MENTORS Magazine: Issue 3

MENTORS Magazine

Interview with Noah St John

By A.J. Titus

By Dian Griesel

By Marty Schultz

By Scott Hogle

By Neil Ball

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MENTORS Magazine

Publisher Neil Ball

Editor Sally Jones

Graphic Designer Tim Swan

Ad Designer Joseph Dawson

Edition 3 Cover Photograph: Courtesy of Brian Tracy You may NOT copy or use any of the articles in this magazine without permission from MENTORS Magazine. The articles in this magazine are teaching and instructing other people about how to develop personally, in business and other things the writers feel is beneficial to developing personally and in different areas of business. Other articles in our magazine are written by companies, authors, and businesses that have something of value to share and they promote their work to our readers. We also share other stories which we feel are valuable resources for people to learn from.

MENTORS Magazine is not responsible for the content or claims of any advertising or editorial in this publication. All information is believed to be accurate but is not warranted. The reader should do their own due diligence on any information provided in editorial content and for any advertising claims before taking any further action. The reader is responsible for their own actions. Some of the links in the magazine may be affiliate links and we may receive a payment if you make a purchase using them. Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use. If you would like the magazine to share a blogpost or website please contact editor@MentorsMagazine.com

Writers and Contributors Tom Black Garrison Wynn Dian Griesel A.J. Titus Brian Tracy Arvin Patel Dr. Gleb Tsipursky Rob Shelton Scott Hogle Neil Ball Marty Schultz Noah St John

All Rights Reserved © 2019 MENTORS Magazine

Contact Information E-Mail: editor@MentorsMagazine.com Website: www.mentorsmagazine.com Facebook: @MentorsMagazine

Twitter: @MentorsMagazine

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IN THIS ISSUE

By Tom Black with Brian Tracy & Neil Ball

By Garrison Wynn

By Scott Hogle

By Arvin Patel

By Neil Ball

By Dian Griesel

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

By Marty Schultz

By Rob Shelton

By A.J. Titus

With Noah St John & Neil Ball

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Contributing Writers

A.J. Titus

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By Tom Black I have the privilege of knowing some very successful interesting people.

One of my friends, Jess, passed away about 8 years ago, he was 81. One night at dinner, I asked him what he thought his life would be like when he was 75 (his age that night). He told me he always expected great things to happen. Jess grew up in the depression.

He told me many days his family only had rice to eat.

He worked during high school, college and law school (he went into real estate law when he graduated). He was working his way up the food chain.

In 1974, he and his wife bought an orchard in Napa and planted grapes to sell to local wine makers. Everything 6 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

was going fine until 1981. In 1981, there were too may grapes and he couldn’t sell his. He and his wife, Jane, decided to make their own wine. They decided to name the wine

for both of their last names, Kendall Jackson.

would have gotten a discouraging word. I can just see Martina’s coworkers at the Dairy Queen saying “That’s nice, but we got to make more dip cones.”

Yes, when Jess passed away, Forbes magazine said his net worth exceeded two billion dollars. Jess also told me he didn’t believe There is one thing in circumstances. He that no employer, “You can think as big as said he found his cirfriend or your family you’d like and you can cumstances or made can control, that’s make your expectations them, always with your ability to “think come true” the expectation of big”. You can think as something great. big as you’d like and you can make your expectations Another friend of mine grew up in come true. It starts with your own bethe same part of rural Kansas as me. lief system.

She told me she worked at the Dairy Queen in my hometown (Hutchinson) to pay her way through junior college.

I asked her “When you were 18 working in the DQ in Hutchinson, what did you expect your life to be like when you were 35. That’s how old she was when I met her. She said something very similar to Jess, that she had great belief and expectations in her personal success. That woman was Martina McBride.

I always think if either of these people would have told their co-workers about their expectations that they

During my entire career, I’ve heard this over and over again, “What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” I believe it! There is a law of the universe that says, “What you ardently believe and act upon, you can achieve.” The operative word in both of these bits of wisdom are belief and action. Start today believing in the home run. Where you are today has nothing to do with where you can be. As I’ve said before, don’t look in the rearview mirror, you aren’t going that way.

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In college, Tom worked for the Southwestern Company of Nashville, Tennessee. Southwestern employs thousands of college students each summer to sell books door-to- door. Based on his success in sales (number one for three successive summers), Tom became a sales manager at Southwestern.

Tom then joined FISI*Madison Financial and successfully ran the sales organization. Tom grew sales from $2 million to over $350 million.

Tom left FISI*Madison to start Private Business, Inc. Under his leadership as CEO, Private Business grew into the country’s leading provider of accounts receivable programs for community banks. Tom served as CEO for six years and took the company public in May of 1999. Tom was the first employee and the only CEO until the company was sold.

In January 1999, Tom purchased Tecniflex/Bancsource, Inc. Tom formed a sister company, Imagic Corporation, that develops and supports check-imaging systems to community banks. As CEO, Tom expanded both companies from small regional providers to national sales and service organizations. Imagic grew quickly, merged with OSI and went public. Under his leadership, Tecniflex/Bancsource has gone from 27 employees to almost 500 serving 4,000 banks in 49 states.

8 years ago Tom cofounded Ncontracts, now the leading provider of vendor compliance and risk management for financial institutions. Ncontracts serves over 900 financial institutions nationwide.

More recently, Tom has founded the Tom Black Center for Excellence. The Tom Black Center for Excellence, a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), offers customized sales training and coaching services to national clients of all sizes in a wide range of fields. www.tomblack.com Facebook: @Tom.Black.104 LinkedIn: @TheBoxCarMillionaire Twitter: @TomBlackCenter Facebook Page: @TomBlackCenter

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By Garrison Wynn Increasingly, we hear terms like “seller bots,” “cognitive computing” and “relevant metadata” (which one can only assume is a lot more valuable than irrelevant metadata). Such terms can sound pretty scary to many people who work in an underautomated environment. Even for those of us who are tech savvy, the idea that human beings found a way to steal their own jobs indicates that it is mankind’s intelligence that may have been artificial all along.

A reality check shows good news Despite their typecast use in many sci-fi 10 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

plots, bots are simply tools for humans to use to do a better job and provide socially intelligent customer service while increasing profits. Bots allow agents to offer personalized service while their electronically animated brethren do menial tasks. Predominantly, research shows that human beings still value connecting with each other, preferring it over any other interaction.

That includes the screen-glazed-eyed 19year-old Generation Z customer who, despite his professed love of all things automated, was thrilled to find out that Haley

(or Kaylee or Bailey) was a real person when his overly confident trial-and-error trouble-shooting method wasn’t enough.

Self-learning algorithms are impressive and can even beat humans in games of logic.

Still, to be intelligent is one thing. To live in the reality of the human experience is a Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron different thing entirely. Intelligence that does not feel or have empathy is by its very It’s right there in the name: it’s artificial indefinition artificial. As phony as some peotelligence. After decades of research and ple can be, they can still have an emotional billions of dollars poured into that reconnection to a motive. search, robots still can“to be intelligent is one An AI mechanism may not think. Many people even perform well on might take exception thing. To live in the an IQ test; it just to that statement, reality of the human would not know why it but the fact remains. experience is a different was taking the test and Being learned, gaining would not care about knowledge and applything entirely” the result. ing it at record speed does not mean your AI can turn an angry Keeping and attracting talented people is customer around in 7 minutes. Why should job 1 you hope your AI can do it? This customer is getting ready to write the worst review I’m not saying that we’ll never have techanyone’s ever read on Yelp and tell her nology that can replicate human intelli5,000 Facebook friends that your company gence and behavior 100%. I’m sure someis “actually” the devil. Yet, why can’t your one in Florida will invent the first robot to AI do it? Because an artificial brain does be arrested for a DUI. I’m just saying the not read emotions or urgency. That’s what return on investment for artificial intellimakes it artificial. Facebook’s original AI gence does not include anything beyond program, touted as able to identify suicidal programming, at this point. thoughts, essentially turned out to be a filThe future of customer relationship manter for flagging posts that human handlers agement is still dependent on the acquisimust then interpret and respond to. Quite tion and retention of talented employees. often, AI is just a very focused computer Those who are highly skilled at making the program—with some programs (as in this customer feel valuable are themselves the Facebook case) designed with nobler purmost valuable asset the organization has to poses than others. offer.

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I’ve heard from the latest generation of geniuses about accepting the new truth about technology. And I certainly understand where they’re coming from because every generation has said the same thing.

However, there is no such thing as new truth. The truth can never be invented; it can only be revealed. So, allow me to pull back the curtain.

I was corporate leader over call centers in 38 states, back when they became automated with predictive dialers and computer screens. There was resistance and some initial job shrinkage and talk of everyone being replaced by robots (though we envisioned something that resembled Daft Punk more than Siri). We faced new compliance restrictions, regulatory issues and other problems. In truth, the technology made humans better and the industry started to grow. It turns out that industries

are disrupted when they don’t grow and change, but if you know the value of your people you won’t disrupt yourself! We realized that the sci-fi concept of humans being replaced by the technology they create was just that—science fiction. According to many sources (including robotic manufactures) it's believed that robots will actually add jobs and improve the lives of existing workers. Since 1990 the number of call centers and call center employees has increased well over 400%. So, the profitability of artificial intelligence is not always a threat to job security. On the contrary, it could be proof that your industry is worth investing in long term because it has a big future.

So, the next time someone tells you that the ROI for AI will cost you your JOB, you can LOL!

Garrison Wynn is a nationally known keynote speaker, author, and consultant. He is the CEO and founder of Wynn Solutions, specializing in how people and organizations can be more influential. www.Garrisonwynn.com

Instagram: @KeynoteSpeakerGarrisonWynn LinkedIn: @GarrisonWynn Twitter: @GarrisonWynn

Facebook: @GarrisonWynn

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They were the slackers. They were dazed

By Dian Griesel and confused. They wore flannel. They listened to Nirvana and epitomized grunge.

To a large extent, adulthood is just the next Generation X, born anywhere from 1965 to challenge that Gen X is managing to mas1980, has long been viewed with disdain ter. And it indubitably has had many hurby cultural critics, dismissed as a “middle dles to overcome. According to Kipchild” generation between the more populinger.com, the Great Recession impacted lous Baby Boomers and the ubiquitous Milthe net worth of Gen X more than other lennials. But in recent years, something generations. But the now middle-aged Gen momentous has happened to these kids in X is using its ingenuity to come out fine in the middle: Gen X has grown up. In fact, the end. Here are some of the strengths of the oldest Gen Xers Gen X in today’s sociare now 54 years ety. As more Gen old. Has the genXers enter their eration that once 50s, these are Gen X is using its worshipped Kurt some of the adingenuity to come out Cobain successvantages that fully transitioned will see it fine in the end to adulthood at through, keep it long last? influential as a generation, and especially make it a prime target for any business that wants to stay All signs point to yes. And any entreprecompetitive: neurs who expect to thrive in the coming years must pay attention to the needs, wants and dreams of this generation, Gen X is running the office. While organiwhich is now a major economic force in zations are transforming themselves for our society. Looking at who Gen X is—and the digital era, Gen X is playing a crucial studying how they are influencing and role. According to the 2018 DDI Global shaping the world—is a vital task for comLeadership Forecast, they fill the majority panies selling a wide range of products and of all leadership positions around the services. The health of your bottom line world, and since they possess an average could depend on it. of two decades of work experience, they are well prepared to enter the C-suite. Gen MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 15

X is also proving itself adept at leadership in ways comparable with leaders of previous generations, including the ability to find and foster fresh talent.

trips, summer vacation trips and weekend getaways, while Allianz Global Assistance’s Vacation Confidence Index found that Gen X is more likely to overspend on vacation than other generations.

Gen X is planning to stay active. As Gen X looks toward retirement, it is not dreaming Gen X is spending money on its kids. Acof sitting still. In fact, when it comes to life cording to the Pew Research Center, a sigafter work, Gen Xers are throwing away old nificant fraction of traditions altogethmiddle-aged er. As noted by adults (a cohort AARP, even those Gen X is worth taking that now includes members of this Gen X) is bringing extremely seriously by generation who up small chilplan to remain in dren—or serving every entrepreneur the workforce as the financial anticipate their emsupport to older chilployment in their latdren—and the costs associated with this er years will provide them with flexibility, responsibility are steadily increasing. fulfillment, purpose and social interaction—as well as physical health.

