a look at what you want.  A single mission business or do you want to do something more?  I like getting small and medium checks daily from all kinds of sources.  Some people need steady checks on the first and fifteenth, and others can do with one or two really big checks a year.  What do you want?

You can start with a single business like real estate investing and turn it into a 100 Million Dollar empire like Dean Graziosi did and then the checks don't matter as much.  Success really is that simple, it just isn't easy.

The Carrot and Stick For Better Business Success

In earlier posts I discussed going outside of the envelope.  As a pilot we would train by leaving the envelope in a spin, and recovering to the normal realm of flight.  There is a step I didn't mention. In military flying, because the training puts you closer to the edge of the envelope so often, and you spend so much time outside of it to gain understanding of aircraft performance, the jets have ejections seats.

If you go into a spin and you get below an altitude that will allow you to recover, you simply eject and save your life.  You can always get a new airplane.

While not a proud moment in my life, having to walk away from a business I spent 8 years building, it was the right thing to do.  The business went into a spin and did not have the finances to recover.  I ejected, regrouped and went back into business.  Most who eject in business will never go back.

Knowing when to bow out of the game is just as critical to success as pushing forward.  Just like being in an airplane there are some indicators that the spin is getting too low and you need to do something differently and quickly or you are going to need to eject out of the business.  A late ejection is called a bankruptcy.

Running a business is a challenge that very few will ever try.  Fewer yet will be successful at it, and a big part of my life has been spent understanding why.  A few will have failed in one business only to succeed in another as I did.  Without doing this I don't think I could have the understanding I have now.

Within the business all of the people have an effect on the outcome.  If you don't believe it, you are looking at your business all wrong.  Paying someone to do nothing at all still takes money away from the bottom line and therefore effects the outcome of your business.

When everyone is clear on what the mission is of the business and is properly trained in their jobs, the owner is only there to make minor course corrections and keep everyone moving forward.  The owner acts more like an interested investor or a coach when the business is set up right.

During the early days of Apple, Microsoft and Cisco, there were a lot of ups and downs. The people that stuck it out made millions on their stock options.  The success of the company created their individual financial success.

As a leader, your job is to make sure that there is a stick, and it is used only when needed.  Too much discipline, unfair attacks or any kind of discrimination just hurt the business.  Failing to enforce the rules  of the business can be worse.   In my successful businesses my employee turnover was near zero.  In my failed venture, I had 80% quarterly turnover of key employees.  The business had a major problem and I couldn't see it until I ejected and could look at it without having the worry of making payroll.

These days I spend way more time hiring and turn away new business when I don't have the people or capital to service the customer properly.  I know how hard it is to turn away good money, but if you can't earn it, you have to turn down the work until you are ready.

Employees, staff and contractors all need to know what the "sticks" are for not making the goals.  A friend of mine just got a promotion at his company because someone falsified some records.  The stick was a swift termination.  This is exactly the right thing for the company to do.  They don't do it often, but when they do find a salesperson falsifying records, the zero tolerance policy is enforced.

Being "nice" has no place in decision making at this level of the game.  If the person is lying on paper, they will lie to you and your customers.  They need to go.

Of even greater importance are the carrots.  The rewards for doing great work must be there.  Just like you need to give yourself rewards, you need to learn what your employees really want.  When you learn that and give it to them as a reward for exceptional performance.  When you do, they will deliver and keep delivering.

Most owners don't take the time to learn about their employees and find out what they really want.  You can't learn what sticks they'll fear and respect so you won't need to use them if you don't know your staff.  Likewise, you can't learn the rewards if you don't know who they are either.

Know where you want your business to go, know what your people really want and don't want to go and you are off to a great start.  There is more but if you don't get this part right the rest won't matter.

Do Nothing Get Nothing, Do Something You Might Get Something

The cynical among us read that title and said "Yeah, but you might do something and get nothing too." They would be right.  There are dozens of sayings like this.  The basic premise is if you want something to happen get off your butt and do something, unless you are a writer, I find writing easier when I sit.

There are a lot of angst ridden people in the world.  They feel like they are doing so much and getting so little.  I have felt this way many times, and I am sure you have too.

We attend seminars, read books and watch shows that are supposed to make us feel good and help us get more out of life.  So with all of this help out there, why do we feel like we aren't getting enough?  How come we sometimes feel helpless.

The Secret

No not the movie or the book, but the real secret.  Do you want to know it?  There is a comedic irony to life, and once you discover it and more importantly once you start living it, you will feel like you are getting enough because you will be getting more than you believe you will get today.

Now some people will start off by telling you to be happy with what you have and live with it.  They will try and tell you it is all in your head.  Some of it is.

