Competitive Disadvantage

Not training your people will put you at a big disadvantage in the marketplace.  Imagine a football team that did not practice, plan and train to go up against their opponenets.  Imagine if they just showed up on game day for the first time?

How well do you train your team?

Immoral businesses

If you’re business model depends on others (individuals, groups, governments) acting in your best interest and against theirs or anyone else’s (other individuals, groups, taxpayers) it is immoral and won’t work for long.  

Instead, if others buy from you voluntarily after freely considering other unencumbered alternatives, then you are adding true value and don’t have to worry about it all collapsing on you one day when your “customers” wake up or decide they don’t need or want you anymore.

Doing what you’re doing, is your future safe?

The Roller Coaster

Being an entrepreneur is a roller coaster.  Slow uphills and sudden down hills.  Loops and spirals and high G curves.  It’s not easy.  In the course of one day or week we can experience triumphs and tragedies.  If you are a new “Trep”, it can rock you.

Don’t let your problems break you. Work on them objectively.  Many are opportunities or are at least telling you what you have to work on to avoid these problems in your future and make your business better.  Expand the good and celebrate it with your team.

Hang on!  It’s a hell of a ride!

Don't give your spirit to bad news

Today I got bad news.  But then again, I get bad news everyday.  And I get good news everyday, too.

This sale got made, this one fell through.  This employee did great, this one messed up. This customer is happy, this one isn’t. This will save me money, this will cost me money. It’s a roller coaster.

Today I heard about something that will cost me $3500.  Then another thing that will cost me $640.  Then we lost three man days labor because of a problem.  I could respond naturally and let my spirit and attitude go down with the problems, or I can maintain my attitude and see it for what it is – feedback.  It only hurts me if I let it.  And if I let it, it hurts me financially and emotionally.  

Why give bad events power over your mental and physical health, too?

The quality of your thoughts

You will be paid for the quality of your thoughts relative to how to build an enterprise that produces a profit by providing a product or service that costs less to produce than people will voluntarily pay for it.

How much do you know about this?  Is there more you can learn?  Do you think there are things you don’t know that you don’t know about it?

"I kicked ass today"

When you pull into your driveway at the end of the day, can you say, “I kicked ass today”? 

That you got a lot of things done that will matter tomorrow?  That you solved problems without feeling their weight?  That you built up your team in some way so they will be more effective tomorrow?  That you dove in and learned/took control of an area of your business that was a weakness for it and you?

Be the entrepreneur who calmly, boldly, firmly and productively makes each day count.

Kick ass.

How to Hustle

I’m not sure why, but when I was a 8 years old (1972), I responded to an ad in a comic book and sent away for a box of Burpee seeds to sell door to door. I sold out and reordered. When I was in Boy Scouts we had fundraisers and sold all kinds of merchandise.  When I was 13, my brother and I caught bait fish with a 20 foot long drag net at the beach and sold them to the bait shops.  When it snowed, I went door to door with my shovel.  When I was 14, I bought a paper route from another boy.  Then another.  Then another. I delivered 140 papers faithfully each day. I was making $80 dollars a week in 1978.  I learned how to hustle.

Let’s teach kids very young.  Give them examples and experiences on how to hustle – how to sell things. They will be less dependent and less afraid for the rest of their lives. 

Action!

Think about it, talk about it, meet about it, ponder it, study it, consider it, research it, and write it up – You’ve still accomplished nothing to get different results.

Action is how we make change!

Simple Questions (cont.)

What do you have to differently to get the different results you are looking for?

What is the first step?  

Can you take it today?

Will you?

Simple Questions

In many ways, business is not difficult if you know what you are doing.  We make it more mysterious and complicated than it has to be.  We stop asking ourselves simple questions.

For example, here’s two simple questions –  

After all these years working on it, where are you now?

Where do you want to be?  By when?