Gen X is spending money on entertainment. Gen Xers like to have a good time, if Gen X is filling social media feeds. Not ondata from the most recent Consumer Exly are Gen Xers enthusiastic about technolpenditure Survey released by the Bureau of ogy and gaming; they also utilize social meLabor Statistics are accurate: members of dia at a rate that surpasses that of other this generation are spending more on engenerations, according to research by Nieltertainment than any other. sen, which calls Gen X “the most connected generation.” Gen X was also reported to be more likely than millennials to devote For all of these reasons, it should be clear more time to using smartphones, computthat Gen X is worth taking extremely seriers and tablets. ously by every entrepreneur targeting the worlds of business, technology, travel, family and leisure. If the facts above haven’t Gen X is traveling the world. Gen X has put convinced current and aspiring entrepreon its traveling shoes, and loves to traverse neurs of this fact...it is probable that noththe globe both alone and with friends and ing will. family in tow. In an AARP survey on travel trends, Gen X led Millennials and Baby Another obvious strength of Gen X is its Boomers in number of multigenerational 16 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

recognition of itself as a growing force within society. I’ve witnessed this selfawareness firsthand. As the founder of the Silver Disobedience® movement, my blog has long invited comments from those ages 48-plus about life, love, family and more. It is clear to me that the youngest of my fellow “Silver Disobedients”—who happen fall into the Gen X category—are every bit as cognizant of their own potential as their own children, parents and grandpar-

ents are.

In short, any company in 2019 that writes off Gen X as a bunch of slackers is trading on a bogus stereotype that is at least 25 years out of date. This is a demographic worth paying attention to—a powerful group of adults who are now changing the world as completely as any of those that came before them. The last thing any business should be saying about them is, “oh well, whatever, nevermind.”

Dian Griesel is a perception analyst, social influencer, businesswoman, bestselling author and a model who has appeared in many national brand campaigns. She and her family live in New York City.

Business Website: www.silverdisobedience.rocks Facebook: @SilverDisobedience

Instagram: @SilverDisobedience

Facebook: @SilverDisobedience

Pinterest: @SilverDisobedience

LinkedIN: @DianGriesel

Instagram: @DianGriesel

Twitter: @DianGriesel

Facebook: @DianGriesel/ MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 17

By A.J. Titus For many, a family business is the epitome of the American Dream. To follow in the footsteps of your father and his father and continue the family legacy is the ultimate dream. While there are no secrets to a thriving family business, every business has a unique recipe for success. The Titus family Is no exception.

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If you ask my father and CEO, Ray Titus, just how it happened, he’ll tell you the real competitive advantage is -- and always has been -- family.

As the third-generation brand President for the family-owned sign franchise, I’ve learned everything about succeeding in business from my family. That’s because

the same mindset that builds strong family work environments also empowers businesses to achieve more together.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, about 90 percent of American businesses are family-owned or controlled. So, with all the benefits of a family business, why aren’t more of them winning in their industries? I believe it has a lot to do with maximizing relationships – and while it’s vital in family businesses, it goes a long way towards achieving success in any business model. That brings me to our five keys to success: 1. Recognize the advantages of family ownership.

could successfully combine speed and stability without sacrificing quality. The Harvard Business Review also reported that decision-making windows are shrinking, and managers must continually produce results in less time.

Speed: In family-owned businesses, decisions are often made immediately – without lengthy approvals or formal votes. The speed of change either moves companies forward or holds them back. For us, our family is inherently a team that wants to get things done – we have always embraced change and growth as being fundamental to our core values.

“about 90 percent of American businesses are family-owned or controlled”

One of the most attractive benefits in a family-owned business is fast, agile, nimble decision making. The era of digital transformation is here. Quicker decisions must be made whether it’s leveraging data, closing the gap with customers, or something else. Now, more than ever, businesses must make decisions, as my father would say, in a New York minute. It is more than a trend; there’s plenty of research to support an action-oriented business model. In a review of traits linked to organizational health, McKinsey researchers found that businesses scoring high for agility also ranked within the top quartile of overall business health. For their purposes, agile companies were those who

Stability: Many companies struggle with balancing current gains against business longevity. In a family business, stability is not in question when words like legacy and heritage are used daily. It simplifies decision making by establishing a preferred approach. For over 30 years, our company has thrived, and we make decisions that let us continue that story. Along the way, our leadership has experienced longevity within the industry – allowing keen insight into this now-passing fad in the business world, and what is truly a shift in the way business happens. That kind of expertise is invaluable.

Commitment: With a family business, there is a greater sense of commitment and accountability. Younger generations MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 19

are expected to buckle down and grow what they’ve inherited. Unlike some resumés that are built by strategically jumping from one career to the next, those involved with a family business must find a way to make things work.

Vision: Nothing is as gratifying as everyone being on the same page and pulling in the same direction. A legacy of shared values and vision, coupled with longterm commitment, is what transforms those involved in a family business to not simply look at their own success, but to also become stewards for future generations.

principles. If you don’t let change in, progress will never happen.

4. Innovate There is no overstating how necessary it has become for businesses to break away from the clutter. That takes people who think creatively to offer a fresh perspective on new ideas. Cultivate a business dynamic that welcomes innovation… and the people who inspire it.

“Family businesses aren’t always easy, but they are most definitely worth it”

2. Treat family members equally.

Seniority doesn’t win; skill and hard work does. Sometimes the big win will come from one team member. Other times it will come from someone else. Don’t limit people’s ability to make a positive impact simply because of age or time with the company.

3. Empower the next generation.

It is human nature to be resistant to change. It takes practice to be able to recognize change and evaluate its opportunities and drawbacks. That means you have to allow change while remembering your roots, your core values, and key business 20 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

5. Business is business, family is family.

Conflict happens in business. You won’t always see eye-to-eye with everyone. That’s no reason to ever make it personal (or take it personally for that matter). Whether it’s an actual family member or a valued team member, don’t let business dealings -- no matter how frustrating -- become a source of difficulty or resentment outside the business.

Family businesses aren’t always easy, but they are most definitely worth it. Appreciate the value each person brings to the table, encourage their contributions, and you’ll see a business that has what it takes to be a leader.

Signarama President A.J. Titus leads the world’s top sign and graphics franchise. Signarama is a member of United Franchise Group (UFG), comprised of 9 brands and 1,600 franchise owners in 80 countries.

A.J. sits on multiple boards, including the Rinker School of Business and the Titus Center for Franchising. A.J. is passionate about driving change in the business world. He was also recognized in South Florida Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” in 2018.

Business Website Domain Name: www.signarama.com Facebook Page:

@Signarama

Twitter Profile ID: @Signarama Pinterest: @Signarama LinkedIn Page: @Sign-a-rama YouTube: @signarama Instagram:

@Signarama

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 21

Brian Tracy 22 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

With Brian Tracy, Interview by Neil Ball Neil: Brian thank you so much for agreeing to this interview today.

Brian Tracy: It’s a pleasure, I am very, very happy to be with you Neil. We almost got together last year, and now we have.

I am glad we have got together as well; it truly is an honour.

Neil: Brian, we are going to be talking about business model re-invention. Can you explain what business model reinvention is?

Brian Tracy: Well that’s a great question, and I stumbled across this about five years ago, and I fell in love with the subject because some of the smartest people in the world at the top universities and the biggest consulting firms are now focusing on this. And basically, your business model is your profit model. So, there is an equal sign between business model = profit model. So, it is how you earn profits in your business, it’s the various things that you do or don't do, that generate profits that determine whether you are successful or not.

One of the reasons I am very happy to be with you is because you and I have an identical commitment to helping our clients earn more money, to be more successful in their businesses. And sometimes, if you just make one small mistake in your business; you are driving down the road of life and you take one wrong turn, it can cause your business to fail. And an enormous number of people are struggling.

You know the 80/20 rule is applicable everywhere, in that 80% of the profits in any business are earned by 20% of the people.

Now I was playing around with a calculator just the other day and I calculated, what would that difference be? And the answer was shocking, is that people in the top 20% are earning on average 16 times the average of the people in the bottom 80% in the same industry, selling the same products and services to the same people under the same competitive conditions. Now that is phenomenal, to think that one person... and there is very little difference in intelligence or ability or background or anything else... there is a lot of smart well-educated people who were struggling, and there's a lot of people who just started a business MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 23

because they had no other ideas, who are doing well.

And the wonderful thing is, these make 16 times... imagine what difference it would make in your life, if you were earning 16 times what you are earning today? And so, I started to really deep dive in to business model reinvention, and I took the recipe and I pulled the parts apart and I found that there is a series of things that you need to question. And one of the things that really affected me when I was a young man, is always be open to the possibility that you could be wrong. Always be open to the possibility that you could be wrong.

Because its falling in love with being right, that causes people to fail.

Harvard Magazine interviewed the 500 CEO's of the top companies in a major, major annual business model innovation study for their companies, they found that 80% of company owners, presidents, the CEO's of the biggest companies in the world, admit that their business model is obsolete.

But they say, 'why don't you change it?'

And they say, 'well I don't know how, and I don't want to create something worse; out of the pan, in to the fire.' And so, what if your business model is not working, what are you going to do? He said, 'well I am going to retire fairly soon'. And they said this over and over again, in interviewing the CEO's. They said, 'well I will pass it on to the next person, my successor can take care of the business model.'

Well the fact is that if you are going to have a long run at your job or your company, if 24 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

you own your own company, you have to take care of it yourself. So that is the starting point, and there is several ingredients.

I do two seminars by the way; one seminar is called Business model innovation - the two-day version...or business model reinvention; and then I have a one-day version. The one-day version has seven parts to the business model and the two-day version has ten parts. And what I do is I explain, almost like an accordion spreading out.

And so, the starting point... let me just step back. When I speak to an audience, and I speak to a 100 audiences a year, all over the world, the first question I ask, is I say, 'why do you get up in the morning and go to work?' Just a sort of a fun question, 'why do you get up in the morning and go to work?' And the audience is usually silenced. They sort of smile and look at each other, and they mumble. And I say, 'well, I will tell you the answer, the answer is you get up in the morning and go to work, so that you can make more money.' You want to make more money, you don't want to make the same amount of money, and you don't want to make less money, you want to make more money. Is that correct? And everybody smiles and agrees and nods their head 'yep that's it.'

So, we are all on the same page. And so, I said, 'now, when you get your work, there you are at work, there you are in your business, how do you make more money?

What is the key? How do you make mon-

ey?' So, we say, you ‘Make More Money’ it's MMM. So how do you MMM? And I have almost finished a book on the subject, called ‘Make More Money’... and its MMM. So how do you make more money? Well you SMS. Well what is SMS? It's Sell More Stuff. You sell more stuff.

they copy, they read an article in a magazine or a book or go to a course, and they say that’s a good idea, and they apply that.

Imagine if there are 55 different models, you could very likely be using the wrong business model for your business today.