The part that is in your head I like to call the Schleprock syndrome.  My wife has a little bit of it still, and when I see it I shut it down quickly.  You might have it too.

The Schleprock syndrome is a low state of constant worry.  The other day my wife answered a text to be available on Saturday, and then took another gig Friday night.  When she started to worry about an early work time on Saturday, I looked at her and said "This is easy, either cancel one now, or if Saturday is too early, get a hotel or better yet, tell them you are no longer available."  Having valid options stopped the worry and sure enough, Saturday was cancelled anyway.

When I had my largest business, the first time I had to skip my own salary to make payroll, I spiraled into Schleprock syndrome.  From then on I was more worried about making payroll than building a business.  Some will tell you that you have to worry about making payroll as the owner, and I will tell you that is bunk.  If you can't make payroll the business can survive.  If you don't get new business it won't.  It really is that simple.

This is the part of the book "The Secret" that I think is valid.  If you spend all of your time focused on the bad things that can happen in your life, you will do things that increase the likelihood of them happening.  While the reverse is true, being focused on the positive things does lead to more positive, it doesn't magically make a rock star parking space appear at the mall on black Friday.

Now that I understand the Schleprock phenomenon and can see it in others, the question is how to break the spell?

Yes this part is a mental game, in fact all of it is.  Unlike the teaching of an author once made famous by Oprah Winfrey, whose career stalled about that time by the way, this isn't about being happy with what you have and staying put.  The only people that plan works for are buddhist monks.  The rest of us thrive on change to live life.

We might have a little fear of change, but we need it to grow.  Being happy is just one ingredient of the recipe for success.  Some comics who are successful and miserable prove happiness isn't even required for financial success.

The Chicken and the Egg Question

Starting where you are today, where do you go next?  Do you fix your mind and stop worrying, or do you focus on the positive and the worry goes away?  I bet you have heard about or read about both ways.  Has either of them worked?  I bet not.

What happens in both cases is the mind is already trained to think a certain way.   You have triggers all around you that start certain thought patterns.  Leaving that unpaid bill on top of your desk that you know you can't pay this week doesn't help.  You might see your highest paid employee and think "I need to cut payroll" and your day begins its downhill slide.  You might see an invoice that you can't pay on your desk, and your day begins a downhill slide.

So if you can't just stop worrying or thinking positive, what do you do?

To begin with, simplify.  My experience both personally and as a coach is that simplification is the key to getting started.  You may have already put some events into motion that make that very difficult.  Tough decisions have to be made here.  They are clear and easy but tough because we don't like letting other people down.

Some of the easy methods center around de-clutering your life.  Make time and mental space for yourself.  A file folder for bills that you can't pay now gets them off your desk.  When you get a big check, open it up and feel good about paying as many as you can.  When you are done, put it back and move on.  Looking at the bills every day when you don't have money to pay them isn't going to help you get more money.  It just wastes time you could be using to find or generate income and starts your worry spiral for the day if it hasn't already started.

If you have a family, you may need to sacrifice some or a lot of family time to really achieve what you want.  If you have a business, you might need to let some people go and take over those responsibilities yourself for a while.

It isn't about which to do first, you must make a phase shift that covers both.  Getting positive without eliminating worry doesn't work nor does eliminating worry and being negative about everything.

The place to start is by looking for the best all of the time.  Look for the best in yourself and others, look for the best in events in your life.  At the same time look to simplify.  Say "No" to anything that isn't helping you get where you want to go.

Making a list of goals isn't the answer either.  Everytime I meet a new client who does this, they are doing it very wrong.  Most of the time if we really talk about the goals, we find that the goals are counterproductive and limit each other.  For instance, "Being the best dad" and "Being a great singer" can't happen at the same time.  One must come first.  Once you master the first one, then move on to the second.

The Simple Path To Being a Millionaire

Even when I get people to a single goal, or "mini-mission", a deep review will find several activities or sacrifices the person isn't willing to do.  Gary Keller wrote a fantastic book that will make anyone a Millionaire who is willing to follow it.  In fact he wrote two of them.  The Millionaire Real Estate Investor and the The Millionaire Real Estate Agent.   At Keller Williams offices these are affectionately known as MREI or the "Blue Book" and MREA or the "Red Book".

For those of you that don't know, I have a real estate license for my  own investing.  It is one little step that Gary missed.  If you are going to be a pro investor or a pro agent making seven figures, I think you need to take the classes, get the license and know what is going on in the industry.  I also don't find helping friends who are getting bad information from agents that don't even own a home or are on salary so they don't care.