And the way you can tell, is we talked a And so therefore the key to your success, is little bit offline is that your sales are unpreto MMM by SMS-ing. And dictable. If you have a good “the key to your success, that’s what we are going to business model, your sales talk about today, is how can and profitability go up. is to MMM by SMS-ing” you sell more stuff? That’s Steady, steady, steady. If how can you sell it faster you're business model is and easier and at higher prices, and create wrong, your sales will fluctuate, good one more repeat business for more people and month, bad another month. Up down, up so on? And so that’s how we begin, and down, up down, sort of like a Ferris wheel. the seminar starts off and I say that there is Or your sales could be flat, or your sales several ingredients in a business model. could be declining. In any of those cases, the last three, your sales are fluctuating, The first one, and if you are wrong by the are flat or declining, it could be that your way, in any one of these models, it can sink business model is not well. your business. It can cause you to struggle and frustration, to worry about money all Now if you are ill, if you are in pain, if you the time, to lose money, to psychologically are sick, what you do is you say, 'this is not be depressed or angry or frustrated and so normal, I am going to go to my doctor and on. All you have to do is be out one... and get a check-up.' And it’s very interesting there is 55 business models that they have how many people put off getting a checkdiscovered. And I have studied them all, up, and they put off getting a check-up, unthere is 55 different ways that a business til it’s too late to get a check-up. And then can be organised to generate profits. they die. And this happens with companies Which means there is a very good likelias well, is they are frustrated and they are hood that the model that you are using is fighting with their sales and their staff and not the correct model for you. their customers and their profitability and they are borrowing money and so on. And And what happens is, people start a busithey do not realise that maybe there is a ness and they adopt a business model, sort problem here. And what you have to do is of accidently, they back in to it. They do stop the clocks, wait, wait, wait, let’s take a what someone else was doing, when they look at this. started it. They just duplicate other people, MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 25

So, what I do is I start off with what I call not relevant to anything else... people pay, the golden triangle of success in business. the biggest companies pay based on how Which is very simple... and by the way, I am much of a return they feel that they are goa professional seminar leader and speaker ing to get. And so therefore, you say, and I charge a lot for what I do. And my cli'alright, what is your product?' well your ents are universally very happy. I am not product is a transformation or a transition bragging, I am just saying that the stuff that to get from Point A to Point B. I teach them is so helpful to them, that they just beam afterwards. And I get letters So, the question you really ask, is 'what and emails saying that basically these ideas difference does your product make in your opened their eyes, changed their lives, customer's life?' What difference does your transformed their businesses. Wonderful product make in your customer's life? And stories, I mean it’s great, great experione of the examples I use is the Einence. stein model. And Einstein So anyway, here is the said that if you can't ex“nobody buys a product, golden triangle, the goldplain something in your what people buy is they en triangle is 'what do you life, your goals or your buy a transformation or a sell?' 'Who do you sell it products to a six-year old change in their life of to?' and 'How do you sell child and have the 6-year it to that particular cusold child understand so some kind” tomer?' clearly that they can turn to another six-year old And the WHAT is really important because child and tell them what your product is what we find is nobody buys a product, and why people should buy it, well that what people buy is they buy a transformeans you do not know it yourself. mation or a change in their life of some kind. They buy a 'getting from A to get to So, the question is, imagine you have a 6B'. year old child and the 6-year old child says, 'what do you do?' and you say, 'well I sell I was working with IBM... I worked with this product.' And I said, 'well what does IBM more than 30 times over the years. the product do? Why would people want And they have a way of calculating price to buy it? What change does it make in and value. They say 'here is the product, that person's life?' And that is really the esand here is the amount that you charge.' sence of great business.

Well the more value there is in your product, the more positive the difference your It’s your job and my job by the way is to product can make in their life, the more help people, to improve their life at work in they are willing to pay. some way. We help people with information and ideas that are simple, practical, So, the price is completely subjective, it’s easy-to-use, and virtually guarantee the 26 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

success because so many people have already used these ideas. That’s what we do.

So, if someone says, 'what do you do?' You say, 'oh I help companies dramatically increase their sales and their profitability.'

That’s it. That’s basically your business model. And everything that you do is looking for ways or people like me who can give ideas that will help business owners increase their sales and profitability. SMS so that they can MMM. Really simple.

So, one of the things that I will do, is I will say, 'do you agree with that?' and everybody always agrees. I have a wonderful rapport with my audience, I say, 'now so the only time you are working, is when?'

Well the only time you are working is when you are SMS-ing. If you are not talking to a prospect, or a customer and looking for ways to help them with your product or service, if you are not selling... and I say in selling, there is also a golden triangle. And its prospecting, presenting, and closing. Its finding new people to talk to, it’s telling them about your product or service and how it can help them improve the quality of their life or work, and them asking them to take action to buy from you.

So therefore, the only time you are working is when you are SMS-ing, and the only time you are SMS-ing, is when you're prospecting, presenting and closing. If you are not doing that, if you are in the office or you are talking to your friends, if you are going for a coffee or tea or whatever it happens to be, then you are not working and you might as well go home and pull the covers up over your head, and go back

to sleep. Because, you are of no use to anybody. And when I say that, everybody laughs because it is funny, because people easily get in to the habit of going to work and chatting with their friends. And as much as 50% of working time today is wasted, and the biggest reason for time wastage is idle chit chat with your coworkers. And then of course there is coffee and checking your emails and there is reading the newspaper and going out for lunch and starting late and leaving early and so on.

So, I talk about business separately in terms of personal productivity, but the fact is that when you start work, there is a very simple solution to all of your problems and it is to work all the time you work. Work all the time you work. When you go to work, work. Go a little bit earlier, work a little bit harder, stay a little bit later and work all the time you work. Don't chit chat with your friends, don't dawdle over lunch or tea or something like that... is just work.

And the only time you are working is when you are face-to-face with customers. So therefore, start off with what is the difference and who can most benefit from the change that I could bring about with this customer, with my product or service?

Who is the customer? And then I go through a demographic analysis. What is their age? What is their income? What is their occupation? What is their education?

What is their family style? What is their family information and so on? So that we look at all these things and we say alright, MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 27

who exactly is our customer? Who? And then the second question is, what does the customer think about with all the demographic and the psychographic? Is what is going on inside the customers' mind that would motivate them to buy your product or service? What is it that they want and need? What is it they fear and hope for? What is it they are dreaming for? What are their goals?

does the owl say in the deep woods? And everybody in the audience smiles and say 'who? Who, who, who?' And I say... the worst thing you can do is to spend too much of your time speaking to people who are not good prospects for you. They have not bought your products in the past and they won’t buy it in the future. So, it’s very important, you shouldn't spend...

I read one study recently, you shouldn't spend more “you shouldn't spend So, you have those two than 17 minutes with a prographics if you like, despect to know whether or more than 17 minutes mographics and psychonot this person can and will with a prospect to know graphics. And you have to buy and pay in a reasonable whether or not this be really accurate, because period of time. If you are person can and will buy if you are not, you will be taking longer than that... if and pay in a reasonable trying to sell two people you are going back over and who are not the type of over, if you are sending period of time.” people who will buy your them messages and going product or service. So, you out for lunch and tea and so have to be extremely accurate. on, and so forth. No, you should know almost immediately.

And you will find that the very best companies, spend millions... and I think the numIt’s sort of like, going to the doctor, if you ber this year is about $20 billion dollars, have a pain, you go to a doctor. You don't just on customer research. Just analysing want to go back and visit the doctor, over who exactly are our customers and why and over, and come back next week and go would they buy? Why would they buy? And for tea and have a chat and so on and so if they are buying now, why are they buying forth. You want immediate attention to now? And if they are not buying, why your problem. aren't they buying? And how can I change my offerings so that they are far-more So, you are looking for people who have a attractive so that more people will buy need, that is an immediate need, they them faster and easier? So that's my want it now, they want the product or serstarting point. vice now. As a matter of fact, they want it so much that they don't even ask you the So, the first of the golden triangle is who? price, because they want that benefit that who? sometimes I will ask, I will say what you are offering.

28 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

Anyway, let me just throw it back to you, have you got any comments?

Neil: Is business model reinvention something that you do all of the time, or is it something that you do some of the time?

Brian Tracy: Yes, its continuous. As a matter of fact, I have created as I told you, a one and two-day programme. But I also have a one and two-day programme on personal model reinvention; is each person has to be continually reinventing themselves, based on the changes that are taking place in the world around them.

You get married, you have a child, you start a business, you introduce a new product or service, in every one of these cases, you need to make a massive shift in your business model. Because it’s going to require different things that you need to do in different proportions, and in different ways in order to be successful, in order to be happy.

So yes, it’s an ongoing never-ending process is to find a way to SMS so you can MMM. And the question is, how are you doing? How is it going for you? And it’s a wonderful question because you can tell if you have a good business model, because you are selling all you want, you are making more money than you ever dreamed possible. And if you are not, well then what we do is, we organise it, sit down and we look at it. Number one, it’s always WHO? Forbes Magazine had a study last year and

they said, that 80% of the reason why companies fail is because people simply do not want their product. They just don't want the product. They may have wanted it in the past, but now what they want is different from what you are offering. And if that's the case, you can advertise and you can re-package and you can aggressively sell and market and everything else. It's not going to do a darn bit of good, if customers do not want the product. So that means customers don't want the change that your product or service will bring about in their lives and their work.

The second part of the golden triangle is WHO? So, start with WHAT? WHAT is your product? And then WHO? WHO is your customer? And you go through all of the details. Who is the customer? who is the person who is most likely to buy from me the fastest? And you spend all of your time focused on your very best potential customers.

And the third part of the triangle is HOW. HOW do you market? HOW do you sell?

HOW do advertise? HOW do you promote?

HOW do you find the very best customers for you? HOW do you approach them?

HOW do you speak to them? HOW do you talk to them? And HOW do you get them to make a buying decision?

When I started my career many years ago, I was speaking on personal success/ personal development and more and more of my clients would say, 'this programme is a wonderful programme but do you have anything on sales? On sales success?' So, I sat MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 29

down and I designed a programme called the “Psychology of Selling”. It’s how you think as a sales person, and what you do as a sales person, and it became the bestselling sales programme in history of the world. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies; it was wonderful when you are selling products on a royalty basis.

a good person and whatever you charge, it’s probably a reasonable price. And I am interested in the price because I am need to know what to write down on the cheque, but it’s not the determining factor.

And I am not going to buy it or not buy it because of its small difference in the cost.

What I want is the benefit, and in many cases, people will pay any price for the benefit.

It was very, very good, and people literally went from “if you connect your rags to riches. Some compaImagine you have an ailproducts with what it nies bought a 1000 sets. It ment of some kind, and does to the customers' was a 6-hour, 6 and a half your doctor recommends a needs the customer hour, 7 hour programme on prescription, you don't say selling. And what they 'how much does it cost? Can does not ask how much learned was that you could I get it cheaper somewhere is it?” have the best product or else?' with regard to a pill or service in the world, but if a pharmaceutical, no, it’s you can't sell it, if you do not know how to HOW soon can I get it so that I can start prospect, present, and close the sale, if you getting the benefits. And then you rush and do not know how to answer objections and the first thing you do when you leave the to get your customers to buy, and buy doctors' office, if you have a prescription, is again, and bring their friends to buy as you go straight to the nearest drug store, well, well then your product will just sit on and get the prescription filled and take it. the shelf.

In other words, you are not concerned about petty details. If you go and start sayAnd so, those are the big three. WHAT is it ing, HOW much is it, it costs too much, I that you sell? WHAT is the product? In can get it cheaper somewhere else, I can terms of how it changes the customers life. get it cheaper from your competitors, what And WHO is the customer for whom this they are basically saying is, that I am not change is more important; far more imconvinced that its really that good an idea portant than the price? for me.

It's interesting if you connect your products with what it does to the customers' needs the customer does not ask how much is it?

The customer only asks how soon can I get it? And because the customer knows... surprisingly the customer knows that you are 30 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

And so, selling is so important. And when I began to learn how to sell and then to teach HOW to sell, I was able to change the lives of probably millions of sales people all over the world. And that programme has also been translated in to about 30 /35 lan-

guages; psychology of selling.

And then I produced a programme called 'The Art of Closing the Sale' all of these are available on AMAZON by the way. And the art of closing the sale is just HOW do you ask the person to make a decision? It’s not high pressure, it’s very friendly, and it’s just asking the customer 'if you like what I've shown you so far, when would you like to get started? How soon would you like to get started?’ And it’s a series of ways of very gently and very professionally asking the customer to make a decision so that he or she can begin enjoying the benefits of your product or service.

And so, it’s a great problem in selling, not only in the UK but everywhere. The sales people are so afraid of selling, they are so

afraid of rejection, they are so afraid that the person would say 'NO, I don't want it or something else.' And so, they freeze up.

And when I teach people how to do... is how to design the presentations, so that the closing is a normal and natural part of the process. And it just flows together at the end. And people actually increase their sales, and they double them within a week, they increase them five or ten times within a year, especially if they are learning how to sell properly.

In fact, I have a good friend who is from London who got my book, it’s called 'Advanced Selling Strategies' and he bought it and he was selling on the street, Door-to-Door in London, and he fell in love with the book. Because the book is quite extraordinary, probably the best book ever MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 31

written on selling. And he literally just went on fire, he became the best salesman in his company. He was hired by one of the biggest internet companies, in the world. He was made a vice-president, and then he has moved to San Francisco... And then in San Francisco they made him a senior executive, at a salary that was hundreds of thousands of pounds or dollars, beyond anything he ever dreamed possible. And he said, 'it was just the sales techniques'. They said basically 'whatever you are doing, to achieve that level of sales, show our people how to do it as well.' And he did and they did.