For business owners, actors and consultants there are hundreds of similar classes that will give you a roadmap to success.  These should be taken in addition too, not in lieu of the formal training classes for your craft.   The best always are studying and learning to get better.  If you don't enjoy learning more about your craft, your first step is to go find a new craft.

95% of the agents I meet have never even heard of either of these books.  The dozen or so that I know that read them have changed their goals.  Instead of following the checklist to become a millionaire, they decide to do less and make a lot less.

My friend and mentor, Dean Graziosi, also has several great books with step by step methods to making money in real estate.

Both Gary and Dean describe quite clearly the actions you mist take to achieve the goals they set for you.  It is very simple, but not easy.  They are both telling you exactly how to "be" if you are going to be a real estate millionaire in five years or less.

Here are two authors, which with a five year investment of your time and effort are the closest thing to guaranteed financial result that I have ever seen.  So why do I tell people about these books and risk increasing the competition in my investment business?  Simple, most people won't do it at all because they might have to sacrifice a little luxury in their life, and another group will lose focus in the initial days weeks or months, and finally competition forces you to get better.

The irony and secret of life is this.  You will only be paid to be the best when you are the best.  Of all the things that you can do in life, there is one that you will be the most successful at.  Likely it is something you already do or free and don't think anything of it.  The better you get the more you will make.  The competition is ready for the job, you need to be better than ready.

Success is simple, but the road that leads to it isn't easy or lazy.

The Three Sources Of (Bad) Information

Our minds get information from a lot of sources, and of course the basic purpose of our mind is to sort all of the chaos into usable information.  Whenever we get an “easy out” the mind takes it.  What I mean by an “easy out” is pre-sorted information.  

There are three major sources of information that our minds use.  Within this are all the bad and damaging thoughts we have hidden deep in our minds.  My own experience and observing my clients as a business coach, and several very successful people, I think this is a critical piece of understanding, and more importantly a critical learning objective if you are going to have a shot at real change and success in your life.

As kids there is so much going on in our lives we take every “easy out” we can.  We take what our parents say as gospel, teachers and other adults fall into the same group.  Once we accept the information as truth, our minds take the information and file it away for future use. 

As teenagers we start to test the information.  We begin to give more weight to information our peer groups provide than our parents and teachers sometimes.

The trick is to understand the sources of this information, where it comes from and how you can fix it.

The Collective Mind

There is a lot of different thought in this area, and for some even acknowledging the existence will be difficult.  At one end there is pure instinct, knowing how to breath, have a heart beat and blink.  At the other end many believe that we are all connected and that all knowledge exists in the “ether” or the “collective mind”.  

Without a full dissertation on the physics of energy, in simple terms we are all just stored and organized energy.  Everything you see and can’t see is exactly the same thing, stored and organized energy.  Everything is simply energy and space.  All molecules are made of atoms.  Atoms are made of particles and “empty space”.  Many physicists now believe there is more energy in the empty space than there is in the particles.

Look at it this way.  When you burn wood, you change the connection of the molecules to get heat, light and ash.  Gasoline powered cars do the same thing.  When you burn gasoline, a hydrocarbon is split into several smaller molecules like water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide among other things.  From a gallon of gasoline you get enough energy to move a car up to 50 miles these days.

Nuclear power actually splits the atom and changes the particle arrangement.  Several thousand times more heat and energy is generated per pound of material used.  

A single uranium fuel pellet the size of a fingertip contains as much energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal or 149 gallons of oil. - NEI.org

Many believe all of the knowledge that ever existed is contained within the energy field that separates the particles of an atom.  For centuries in every civilization there has been an a different way to explain the same thing.  Some say it is communicating with ghosts, or angels.  Others will say “it just came to them”.  Since man can’t mechanically get the information out of the “ether” or see it, most don’t believe it.  

Call it what you want, the collective mind, the ether, god, love or if you are a big Star Wars fan call it the force.    The point is to accept that it exists and your instincts come from it.  People who can stay connected to it, are likely to get much more.  

If you ever work with small children in groups and some just have the answers or know what to do and others don’t, you might be watching the extended instinct ability of the collective mind at work.

If you get information from the collective mind, there isn’t much you are going to change, and in some ways maybe you shouldn’t change it.

This leaves us with the next two, and very important, sources of thought and belief

Your Mind

As we discussed elsewhere, when your mind encounters unknown information, it will do everything it can to sort and store the information in a usable way.  Like a hoarder, your mind has a massive store house of things you likely will never use.

One of the better tools I have seen people use to dissipate incorrect or damaging beliefs is to think through the process and clear the mind of the clutter and cobwebs.

The method goes something like this:

When you are feeling bad about something or things aren’t going your way, ask yourself “What do I believe about that?”  

For instance, lets say I am walking into an interview and looking around the room, I don’t think I can get the job.  I would then ask myself “What do I believe about getting the job”.

My answer is “Looking at the competition, I won’t get it”

Then the next question to ask myself is “Who told you that?”

Finally I answer “The Mind”

The idea is that by saying “The Mind” I shed the thought and can move forward.

The problem is there may be deeper issues and this quick tool won’t get there.

You have to keep drilling until you find that in fact is was the mind and not your parents (an outside source) saying “You’ll never be good enough for a job like that.”  

Outside Sources

This is the third and most important source of bad and damaging information I can think of.  Why?  Simply put, why would the collective mind give you bad information?  Did it teach you to breath wrong?  Did it teach your heart to skip a beat, or did some outside stress or information cause it?

Sadly most children grow up in a very negative household.  Since the 1970’s the news has turned negative and people now look for the “bad news” and not the good news.  Watch any news channel and it is 70% or more bad, scary or negative news.

For most people your outside sources are against your success and they don’t even know it.  It is your job to deflect, change and move on.

For example, if you wanted to be an actor, well meaning parents might say something like “Dear, you can do anything, why would you waste your time as an actor?”  

That piece of outside information gets set in your mind like cement and says a bunch of things all at once.  FIrst it says, “Being an Actor is a waste of your life”, second it says “We don’t know what you will do, probably waste your life”.  It doesn’t sound like that but no direction is the worst direction.

If your parents grew up with jealousy or envy they might say “clean up your act or you won’t amount to anything”.  or “Who are you Mr. Big Shot to do better than your father and me?”.

Those statements set your mind up for failure.  The key to the self analysis tool above is to keep digging until you have a name to answer the question “who told you that?”  The mind normally isn’t the culprit in deep seated beliefs.

Once you know the name, you can then ask, “Who are they to decide that for me?”  Your answer should always be “Someone who isn’t qualified” so you can let go of the belief.  Richard Wetherhill described a similar process it as opening the gates of the mind to let out the false beliefs in his writings during the early and middle 20th century.

Jesus, Buddah and Mohammed all taught similar methods for clearing the mind of false beliefs.  Organizations that surround these teachings have changed the use.

Only when you can clear out all of these negative and damaging beliefs will you be ready to move ahead.

Simple Design aka The KISS Principle For Business

When I first entered the military in 1984, we got beat in the head with the KISS principle.   While I am sure you know that KISS means “Keep It Simple Sir”, I wonder if you have applied it to your business, your marketing and your life.  

Successful products offer a simple solution to a problem in our life. If the solution isn't easier than the product, the solution simply doesn't sell.  The same is true for businesses of all kinds. For some reason though, the entrepreneurial curse makes us feel like we must do everything.  The secret is to do everything in the background.  One of my early mentors said “list everything you do, down to the last wire and charge for it, show your customers where the money went.”  I did that for a while and it didn’t help at all.  In fact it just took up a bunch of my time and cluttered up my brain.

Instant Results, Limited Efforts

Let’s take the iPhone for instance, and even now the Windows phone with "Tiles".  They each do one job very well.  The job of these “phones” is to help you “stay connected”.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  All of the magic that keeps you connected is in the phone and the service.   Instant results, limited effort.

Yes, you have the choice to buy games and other apps, but the phone comes ready for you to connect.  Connect to friends, connect to customers, connect to the internet, connect to email and connect with text.  And all of this is easier than doing the same things on that little flip phone you used to have or you wouldn't have bought it now would you?

Windows Tiles for Windows phones and the Microsoft Surface is a hit because it takes one step out of the process.  Tiles  show you a picture of your world without you doing anything.  The flaw (Mr. Balmer are you listening) is that the purpose of a desktop pc or even a laptop isn’t the same as a phone.  Staying connected isn’t why I have a PC, it is why I have a phone and a tablet.  

SImply put, Tiles on a work PC don't work, because I need my PC to do work.

Single Purpose Wins.

Maybe a better example is the new NEST thermostat.  This is a very simple device that packs a lot of brain power in a small package.  It is All you have to do is turn it up or down to set the temperature you like.  It learns and eventually you do nothing.  No more programming schedules that leave you in the cold on those winter holiday mornings because it is Tuesday and you should have gone to work.  No more cooling the house while you are on summer vacation because you forgot to reprogram the thermostat.

The elegance of the design of the NEST is that on the outside, there is very little interaction, and on the inside is a massive amount of logic.  If you want to be the super nerd and watch your energy usage on the fly, the NEST will let you do that, but like all new toys, the novelty will wear off and the only time you’ll even remember you have a NEST is when a visitor says “What’s that?”.