So that’s been my major focus is to help people with the practical tools. WHAT is it that you sell? WHO do you sell it to? And HOW do you sell it?

And then there is a whole series of others, there is your competition. Is WHO are your competitors? If people don't buy your product, WHAT product do they buy and WHY? And WHAT is it that people see in your competitors that they don't see in your product or service, and HOW could you change your product or service so that its more attractive in the perception of your customer than it is now? And so on.

So, there is about ten of those and what I would recommend a person who is interested in this, just go to AMAZON and go on to business model innovation. In fact, I read all the time, I just got this book last week, no a few weeks ago, and it’s called 'On Business Model Innovation,'...it's 'Business Model Innovation' it’s from Har32 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

vard Business School. And what Harvard Business School, did is they took the ten best articles on business model innovation... which is different from mine, which is business model reinvention... and they put it together and this is...it’s beautiful, it’s a series of diamonds, gems, that just get your eyes to open up and you go WOW. Just one good idea can transform your business forever.

Neil: Over the years, I have interviewed so many entrepreneurs and one of the things I have found that’s very, very common, is so many of them are scared of selling.

Why do you think it is that so many are afraid of selling?

Brian Tracy: Well when I began to study human development, I found that human beings have unlimited potential and they are born with no fears except two fears which they develop. The fear of failure and the fear of rejection.

The fear of failure is the greatest single reason for failure in adult life, is that we are afraid that we will lose our time or lose our money or it won't work or I won't be successful. And we become overwhelmed with the possibility of failing and then we paralyze like a deer in the headlights. And that’s number one. So, we have to overcome the fear of failure.

The second fear, and especially in selling, is the fear of rejection. The fear that somebody will say no or reject you, or tell you that they are not interested in some way.

And every single thing that happens to you affects your self-esteem, in that it either

raises your self-esteem, and makes you more positive and confident or it lowers your self-esteem. And your self-esteem is so important, that you're hyper-sensitive to doing or not doing anything that may cause your self-esteem to be affected.

how to sell. So, what I would recommend to our listeners, yours and mine, is that you need to owe it to yourself...you owe it to yourself to become pretty excellent at selling.

And wonderfully enough selling is a learnaSo, what I do in my seminars, I say for exble skill. Every skill in business is learnable, ample, how do you elimiyou can learn how to sell, nate the fear of failure? and once you learn it, it’s And the answer is, you resort of like riding a bicycle.

“Once you learn how to peat the words over and You do not have to go back sell, you can sell for the over again. I can do it, I can out and practise every sinrest of your life. But it’s a do it, I can do it, I can do gle day. Once you learn price you must pay if you anything I can put my mind how to ride a bicycle, you are going to be successful to. I can do it. can ride a bicycle for the rest of your life. as an entrepreneur. You With my children, I have have to be prepared to pay always told them, knowing Once you learn how to sell, that price. And it’s hard.” this is you can do anything you can sell for the rest of you put your mind to. You your life. But it’s a price you have no limits; you can do it. You can do it; must pay if you are going to be successful you can do it. And if you say 'I can do it, I as an entrepreneur. You have to be precan do it' what you do, is you programme pared to pay that price. And it’s hard. yourself to eliminate the fear.

And since fear is the greatest obstacle too And with rejection, the way that you deal failure as an adult what I say is...”do the with rejection, is you realise that rejection thing you fear”, which comes from Ralph is not personal. If a person says 'no I don't Waldo Emmerson, and the death of fear is want it, I am not interested', and so on and certain. so forth, it’s not personal, because they don't even know who you are. So, don't be It's the most amazing thing in psychology is hyper-sensitive about being the tentative when you confront a fear, you say 'I am opinion of a person that you don't even afraid of this, then I am going to do it. And know. Don't be afraid to ask.

I am going to do it over and over until I no longer have any fear of it.' And the most And when I went off selling in my twenties, amazing thing is, if you move toward a fear, I started knocking on doors and in my first if you address a fear, if you do the thing year, I knocked on 20,000 doors. And got you fear, the fear goes away. It’s almost like rejected almost 20,000 times but I learned it disappears. Whereas if you back-off and MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 33

you look for excuses, and you avoid it, you hang around in the office, rather than going out and calling on new prospective customers, the fear gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And pretty soon you are just preoccupied with the fear, that’s all you think about is the fear. And what you do, the answer is always, do the thing you fear. Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.

When you become completely unafraid to sell... and what is the major reason by the way... you are hitting a lot of the right buttons... The major reason why people are afraid to sell is because they haven't learned how. That's the reason no doubt...

I mean think of the first time you drove a car, sometimes I joke with you, remember when you drove a car, the person who was teaching you and there you are behind the wheel, and they are telling you, 'go slower, 34 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

go faster, change the gear and so on.' Remember how panicked you were when you were driving the car? You were slamming on the brakes, and stepping on the gas, and stopping and jerking and going over the kerb and everything else. And you were so nervous, but you were so determined to learn, that you finally did and now you can drive from one end of the country to the other and not even think about it. You have no fears at all, because know you have learned the skill.

The reason why people are unsuccessful in selling is that they have not learned the skill. And they learn the skill... it’s a very simple way is learn and do, learn and do, learn and do, practise. Is, learn the skill and practise it. Learn a new idea do; a new way to approach a customer well practise it 10 times.

When I began selling, I would say basically I

will try every new idea ten times, before I Thinking”. And zero-based thinking, comes give up. And what I found was that most from management science, and it basically new ideas do not work the first time, so says, 'is there anything that you are doing therefore I am going to try it ten times. today that knowing what you now know, And then I will pass judgement on whether you would not do again today if you had to or not it’s a good idea for me, my business, do it over?' You would not get in to it again my selling, my customer. And I found that if today if you had to do it over. So, what you it’s a good idea by the do is you zero base, you fourth or fifth or sixth time draw a line under all the deof trying it, you start to get cisions that you have made “is there anything that more fluent with it, more in your life up to now. And you are doing today confident, more competent, say, 'is there anything that I that knowing what you you feel better, you feel have decided to do up to happier, you smile more. now that knowing what I now know, you would And if it’s a good idea, you know I would not have not do again today if add it to your repertoire. done?' I wouldn't get in to it you had to do it over?”

Your tool case, and you have again. And if the answer is it for the rest of your career. yes, then the next question And now you can go anyis how do you get help and where in the world and you can be an outhow fast? In other words, you cut and run. standing salesperson of any product that If you decided that you wouldn't get in to you have to sell. it, it means that it’s over. It means that its finished, it means that the situation cannot But you are right, the fear of selling is what be saved. holds people back and the way that we overcome the fear, is we just do it over and Sometimes I talk to large audiences, I say, over again until the fear is gone. for example, let us say you are in a bad relationship, and you ask this question, the Neil: How do people make sure that they zero-based thinking question... And the continue to use business model reinvenquestion is, 'if you were not in this relationtion in their business? ship with this person, knowing what you now know, would you get in to the relaBrian Tracy: Well I teach very practical tionship again?' And if the answer is no techniques. And one of my favourite... and then how do you get out and how fast? by the way I wish I could say I invented And it’s astonishing how many peoples' these. I have just spent by my estimation lives would change by that because they about 150,000 hours in the study of a pracare trying so hard. tical subject for most of my lifetime... One of the things that I learned which I teach to And so, I ask, 'how do you know if you are all of my clients, is called “Zero Based in a zero-based thinking situation?' And the MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 35

answer is stress. Is it causing you stress and frustration and you're not happy, and you're not making progress, and you don't look forward to your work and your relationships and your life?

less of? Well you should do less of those things that aren't working, that are not giving you good results, that are not leading to sales, that are causing you frustration.

They are not motivating you to do more of it, you just do not want to do it at all.

And it’s the same thing in business. How do you know that you need to zero-base So, the third way that you can change your something? It’s because it’s causing you a life or business, you could start something lot of stress and frustration. And no matter new. And starting something new is the how hard you work, you cannot seem to hardest thing of all, because human beings get the sales up and you can't seem to get get in to the comfort zone, and the greatthis person to do the job est enemy of success in they've been hired to do, business is the comfort “So very often for you to and you can't seem to zone. The reason that... they please this customer or found at Harvard... is the change what you're something like that. Bereason the top executives doing, you have to do cause you have to keep askwould not change, is besomething new. And ing... you have to be willing cause they were in a comdoing something new is to walk away. fort zone. And they were really the great comfortable there, and it So, one of the things I teach wasn't that great but at breakthrough strategy of in my coaching programme, least it was better than the life.”

I say there is four ways to risk or the fear or the danchange your life. ger of trying something completely new or different. And so, the Number one is you can do more of certain comfort zone is your greatest enemy. things. So, the question is, what should you be doing more of in your situation today?

So very often for you to change what And the answer is, you should be doing you're doing, you have to do something more of those things that work the very new. And doing something new is really best for you, one thing from which you are the great breakthrough strategy of life. You currently getting your very best results. So, do something new, you use different techno matter what your situation is, there are nology, you use different ways of promosome things that you are doing well that tion, you change the product that you're are working. offering, and the way that you are offering, and the people that you are offering it to The second way you can change your life or and so on. your business, is you can do less of other things. And what is it that you should do And there is all kinds of examples and com36 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

panies that have totally transformed the way they sell their products, and the way they deliver them, and the way that they service them and so on. So that... before customers were not interested but now, they are just love the product. And wherever you see a great market success, a person has actually really come up with a new business model. And all the great successes today are new business models, new ways of doing business that nobody ever thought of before.

And one of the greatest, my favourite of all is the iPhone. When they came up with the iPhone, and they combined everything together in one phone, photographs, movies, music, messaging, text, everything so that you could communicate with everybody, anybody, anywhere. And then they changed the business model for music instead of having to buy an album you could buy music for one song at a time. And then they changed the way of being able to transfer pictures and movies and things like that. They changed the business model and they made it so easy that people could have all the different things that they wanted in a communications device, all in one place at a low price, and unconditionally guaranteed.

And within 10 years, Apple was the richest company in the history of the world, trillion dollars... the first company to have a trillion dollars in the bank. I remember when they first came out with their phone, I was using a Blackberry, and the market... the world market was dominated by Blackberry and Nokia, and they each had about

50% of the world market for cellular phones. And they both came out and made an announcement, that Steve Jobs had just developed a high-priced toy, and that it was only for teenagers and children who wanted to communicate and send messages and talk to their friends and so on.

Adults are interested in business phones, what they want to do is communicate and correspond on business matters, quickly, in and out and so on.

And so they... Blackberry one of my favourite examples, Blackberry in the year after they brought out the iPhone, cut back their research and development by 50% and they said, 'we are so far ahead, our phones are so good and they are so advanced, and they are so current with the market, we don't even have to improve them in any way, as a matter of fact, we are going to save the money and distribute it in profits to our owners.

Five years later, both companies were bankrupt, gone, gone. They went from 50% each of the market to less than 1% and then disappeared. And of course, Apple, was copied by Samsung and then by many others. But Apple came out with the most profitable phone in the world. What they did, was they changed the business model and it was so great, everyone wanted to do it.

Neil: You mentioned Nokia and Blackberry, when Apple launched the iPhone. They were much bigger than Apple in the phone market at that time. Using your measure of growth, how could they have MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 37

anticipated the threat?

We can wrap up with what I want to share with you, and it’s a book that I am thinking of writing. I have five or six books on my back middle shelves. And the book is called “The 'Er' Factor.” And English is the only language in which this would work because 'Er' stands for the comparative.

Brian Tracy: Well you must again... you must be open to the possibility that you could be wrong. You must be open to the possibility that this has the potential to change the market.

I have studied leadership and military strategy and there is a wonderful line they So, its easi-ER, its fast-ER, its cheap-ER, its teach in Sandhurst and in West point it is Costli-ER, and so on. And all of your sucthat 'diversion that you are ignoring is the cess in life as a business person is the nummain attack'. And it’s a wonber of Er's that you have, is derful thing... in other your product... is fast-ER to words when something use, its easi-ER too to get, its “So, your job is to be happens in the market, that cheap-ER, and so on. superior to your seems peripheral, that competitor and then your could be what is going to But you're always looking competitors' job is to be put you out of business for ways to make your prodsuperior to you. The ER completely. And that’s what uct or service superior to happened to both Nokia your competitors in some factor, find some way to and Blackberry, is that peway. And your competitors do it faster, easier, ripheral business, that comare thinking day and night cheaper.” pany that... Apple that had about how to make their never had a telephone in products and services supetheir history, that was the rior to yours. And so, it goes main attack, that was what was going to on and on, sort of like leap-frog when you put you out of business completely, and it are a child, you jump over one person, did. So, you have to be open to the possithen the other person jumps over you, and bility that you could be wrong. You have to then you jump over them and so on. So, be open to the possibility that one new deyour job is to be superior to your competivelopment in technology, could change tor and then your competitors' job is to be your business completely. superior to you. The ER factor, find some way to do it faster, easier, cheaper.

And the critical thing is always, 'what do your customers want?' And what do they We have in the United States today, and I want more of, and they want it faster, and do not know if it’s happening in the UK but they want it easier, and they want it at lowin the US we have a phenomenon that’s er cost, and they want it to be more contaking place, its home delivery of food and venient. restaurant food. And about five years ago, somebody started to offer home delivery 38 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

and UBER was the first one, they started a company called UBER Eats. This is UBER drivers who deliver foods. And so, you can call... the menu is online... you can call and you can click in what you want, there is the menu ... and you click, and its delivered in an average of about 30 minutes, sometimes faster. But then most of the companies are trying to work on the 'Er' to get it fastER bettER, cheapER, tastiER and so on.

and it was exactly the same food that we were accustomed to enjoying at our local restaurant, and it would be delivered to our door, exactly the same price. Most amazing darn thing.

So, the rule is, keep your ear to the ground, keep your ear to the ground, pay attention... Because the rate of change today is faster than it’s ever been in all of human history. And your job is to change faster The business has now bethan your competitors. And come a ten billion business, remember that your com“ask your customers, it’s there in every single mapetitors get up every mornjor city and people don't go ing, thinking about how to ‘what do I have to do to out, Restaurants are empty. put you out of business. get all your business?

You go to restaurants in the And you had better get up Not just a little bit but middle of the week and all every morning, thinking all your business?’ Over the tables and chairs are about how to put them out empty but there is people of business because if you and over.” coming in, there is drivers don't, they will. And busicoming in, picking up the orness is just the game of beders, to take the orders and deliver them ing in business and competition. to the homes. In the major cities, food is being delivered for lunch, people don't go And so, your job is to be better than your out to restaurants at lunch, they just simpcompetitors, have the 'Er', betterER, fastly click it in, and bang, its delivered in a few ER, cheapER, easiER. One ER can make you minutes. The convenience of it and the the market leader. And what is it going to cost is the same. But the convenience be? And the interesting thing is that if you make it easier, faster and so on. It’s created are better than your customers, initially its a multi-billion-dollar business that people more expensive, but as you master this who have started... and there is several way of offering your product in an imcompetitors now... are earning billions of proved way, it gets cheaper and cheaper, dollars from delivering food. And that inand you can do it faster and faster and easdustry did not exist five years ago. ier and easier. And you can put your competitors out of business.

And I know Barbara and I, my wife and I we go out to a nearby restaurant for dinner, A good friend of mine, a good salesman almost every night. And then she discovasked me once, he said, I want to get all ered that you could just order it online, your business, he said, 'what would I have MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 39

to do to get all your business, not just a little bit of your business, but just to get all your business? What do I have to do more of, less of, start or stop? What do I have to change to get all your business?' And it was a great question, and I never forgot it and I said 'well if you would do this and this and this and this, I would give you all my business.' And he said, 'ok, I will do all those things.' And so, I tried him out, and he delivered. And for the next ten years, I patronised his business and spent an enormous amount of money with his business, because he delivered and he continued to deliver, he moved away and his company became huge.

But ask your customers, “what do I have to do to get all your business? Not just a little bit but all your business?” Over and over.

Peter Drucker... this is what I teach is... you have three goals in life, as a business person. The first is to make the first sale, you can't do anything unless you make the first sale. Second is, to make the second sale to the same customer because they were so happy with the first sale that they came back to buy more. And the third goal is to have them bring their friends and associates and tell other people to buy from you as well.

So, it’s 123, 123. Sell, the first sale. Second, make the customer soooo happy that they buy from you again. And then get the customers so happy that they bring their friends. And all successful companies do the big three. Make the sale, make the sale again because the customer is happy, and 40 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

then bring their friends.

We could talk all day by the way, ha ha ha, if you have noticed.

Neil: Where can people find out more about business model reinvention?

Brian Tracy: Just go to my website which is BrianTracy.com. And we have just started a goal-setting programme that...it’s available at no charge. We have a goal-setting programme that you pay for, but there is a simple goal-setting programme that is free.

And there is a lot of resources, that are free at BrianTracy.com. And what I would suggest that people start with is goalsetting, and that takes you through a process where you determine exactly what your goals are in each part of your life, you organise your goals by priority, you develop a plan to achieve your most important goals, you organise those steps by priority and then you work on the steps every single day. And what it does is it will save you five to ten years of hard work getting to the same place.

Neil: Thank you for a fantastic interview Brian, we really appreciate you providing all this great information about business model reinvention, talking about selling, and giving us some great examples as well and many other things you have talked about. Just such great value, and I know that our readers will really benefit from what you've had to say today.

Brian Tracy: Thank you, wonderful to see you Neil.

Meet Brian Tracy Brian Tracy is Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations. He is the leading coach on the topics of Leadership, Selling, Self-Esteem, Goals, Strategy, Creativity and Success Psychology. Throughout his 40+ year career, Brian has consulted for more than 1,000 companies and addressed more than 5,000,000 people in 5,000 talks and seminars throughout the US, Canada and 70 other countries worldwide. He is the top-selling author of over 70 books, including Eat That Frog, a New York Times Best Selling book. In addition to this, he has written and produced more than 500 audio and video learning programs, including the worldwide, best-selling Psychology of Achievement, which has been translated into more than 28 languages.

Website: www.briantracy.com Facebook: @BrianTracyPage Instagram: @TheBrianTracy YouTube: @BrianTracySpeaker

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 41

By Arvin Patel, EVP and Chief Intellectual Property Officer, TiVo It's easy to think of mindfulness as someneeds and different types of intelligence— thing that happens only and if handled correctin ideal surroundings — ly— can foster a more meditating on a peacestress-free, productive, Research has shown that a ful mountaintop, doing and innovative worktypical office worker gets only yoga on the beach at force.

11 minutes between sunrise, being "in the There are many stratemoment" with an Instagies that management interruptions and needs an gram-ready backdrop. can employ to help fosaverage of 25 minutes to be able But what if mindfulness ter mindfulness at work to fully refocus on work after could be more of an and promote mindfuleach interruption. everyday way of life? ness practices throughWhat if we could bring out the work day. Here mindfulness into the are five that have workplace? worked for me: One of the emerging trends in management Reduce Interruptions in recent years has been the rise of mindfulness in the workplace. Many CEOs and execIt’s difficult to feel fully “present” and in the utives are exploring meditation and yoga as moment when you’re being interrupted all a way to center their minds; feel more preday by email, chat notifications, and sent in the moment, and make better decimeetings. Research has shown that a typical sions based on deep reflection and more reoffice worker gets only 11 minutes between laxed thinking. interruptions and needs an average of 25 I have a meditation practice of my own, and minutes to be able to fully refocus on work I find it to be a wonderful way to help reset after each interruption. Too many interrupmyself and rest my mind after a busy day at tions can cause stress and make it hard for the office. But meditation and mindfulness people to enter a “deep work” mode, where have benefits beyond the individual practithey can be the most creative and truly laser tioner. Mindfulness is not just about meditafocused on solving problems. tion; it’s a movement to adopt a more huManagers can help reduce interruptions by man-centric philosophy on how to manage giving workers permission to block out their people. Mindfulness at work is a way of rectime and protect themselves from distracognizing and supporting people’s emotional 42 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

tions. Allow team members to put their phones on Airplane Mode and also log out of email for a few hours during the day. If employees see their managers setting the tone at the top, they will be more likely to adopt these mindful practices for themselves. Make it clear to your team that you want them to be able to focus and really dig deep into their work.

Help them to protect their work time and to prevent it from getting chopped up into useless pieces by distractions and interruptions.

Have Fewer, Shorter Meetings Do you ever feel like your entire workday is a series of never-ending back-to-back meetings? What if you could reduce or eliminate some of this meeting time? Managers should start to implement 45-minute (or shorter) meetings, so that people have extra time built into their day and do not end up running from meeting to meeting all day long.

Better yet, re-evaluate which meetings are really necessary and which ones could be canceled. We’ve all experienced those dreaded situations where we’re required to sit through a meeting that could have been an email. Why not be more proactive in weeding out the non-essential meetings?

Free up more of your team’s time; this will increase their productivity.

Get Up from the Desk and Out of the Office Mindfulness is often associated with yoga, and it’s true that yoga practice can be a great way to align the mind and body but it’s not the only way. Employees can also benefit significantly from mindful stretching exercises—just a few minutes of stretching can help reduce job stress and on-the-job injuries. Or try hosting your next team meeting outdoors at a nearby park or hiking trail. Studies have shown that spending even a few minutes in nature each day can boost productivity, reduce stress, and result in other positive health benefits.

In addition to health benefits, mindful stretching and daily nature walks can help people be more innovative. Just like the joke, “all my best ideas happen in the shower”—sometimes our best creative breakthroughs happen during moments of mental rest and reflection, when we actually have a moment to let our minds wander. Stanford research has found that creative thinking is significantly improved simply by going for a short walk, whether it’s indoors or outdoors. The more mindful your organization is, the more innovative many of your employees will be.

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 43

Introduce Your Team to Mindfulness Apps The idea of “mindfulness” might sound strange or intimidating to some. Not everyone will want to attend a company yoga class or meditate side-by-side with their coworkers. That’s why the new generation of meditation and mindfulness apps can be so helpful. You can share these apps with your team as a way to introduce mindfulness on a small scale. Let people experiment individually with them to see what they like the most. Many people may benefit from using apps for a guided meditation during the work day which may help them learn how to calm themselves, focus their minds, and reduce stress at work.

Be a Mindfulness Role Model Ideally, mindfulness practices will help create a more peaceful, calm, and peoplecentered work environment. But for a mindful workplace to become a reality, organization leaders need to become more mindful managers. Mindfulness can help managers work on their self-awareness, patience, and empathy. Is your management style still based on traditional hierarchies and com-

mand-and-control, or are you truly embracing the potential of a flat and Agile organization where everyone can freely contribute their creative thinking? Are you leading with fear, or inspiring your people with authentic emotional connection? Are you exhibiting impatient, angry, exasperated behavior, or are you creating a calm, collaborative, reflective work environment where people can relax and feel empowered enough to share their best ideas?

In this economy companies need to work harder than ever to compete for talent, retain talent, and be known as an employer of choice. Managers need to use supportive soft skills to maximize the talents of everyone on their team and connect with employees from diverse cultural and generational backgrounds. Mindfulness is an ideal tool that can really help today’s managers. Researchers are still learning more about the impacts of mindfulness at work. But I believe that in the future, as demands continue to increase while the number of hours in the day remains constant, more managers are going to need to embrace creative strategies to help their teams be healthier, calmer, more productive, and more fully present in every moment.

Arvin Patel is the EVP and Chief Intellectual Property Officer at TiVo. LinkedIN: @ArvinPatel

44 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

You probably heard the business advice of “failing to plan is planning to fail.” That phrase is a misleading myth at best and actively dangerous at worst. Making plans is important, but our gut reaction is to plan for the best-case outcomes, ignoring the high likelihood that things will go wrong.

A much better phrase is “failing to plan for problems is planning to fail.” To address the very high likelihood that problems will crop up, you need to plan for contingencies.

When was the last time you saw a major planned project suffer from a cost overrun? It’s not as common as you might think

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky for a project with a clear plan to come in at or under budget.

For instance, a 2002 study of major construction projects found that 86% went over budget. In turn, a 2014 study of large IT projects found that only 16.2% succeeded in meeting the original planned resource expenditure. Of the 83.8% of projects that did not, the average IT project suffered from a cost overrun of 189%.

Such cost overruns can seriously damage your bottom line. Imagine if a serious IT project such as implementing a new database at your organization goes even 50% MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 45

over budget, which is much less than the average cost overrun. You might be facing many thousands or even millions of dollars in unplanned expenses, causing you to draw on funds assigned for other purposes.