The easier the interface is for the customer, the more likely they are to play along and also pay.  We can’t be experts in everything, and nobody really wants too.  Business is no different.  The easier you can make the connection to the customer, and the more “magic” you can take care of in the back ground, the happier your customer will be.  

As customers we all say we want to know what it going on.  The truth is, we just want to know the progress and know when we get what ever it is we bought.  Think about it.  If you file bankruptcy, do you care about every form, court date or filing unless you have to go to court?  No, you just want to know that the creditors will stop calling, and the nightmare is closer to an end right?  When you buy a car, 99% of us never have a clue what the engine looks like.  Why?  Manufacturers have covered it with a big piece of plastic to make it look nice.

I have a new voice activated GPS.  While it is pretty smart, it is no Siri.  I have four portable GPS devices sitting in my garage.  The one in my truck is simply the easiest to use.  It has XM traffic so it does magic while I just listen to music and drive.  I don’t care about the magic or how it works.  I could use my iPhone with Siri, but quite frankly, her new maps and navigation don't compare (Apple map guys are you listening?).  KISS doesn't mean make the product simple, it means make the inputs to and from the customer simple.

What is your "Secret Sauce"?

It is funny how many times a new client will ask me how we do it.  SEO clearly isn't that easy or everyone would do it.  

I just respond, “We don’t sell the secret sauce” and yet my book is right here for sale.  The big picture of what we do is all right here for under $20.  The difference is followup.  When you pay me, you will be reminded to simplify at every corner.  Your marketing is never put on the back burner and as you simplify your business, income will go up, relative costs will go down and so will your stress level.

What is your Secret Sauce?  Can you do it better and cheaper than you customer can do it for themselves?

If you still have that entrepreneurial urge to go out and do more, I can’t do a thing about it right now.  I took up Chump Car Racing, paddle boarding and bought a new bike.  What will you do?

Checklists for Success

As a pilot, we need to get a check ride every year if you want to keep flying.  The bigger the plane the more difficult the check ride is the rule of thumb. The truth is a lot easier than that.

There is a saying in aviation, when something happens either "wind your watch" or "sit on your hands".  The reason is simple. The knee jerk or impulse reaction is usually the wrong reaction.  I see it in aviation and I see it in business every day.

Would You Like A Little Freedom With Your Business?

It is almost an irony of the jet age and the information age that going faster isn't always the best method.  Big jets get places fast, but don't change trajectory quickly.  Business is much the same.  When an engine catches fire in an airplane, specifically a big airplane there is an impulse reaction to shut the engine down and use the fire extinguisher.

While those two steps are on the checklist there are other things to check first.  For instance, you want to make sure it is a real fire, not a false alarm.  Shutting down an engine that really isn't on fire makes things worse when you are halfway between New York and London or Los Angeles and Honolulu.  We call this a self induced emergency.

In business the same thing can happen.  I see it in my office and I see it in my clients offices.  The big difference between flying and business, is pilots have a checklist.  Our "checkride" is really a reminder to use the checklist.  Unfortunately, business owners don't get to practice emergency procedures and test out their checklists.  Many big name franchises have excellent training manuals that include these checklists.  If you are a small business, and didn't work for a competitor and "borrow" the checklists, you have to build yours by trial and error.  That can be an expensive checklist.

A business coach can be like the flight instructor on a check ride.  The business coach can ask you questions about scenarios that are likely to happen and you haven't seen yet.  Then you can build the checklist for your staff before the business is actually on fire.  Teachers even have a checklist for fire drills and yet most business owners don't.

Many things that you as the owner do every day can be handed off to your staff very effectively by just building a simple checklist and training your staff to use it.  The key to success here is followup.

When you hire a really good business coach what you are really hiring is someone to hold you accountable for achieving your stated goals and reaching that next level of freedom and success in your business.  Your mission is to find tasks that you can shed to your staff and hold them accountable in the same way.

As you build your checklists and your staff begins to take over your tasks, you can focus on your business instead of working in your business.  Need help?  For $297, I'll send you a copy of the "Easy Guide to Internet Marketing", and for the first ten people, I'll add a $100 Google adwords coupon if you don't already have an account and we'll spend an hour going over how to create the right ads and create a checklist so you don't have to do it.  That is a $1,675 value for $297.

Not convinced. I'll do one better.  How about a money back guarantee.  If you don't think you got a deal, I'll refund your money, you keep the book.  email me at scott@ownersplay.com and I'll send you the questionairre and a paypal invoice so when we get on the phone we can get you started right away.