Moreover, cost overruns often spiral out of control, resulting in even bigger disasters.

Let’s say you draw the extra money from your cybersecurity budget. As a result, you’ve left yourself open to hackers, who successfully stole customer data, resulting in both bad PR and loss of customer trust.

What explains cost overruns? They largely stem from the planning fallacy, our intuitive belief that everything will go according to plan, whether in IT projects or in other areas of business and life. The planning fallacy is one of many dangerous judgment errors, which are mental blind spots resulting from how our brain is wired that scholars in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics call cognitive biases.

We make these mistakes not only in work, but also in other life areas, for example in our shopping choices, as revealed by a series of studies done by a shopping comparison website.

Fortunately, recent research in these fields shows how you can use pragmatic strategies to address these dangerous judgment errors, whether in your professional life, your relationships, your shopping choices, or other life areas.

You need to evaluate where cognitive bias46 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

es are hurting you and others in your team and organization. Then, you can use structured decision-making methods to make “good enough” daily decisions quickly; more thorough ones for moderately important choices; and an in-depth one for truly major decisions.

Such techniques will also help you implement your decisions well, and formulate truly effective long-term strategic plans. In addition, you can develop mental habits and skills to notice cognitive biases and prevent yourself from slipping into them.

For instance, we can address the planning fallacy by planning around it. Such planning involves anticipating what problems might come up and addressing them in advance by using the research-based technique of prospective hindsight, by envisioning yourself in the future looking back at potential challenges in the present. It also involves recognizing that you can’t anticipate all problems, and building in a buffer of at least 40% of the project’s budget in additional funds. If things go better than anticipated, you can always use the money for a different purpose later.

Besides this broad approach, my consulting clients have found three specific researchbased techniques effective for addressing the planning fallacy.

First, break down each project into component parts. An IT firm struggled with a pattern of taking on projects that ended up losing money for the company. We evaluat-

ed the specific component parts of the projects that had cost overruns, and found that the biggest unanticipated money drain came from permitting the client to make too many changes at the final stages of the project. As a result, the IT firm changed their process to minimize any changes at the tail end of the project.

Second, use your past experience with similar projects to inform your estimates for future projects. A heavy equipment manufacturer had a systemic struggle with underestimating project costs. In one example, a project that was estimated to cost $2 million ended up costing $3 million. We suggested making it a requirement for project managers to use past project costs to inform future projections. Doing so resulted in much more accurate project cost estimates.

Third, for projects with which you have little past experience, use an external per-

spective from a trusted and objective source. A financial services firm whose CEO I coached wanted to move its headquarters after it outgrew its current building. I connected the CEO with a couple of other CEO clients who recently moved and expressed a willingness to share their experience. This experience helped the financial services CEO anticipate contingencies he didn’t previously consider, ranging from additional marketing expenses to print new collateral with the updated address to lost employee productivity due to changing schedules as a result of a different commute.

If you take away one message from this article, remember that the key to addressing cost overruns is to remember that “failing to plan for problems is planning to fail.” Use this phrase as your guide to prevent cost overruns and avoid falling prey to the dangerous judgment error of planning fallacy.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases by developing the most effective decisionmaking strategies. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut (2019), The Blindspots Between Us (2020), and The Truth Seeker’s Handbook (2017). His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 400 articles and 350 interviews in Fast Company, CBS News, Time, Business Insider, Government Executive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, CNBC, and Inc. Magazine. His expertise stems from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, speaking, and training experience as CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. It also comes from his research background as a behavioral economist and cognitive neuroscientist with over 15 years in academia, with dozens of peer-reviewed academic publications.

Contact him at: Gleb@DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com. Follow him on Twitter: @gleb_tsipursky, on Instagram: @dr_gleb_tsipursky. And visit: www.DisasterAvoidanceExperts.com/GlebTsipursky to learn more.

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 47

If you’re a social entrepreneur, I’ve got some bad news for you: You weren’t born to scale. But here’s some good news: You can learn to do it anyway.

In reviewing 100 successful social enterprises from the past 10 years, our team at the Miller Center found that less than 10% were able to scale successfully – not just growing incrementally, but rapidly expanding their organizations into new markets to multiply impact and revenues. Our analysis of a database of over 10,000 commercial 48 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

By Rob Shelton startups paints an even bleaker picture: Fewer than 1 in 100 of these enterprises scale.

Why is scaling a social enterprise so hard?

Because what got you this far is not enough to get you the rest of the way. If you want to scale, you need to shift management gears, learn some new things and act differently. Just pushing harder with your existing model won’t work.

Over the past three years, Miller Center’s Replication and Scaling team has worked with more than 50 entrepreneurs to expand their reach, helping them to create greater impact more rapidly, with less risk and fewer investment requirements. We have established a process that can make scaling possible for every entrepreneur.

Here are some of the important coaching tips we use.

Shift from Running the Business to Understanding How Your Business is Running

In the first few years of a startup, your biggest and most persistent challenge is keeping things running. It’s a constant struggle.

In startup mode, entrepreneurs typically spend all their time working just to keep the wheels from coming off the enterprise.

Premature scaling — the attempt to grow aggressively before your business model is robust enough to stand up to the rigors of massive growth — is one of the major causes of failure.

Before making the commitment to scale, you need to make sure you have an organization capable of producing, selling and delivering much larger volumes of your product or service – without diminishing quality or impact for existing and new customers.

In addition to running the business, you need focus on understanding how the business is running, to identify the operational capabilities that need strengthening.

To that end, your leadership team needs to make an honest appraisal of what they have created. Here are a few things to ask yourself: Do customers think we deliver the best value? Don’t ask your team for their opinion: You need data from customers. To be successful, you must ensure that the value you’re delivering is a clear winner in the customers’ eyes, and that your products or services have a distinctive advantage over alternatives. If you don’t have proof of a winning value proposition, don’t bother scaling.

Has our business model evolved? It makes no sense to scale inefficiencies and grow parts of your business that waste money – that’s a fool’s errand. Good luck trying to get investors to fund that business model.

You need business processes that are stable and improve over time. For example, you should be able to consistently and quickly acquire new customers at costs that decrease over time. In other words, you need to manage your business model so the cost per social return on investment improves as you grow and mature. If not, MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 49

scaling will take you into a slow but certain death spiral.

Do we consistently make smart, informed decisions? Seat-of-the-pants management without good data may be standard operating procedure in the early startup stage, because you have no choice. But that approach gets risky with increased size. When scaling, lack of performance data frustrates all attempts to make sense of what is actually working, to identify the elements that need to be fixed right away, and to focus on the pieces of the business model that are successfully being transformed to full scale. The ability to measure key elements of the business model, and to use this operating data to make timely decisions is one clear signal that you are ready to shift into scaling mode.

Can we acquire top talent when we need it? Talent acquisition is like digging a well: It is best done before you need the water.

Don’t let weaknesses in your talent system — in terms of acquisition, motivation and retention — leave you lacking the people and performance you need at critical stages of scaling.

There are other important questions you need to consider: You need an honest appraisal of your organizational stability and effectiveness, your strategic and execution50 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

al leadership, and your ability to partner and collaborate — since no single enterprise can do everything by themselves.

This may sound impossible to achieve, but fortunately, perfection is not a prerequisite for scaling. Don’t worry if you are not topnotch in all these areas; very few startups are. And most weaknesses can be improved during scaling so that the enterprise grows into its new, larger size. But attempting to scale despite gross weaknesses in almost every element of the business model will overwhelm the team, chew up funds, and slow your progress to a snail’s pace — a sure formula for failure.

Set the Strategic Direction Early

Before any startup embarks on scaling into new markets they need to decide on a strategy for growth. Some markets are best served by the original business model. But in many new or distant markets, the best business model for scaling the startup is not the same as the original.

Before you push the scaling start button, determine if and how your original business model needs to be adapted to fit commercialization in the targeted markets. It is likely the most important decision you will make.

You need to answer these two questions: Which parts of the business model should not change? What are the essential ingredients that have made your startup successful, and that should be maintained in scaling? You need to decide which elements can’t be changed, because they are core to your sustained operations and make your offerings the most desirable.

Messing with them would undermine the business model’s integrity, effectiveness and competitiveness.

Which parts should change to fit the targeted markets? New markets and different conditions can require significant changes to certain parts of your business model.

The elements that could shift to adapt to the market include the sales model, pricing, target market, staffing and ecosystem of partners. There may even be changes to the technology or the value delivered, if the new markets are sufficiently different from the original.

If no changes to your original approach are needed, scaling into new markets is

basically a replication function – the business model is recreated exactly the same everywhere. That may be the right approach in some situations, as some business models fit nicely into a wide range of market conditions. But to get the right fit with a new market, you often need to modify and tailor the business model.

Some startups have used both approach-

es. One startup we worked with in India developed a business-to-consumer (B2C) model for its initial launch. It worked very well. Later, desiring more growth, they expanded into a new state in India by replicating the original model. Though there were some differences in the new market, the original model was robust enough that no change was required. But later, when they wanted to enter the adjoining business-to-business (B2B) market, they realized major changes were needed — selling to businesses was much different than selling to consumers. So, they modified parts of the business model to fit the new B2B market and scaled successfully.

More recently, they changed the model more aggressively to expand into the very MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 51

different North American B2C and B2B markets.

In every case, they looked at the new markets and asked “What do we change and what do we keep the same.” To get the right market fit and performance, they tailored the scaling strategy – because the markets demanded different things from the business model.

Adjust Your Management Valence

Achieving significantly higher growth rates in new markets is a major shift from the startup status quo. When you scale, you and your team become ambidextrous – managing the existing enterprise while you lead the scaling initiative.

The hardest part of this dual focus is weaning the CEO from thinking that only they can make crucial decisions. In the continual firefighting of early stage startups, CEOs keep their hands on every moving part of the business model and jump in to fix whatever needs fixing. After years of operating like that, they usually become wed to the idea that they must be involved in nearly all decisions — from pricing strategy to hiring decisions.

Getting them to let go of that mentality and mode of operation is tough.

But it’s essential: While that may have been an important ingredient for success 52 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

in the company’s earlier stages, you can’t scale with that model. It keeps the CEO entrenched in the original business and insufficiently involved in the new scaling initiative.

Instead, the board and management team need to accept some new responsibilities and do the heavy lifting in the existing business. That requires robust operating processes: A business model that requires constant tinkering and intervention by the CEO and leadership team won’t do well when the executives are distracted and partially consumed with scaling. In their ambidextrous management role, the CEO and executive team need to focus on how the business is running, and step away from being involved in running every aspect of the business. And at some point, every startup will need to add specialized staff, such as a CFO, to keep things running smoothly and ensure the CEO is not involved in every decision.

Final Advice: Go Fast and Make Things

Speed has tremendous value when you are scaling. It makes your cash last longer, generates results that energize your team, and makes your company more attractive to funders. That’s why we coach entrepreneurs to “go fast and make things.”

You can move quickly and make real progress. But you need to avoid jumping the

gun and scaling prematurely. As we tell our entrepreneurs in the Scale Out program, you need to ask the tough questions about how your business is running, identify the elements that need to be strengthened, make your management team truly ambidextrous, and set a clear strategic direction. Once you have those things in place, scaling can be fast and relatively easy.

We have seen preparation pay off in much

faster growth. Some of our graduates generated six times the impact and revenues that their original enterprise achieved.

Scaling may not something that comes naturally to entrepreneurs – but that shouldn’t stop you. You weren’t born knowing how to walk, talk or run. But you learned how, and now it’s second nature.

You can become proficient at scaling the same way — learning from others and trying it for yourself.

Rob Shelton is a practitioner, coach, speaker, and author on breakthrough innovation, entrepreneurial excellence, and scaling to drive growth. Currently Rob is an Executive Fellow at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley where he coaches entrepreneurs to scale.

Over the past thirty-five years Rob has served as a trusted partner and advisor to founders and senior executives at leading organizations around the world.

Rob co-authored Making Innovation Work. The bestselling book is in its second publication, 14th printing, and has been translated into 10 languages.

Rob was designated an Innovation Champion by the World Economic Forum and has been invited to speak at Summer Davos, House of Commons, Stanford University, University of California, USC, MIT Media Labs, and Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley.

Business Website: www.scu-social-entrepreneurship.org Facebook Page: @MillerSocent

Twitter: @MillerSocent

Instagram Profile ID: @Miller.Socent

LinkedIn: @SheltonRob

LinkedIn Page: @MillerSocent

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 53

There are basically two ways to learn lessons in life: 1) Through trial-and-error, making our own mistakes; 2) Learning through the experience of others. Granted, there are some things we must learn through our own experiences such as reading, riding bicycles and driving cars. However, within those activities there are nuances we can learn from others who have gone before us that will give us an edge or accelerate our learning curves. The question then becomes one of: Do we want to learn by mistake or through mentoring?

Learning from another person’s success is what mentoring is all about. Investing yourself in life-on-life relationships benefits not only you but adds value to the mentor 54 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

as well.

by Scott Hogle

If we choose to ignore the rich opportunity mentors can provide, we are by default choosing to learn life lessons through what is commonly called “the school of hard knocks.” When we embrace the idea that we can benefit from the knowledge and experience of others, we become open to a myriad of opportunities otherwise unseen.

It all begins with a choice. This one choice can make you more than wealthy and wise, it can make you rich in relationships in a way that catapults you into a realm of potential that is not available to you without the help of mentors.

It’s important to understand that mentors

are not strictly live human beings who will meet with you in person on a regular basis to provide guidance and hold you accountable. Those types of relationships, while valuable, are only one type of mentoring.

In fact, if you limited your mentoring relationships to only people with whom you have face to face access you would be limiting yourself. Simply put, one mentor is not enough because there is too much we need to learn throughout the course of a lifetime, not just professionally but personally. But here is the good news. The new skills and knowledge you acquire during your development do not stay at the office, they travel with you at home to create a positive impact in your relationships, finances, physical health and more. And here is the best news, through mentoring you don’t just become better, you will make others around you better by example. The more you invest in yourself, the more you have to impart to others.

Millions have chosen mentorship by studying the great people of history. Incredible lessons can be learned from biographies.

Some are being mentored through the latest NY Times best-selling non-fiction authors. Yet others are mentored by listening to TED Talks or podcasts by current experts. People who are smarter or farther along in their learning are all around us.

Much of their knowledge is available to us at little-to-no financial investment, howev-

er learning from mentors does not come without cost. You must be willing to invest yourself (heart + mind), your time and believe you are worth the investment. Imagine how much you could improve each area of your life if you dedicated down time to improving yourself through mentoring.

The time required for mentoring is easy to find when you leverage technology.

Knowledge can be delivered through audio in the car, standing in line at a grocery store, reading an article on your phone, or on an airplane traveling in between cities reading a book on your eReader.

It’s important to note that when choosing mentors, we are never likely to interact with directly, the accountability aspect of enhancing our skills remains us. We are the only ones who will ever know if we follow through on the actions necessary to improve. When we have mentors live and in person, the accountability factor increases immensely. While we remain responsible for our actions, now we are reporting our efforts back to someone else. Remember, no one will ever be vested in your success as you will be. Personal accountability always trumps having another holding you accountable.

Regardless of the type of mentoring you prefer, it’s critical to first adapt a mentoring mindset. Choosing a mentoring mindset involves making an intentional decision to MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 55

grow. Growth is not automatic; it must be pursued. We don’t become better over time except through intentional choices and efforts.

The Benefits of a Mentoring Mindset A mentoring mindset creates multiplication in the area of expertise you are studying.

Through a solid mentoring relationship, you can exponentially increase your knowledge with exposure to others who might expand that knowledge even further.

Your mentor likely had a mentor or two, or three who helped them gain their knowledge. Through your mentor, you gain access to the expertise and experience of others you otherwise would not. A mentoring mindset will also cause you to seek out those with higher level of success, not just experience.

A mentoring mindset generates acceleration in your lane of pursuit. While others are slowed down by the potholes and pitfalls in life, you put yourself in a position to avoid those mistakes—able to compound your success. Mentors can help you be on guard against challenges others may encounter and be prepared for them if they do come your way.

A mentoring mindset creates opportunities for promotion. Your increase in knowledge and competency will be noticed. You will stand out from the crowd in a positive way.

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are always on the lookout for those who demonstrate dedication to improving their skillsets.

A mentoring mindset is an intentional decision to leverage the knowledge and expertise of others. It begins with an attitude of humility. It develops further when you ask yourself questions about what you know and what you need to know to achieve the next level of success in any chosen endeavor. Legendary UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden says it like this: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

What would take you to the next level in your business or personal life? Up to this point in your life, everything you’ve learned has come through others, maybe accidentally. With a shift in mindset to becoming intentional about who you seek out to mentor you, you can grow faster, achieve more, and reach more of your potential than you ever dreamed. Developing a mentoring mindset will blow the lid of off your potential and open an entirely new world to you.

Once you’ve defined your objective, ask yourself who you know directly or through others that you could reach out to for help.

Who you learn from is as important as what you learn. Leadership expert John Maxwell says that many people are getting advice from travel agents vs. tour guides.

What’s the difference? Travel agents are

great at giving advice where tour guides have actually been where you want to go.

Make a specific commitment of the amount of time you will dedicate to improvement each week. Those who have achieved greatness in any field are rarely loose with their time. They will be attracted to proteges who demonstrate commitment.

Once you’ve determined that you would like to have a mentor and what you would like to be mentored on, you will be open to attracting the right mentors. With any Become a true area of pursuit, problem, Become a true student. Be or desire you are never teachable. Be willing to student. Be more than one person take action even when you teachable… away from a breakthrough. don’t fully understand all To appeal to great mentors, of what’s been presented you must demonstrate that you to you. When you find a good are a good mentee. mentor, you show that you trust them by following their advice!

The Qualities of a Good Mentee When your preference is to develop a direct relationship with a mentor, there are two important elements to consider. First, determine who has the knowledge and expertise you desire and is open to mentoring you. Second, what is it about you that will attract the best mentors for your needs? It’s vital that you develop and demonstrate the qualities of a good mentee, if you want to have great mentors.

Here are a few qualities that will cause a mentor to gravitate toward you.

Develop a personal growth strategy beyond the topic for which you seek mentorship. Work on your character as much as you work on your skill development. This will show the mentor that you are willing to put in the work even on your own.

Be hungry but don’t be a parasite. Understand your motives and those of your mentor. Demonstrate appreciation for every lesson imparted, even if it doesn’t provide the exact results you wanted.

Be a focused listener. Hearing is an automatic activity that one can’t turn on or off.

But listening is an activity we can intentionally choose to turn on and tune in or turn off and tune out. The ear hears regardless of what we are focused on, but listening is a choice. Don’t just hear but heed what your mentor shares with you.

Be disciplined. Prepare for every meeting with your mentor. Doing so makes for a more robust meeting. Don’t ask questions that are answered in the mentor’s book or MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 57

on their blog. Go deeper. Become excellent at asking questions pertinent to your quest.

Provide feedback and request clarity. Successful mentoring is not just about sitting at the feet of someone who has earned greater success than you. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship with a desire for achievement on both sides. Everyone wants what’s in the mentor’s hands, but few want to learn and develop what’s in the mentor’s heart.

Mentorship allows you to stand on the shoulders of those who are ahead of you on your chosen path. Their guidance allows you to see farther ahead than you could on your own. Tapping into a mentor’s expertise grants you opportunities to acquire wisdom that comes from experience.

Regardless of where you are on the success curve as an employee, executive, or entrepreneur, mentorship can help you avoid mistakes and accelerate success. Mentors

can be people you work with, work for, admire, are across the street (a competitor), or someone you cold call and ask for some of their time each week or month.

If you think back to the people who made the biggest impact in your life, they were mentors to you. Imagine what will happen when you make mentorship intentional and not accidental. How would your life be different if you had access to expert advice for your profession, for every problem you are facing, for the area in which you desire most to grow?

Smart people learn from the mistakes of others. Wise people learn from other people’s successes. Set the stage for yourself to take advantage of the tremendous option of being mentored. If you don’t know where to begin, online book stores and those close by are filled with experiences written by thousands of experts ready to share with you their sagely advice. So, who will be your next mentor?

Scott Hogle is a Senior Vice President of Sales at iHeart Media with over 25 years of experience in developing sellers, leaders, and client relationships. He is the author of the best-selling book, “Persuade: The 7 Empowering Laws of the SalesMaker,” and an authoritative speaker who helps sales organizations create better relationships with clients and grow their businesses. www.ScottHogle.com 58 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

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Why Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Should Read Books Regularly to Be Successful I once heard someone say success leaves clues. One of the ways that success leaves clues for successful people is when a book is written by or about a successful person.

Often many years of experience is crammed into the pages of such a book.

Charlie Munger said “go to bed every night a little wiser than you were when you got up”.

Many people live their lives on autopilot doing much the same thing every day and never learning anything. And the same people often wonder how it is that some people can be so successful in life and they may even think that it is because someone else has been luckier than they have. How60 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

By Neil Ball ever, when we look at the habits of successful people it is often the case that among other things, they are voracious readers. For example: • Bill Gates reads one book per week.

• Mark Zuckerberg reads one book every • • • •

two weeks.

Elon musk is an avid reader.

Warren Buffett spends about 80% of his day reading.

Mark Cuban reads for more than three hours every day.

Oprah Winfrey reads one book every month.

If you are a wantrapreneur or an entrepre-

neur or a business owner there is still or we have not done. Reading allows us to much to learn. Of course, there is more stand on the shoulders of giants and learn than one way to learn what we need to from people who have triumphed against know. We can learn it on our own through the odds and overcome huge challenges making mistakes in our business; someand become successful. times this route can have fatal consequenc- Obviously, we have to be selective about es on our businesses. Or we can learn from what we read. We can’t read trashy novels other entrepreneurs through a coach or a and expect to get any real benefit from mentor or an advisory board or even a them for our businesses; other than transimastermind. This type of source of learntory entertainment. So, we should make ing has its place for an entrepreneur howsure that we read relevant books that are ever these people are not aleducational – books that other entrepreways going to be neurs and business we learn from the available when we owners read. We have to make vital can also read the successes of other decisions at every biographies of other entrepreneurs but we successful entreprestage of the journey.

It is better to learn can also learn a huge amount neurs to find inspito be a good entreration, motivation, from the failures of other preneur wherever ideas and so much possible in advance more. entrepreneurs... of challenges that Books help us in so may arise in running a business day-to-day. many ways to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Of course, some of this learning can come They can be a source of inspiration, develfrom other successful entrepreneurs who op skills, and provide tips and business have done it before. But we can also learn strategies. They can help us to become suca lot by reading books. cessful by providing the right knowledge, Reading is the best way of vicariously learning. We don’t always have to make the mistakes ourselves and we don’t always have to do everything by trial and error. It is so much better to learn from other people who have done what we have done

new ways of thinking, new insights and help us to develop necessary skills. Reading can also influence the way that we do business through personal development and leadership skills. We can get a lot of new ideas and tips allowing us to have multiple MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 61

perspectives to join the dots and do things in a way that had never been done before.

right approach from the get go. The decisions that we make in business are based on knowledge and/or experience.

Knowledge that can be derived from experiential learning of discovering what works and what doesn’t or learning vicariously from someone else’s experiences that they have shared in person or in a book.

By reading books we also develop cognitive skills which can benefit us in a multitude of ways by helping to improve our memory, develop literacy and verbal intelligence as well as increasing our strategic decisionmaking, boosting our brain power and reducing Every entrepreneur, stress.

When we are faced with a new and diffievery business in cult situation the outNot only can we learn come may be unexfrom the successes of every niche can benefit pected. Sometimes we other entrepreneurs don’t know the defibut we can also learn a from the knowledge huge amount from the acquired through reading. nite best approach to take. The more failures of other entreknowledge that we have either through preneurs. It is very important to make sure reading or experience or data the better that we learn about both perspectives. we will be able to make our own decisions.

Every entrepreneur, every business in eveObviously, there are no guarantees and ry niche can benefit from the knowledge there are always going to be situations acquired through reading. Whether we are where even with the benefit of reading trailblazers or following in the footsteps of books and our own experience we will still others there is so much we can learn from make lots of mistakes, but we are more other entrepreneurs and we can always likely to make the right decisions more draw from the experiences of others. No often than not. business is so unique that there aren’t Our problems and challenges in business many things that can be learned from the are not unique. Probably every problem experience of business owners in similar and challenge has been dealt with in the and different sectors. past by another entrepreneur as can we Reading allows us to become better entrediscover as we read more books. The anpreneurs, making fewer mistakes in busiswers to most problems are already availaness, making more good decisions faster, ble. and making it more likely we will have the 62 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

As an entrepreneur we have to learn and know so much – there are so many disciplines to master. Reading allows us to be smarter from the start and do things right from the beginning by learning how to from smart and successful entrepreneurs who have already dealt with the challenges we are and will face before us. It is very useful to get to understand how other entrepreneurs became successful not so that we can copy exactly what they did but to understand their processes, journey and mind-set.

Reading many books about entrepreneurs gives us a lot of perspective which allows us to realise that there is more than one way to do things. We get to understand the pros and cons of different approaches and we are able to select the best way for our businesses.

Reading books about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurialism also provides inspiration and reinforces our confidence. We may already know what we want to become and what to do but we haven’t yet done anything about it. When we read, we may discover confirmation of our existing knowledge and beliefs which may become

a source of guidance and encouragement for us to do whatever it is we want to do.

We may feel stuck in our current position with an idea and an understanding of what it takes to set up and run a business but we are paralysed by fear. Reading may provide an additional boost to the knowledge that we have already acquired and it may help us to get unstuck by overcoming the fear. The boost of the knowledge that something worked for somebody else may also bolster our confidence to try it ourselves.

Ultimately knowledge is cumulative it builds like compound interest. Over time with the right approach we can aggregate our knowledge about business and being an entrepreneur as well as about our industry. I believe that constant and never-ending learning is a real opportunity for us to become smarter than our competitors within our industry so that our businesses become market leaders. Successful people have the selfdiscipline to apply and maintain this approach to business and life.

As we acquire more information through ongoing reading, we start to join the dots and connect information from different MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 63

books and other sources. We discover things that have worked for other people in other industries and we see the opportunity to apply it in our own business. We also find that we connect information that we have acquired from books with ideas that we have had in the past allowing us to reignite something that we may have given up on in the past.

The never-ending hunger for knowledge will ultimately result in us making fewer mistakes as an entrepreneur in business.

We will get new ideas about how to do things and how to avoid getting it wrong.

Reading the books will give tips on the right way to do things.

One of the questions I often ask entrepreneurs in my The Entrepreneur Way Podcast is given the knowledge they have now how would they have shortcut of the learning curve. There seems to be quite a bit of confusion among entrepreneurs about the right answer to this question. When I say shortcut, I don’t mean missing out essential things that need to be learnt but learning to do them properly quicker so we can increase the momentum of our business growth quicker. I believe that reading does allow us to shortcut the learning curve and accelerate our progress along the success curve. It allows us to avoid taking the knocks and learning the hard way; it helps to reduce the risk of ignorance and costly 64 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

mistakes and ultimately may help us thwart the possible collapse of our business. Reading also provides us with potential shortcuts, new ideas and new approaches and possibly the recipe for success that has worked for other people dealing with similar things.

I have not written this post purely from a theoretical point of view but with the benefit of my own introspection and reflection of my entrepreneurial journey so far. During the early years of my entrepreneurial journey I read a very small number of qual-

ity books. In recent years I have read considerably more books. The biggest thing that I have learned is that I should have read a lot more in the early years of being an entrepreneur and all the way through to now; and I will do into the future. There are so many things that I could have done differently and better and possibly avoided some of the mistakes along the way.

Reading needs to be something that becomes a habit that we do every day like a ritual that fits into our daily routine. To ensure that we read every day we should set aside a block of time for reading, for example 30 minutes a day. Obviously, the amount of time can be less or more than this but we need to commit to enough time to make our reading substantial enough to be worthwhile. During this time, Obviously reading doesn’t totally we need to find a quiet substitute doing and we Reading needs place where we are not gowill inevitably still make mistakes along the way. If to be something ing to be interrupted or distracted ideally without telyou are a wantrapreneur evision, computers, don’t spend too long read- that becomes a phones, etcetera. Either ing books it is advisable to habit that we do first thing in the morning or start as soon as you can last thing at night is a good then read as you go every every day... time for many people to day. read. As Jim Rohn said “What is easy to do You may be thinking that you don’t have is easy not to do” so it is important to have the time to be reading everyday but I a daily routine so that we keep reading would say the reason you don’t have consistently. enough time to read every day is because As we read books, we should also docuyou don’t read. When we say ‘no’ to whatment our reading by keeping notes or ever it is that is making us too busy, we say writing cliff notes or a summary or creating ‘yes’ to reading and learning potentially a mind map or combinations of these. By better ways of running our business and doing this we then have something that life. So rather than looking at reading as something that we are saying ‘yes’ to, think allows us to easily refer back to important points. We can also read through our notes of it as saying ‘no’ to a way of running our to quickly reinforce our recollection of the business and life in a way that does not alconcepts learned in the book. low us time to do other important things that will produce big future benefits.

The reading books should be pleasant and MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 65

enjoyable. There is a saying that says ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ The more that we read the more we will discover how much we don’t know. When we enjoy the experience of learning through reading, we eagerly anticipate our next books.

It is also a good idea to start with a book list of quality books that map out our reading journey. A list of books such as The Top 50 Books for Entrepreneurs is a great starting point of ideas about what to read and provides some of the best books to spend our time on if entrepreneurialism, business and success are what interest us.

As we discover new books, we should add them to our list. Eventually we will get to the point where if we are enjoying the books we are reading we will be excited and eager to read other books in our evergrowing list of books to read. This can be a great source of motivation to continue

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reading every day.

If you are wondering what you should be reading, I have asked hundreds of entrepreneurs for a recommendation of their favourite book for other entrepreneurs on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership, motivation etc and I have put it in a list that you can download today. I believe this list is far more useful than a bestselling list we might find on Amazon because it is based on the opinion of successful entrepreneurs and business owners who have read many books and therefore it is far more valuable than best sellers of the moment. You can download your copy of The Top 50 Books for Entrepreneurs by clicking this link.

You will become a better and more successful entrepreneur through reading books. If you don’t already read lots of quality books I implore you to do it and start right now.

Neil Ball has been a serial entrepreneur for over 25 years with businesses in sectors such as Printing, Consumer Electronics, Distribution, Removals, Storage, Mail Order, Property Investing, Publishing and more. He has had his share of failures and successes on his entrepreneurial journey. The most successful of his businesses sold approximately £300 million or $500 million of products via retail, mail order and ecommerce and was one of the largest independent consumer electronics companies in the UK.

In recent years Neil’s passion for entrepreneurship and helping other entrepreneurs has led him to becoming a podcaster on his daily podcast The Entrepreneur Way where he interviews entrepreneurs and business owners on their entrepreneurial journey and their secrets of success. He is also a business coach and helps a small number of one on one clients in his coaching business..

When he isn’t working on his business or helping others your will find him spending time with beautiful wife Lorna and his 4 adult kids.

To connect or learn more go to: www.neilball.com

Twitter: @NeilDBall

Linkedin: @NeilDBall

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We’ve entered a new era—one that I call Generation Bootstrap. From personal experience, I’ve learned that you can build your own company without the obligations that come with outside investors. More and more young aspiring entrepreneurs are learning what I’ve learned—that by bootstrapping, you can become a successful entrepreneur. It’s a topic about which I’ve just published an entire book: No Investors? No Problem: A Serial Bootstrapper’s Playbook for Breakthrough Success on a Shoestring Budget Let’s look at some of the key components of the bootstrapping process and how they can lead to success.

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By Marty Schultz Passion and persistence are primary Persistence and creativity can make the difference between success and failure.

Take risks, be tenacious and don’t be afraid to do something unusual to attract your prospect’s attention. Whether it is a meeting with a distributor who might pick up your product, a developer who you can convince to work for you, or a one-on-one with a CEO who can become a mentor, you must show them that you not only have what it takes, but that you have something

unique that no one else can give them.

If you can do that, you are sure to get that all-important “yes” when you need it most—and not because they want to give it to you, but because you’ve offered them the smartest choice for their business. Give them no choice but to offer you a chance— then take that chance and knock it out of the park. The world will always present you with obstacles; what matters is how you respond to them.

that did better by identifying a genuine pain—the inability to send faxes via computer—and working with customers to streamline a product to fulfill their needs.

This time, we were successful.

Make the whole world your focus group

Getting the right feedback from the right people is critical for success. Never assume anything about your customers; always focus-group them first. I learned this the hard way when one company I bootSolve your customers’ strapped failed to get off the ground. Our aim pain was to develop soft“I get knocked down, ware that allowed Be the aspirin to your but I get up again” companies to monicustomers’ pain; tor the instant mesknowing what they sages (IMs) their emreally need, even if they ployees were sending. We thought this themselves may not, is the critical compowould be a success because those companent of any business. Of course, it’s crucial nies that responded to our advertisements that you listen to what people want before told us they needed such a product. But you begin building your product or service. this was equivalent to only listening to If you don’t, you run the risk of developing people who were telling us what we wantsomething that may be brilliantly coned to hear. ceived—and a complete dud in the marketplace. I and a partner learned that the hard way in the early 1980s: we created a What we should have done was set up a startup offering a converter enabling softfocus group with a wide cross-section of IT ware apps built for expensive computers to directors and quiz them on whether they would actually spend money on what we run on low-cost computers. were proposing to sell. We launched our product anyway and it didn’t sell—because Long story short, those potential customnot enough companies thought it was ers who we thought had a pain—i.e., comworth spending money on. puter resellers—were doing fine without our aspirin. Years later, I was part of a team MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 69

‘Failure’ is never final “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” sang Chumbawamba, and that’s true for bootstrappers as well. There are ways to know if your venture is headed for failure and when, why and how to bail out. For example, if you develop a product and find you don’t have the time or resources to compete with the best in that category, you’re wasting your time. This situation materialized for a friend of mine who developed an online math teaching website for students, which I developed into an app. But we could not compete against Khan Academy, which has become the behemoth in this area.

The right option was to walk away, so we did. It’s crucial to try to analyze which dominos will doom your business and to determine how you will react if those dominos do, in fact, fall. Afterward, do a postmortem of your failure—determine what you did wrong and what actions you will take in the future to prevent a similar situation from reoccurring.

Get a mentor A mentor can teach you important entrepreneurial lessons. Don’t let youthful pride stand in the way of finding one. Many successful people care about changing the world; they will give back if they see something in you. The main function of a mentor is to give insightful feedback in a way 70 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

that encourages independent thought in the mentee. Ideally, they offer new ways to look at and analyze a problem and show you that the approaches you are taking or plan to take are not all the possible approaches.

A good mentor will also tell you what won’t work in a way that allows you to identify these issues for yourself when they arise again in the future. One of the best mentors I ever had made me and a partner map out every conceivable scenario at an upcoming business meeting with a computer manufacturer—and this preparation helped us close a contract worth $150,000 in today’s dollars. Getting mentored pays off handsomely.

Hire staff wisely It’s crucial to know every aspect of your business—but that doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. Look for people with something to prove; the best hire is someone who has made a personal commitment to themselves to succeed. Onboarding the right team members and letting them know exactly what you need from them (by establishing key performance indicators) is crucial to your company’s success. If you master this skill-set, your project’s growth has the potential to be exponential.

Conversely, if you hire the wrong fit for your needs, the amount of time and money you might waste will be huge. My core

philosophy when it comes to hiring is simple: you need to learn how to do something yourself before you expect someone else to do it. You, as the leader, must be 100 percent aware of what it will take for someone to meet your benchmark of performance.

Be prepared to pivot Being able to change your trajectory— abruptly and drastically—is paramount in order to achieve success. Be fearless in reinventing your company when necessary to address the needs of your customers. Consider, for example, one company I mentioned above—the one that developed instant-message monitoring software. When our original target customer base didn’t bite, we didn’t completely abandon the idea; instead, we started to explore another target customer base: parents who wanted to keep tabs on their children's activities online.

After a series of modifications, we were able to brand the product as McGruff Safeguard, using the National Crime Prevention Council’s mascot “McGruff the Crime Dog.” This paid off well. Within a year of becoming McGruff Safeguard, we had established relationships with new social media companies like Myspace, and had tens of thousands of parents using our product.

Focus on the short term

It’s dangerous to put your focus on bright, shiny long-term hopes and dreams when growing a company. Know that you can never hit your long-term goals without focusing first on your short-term objectives— say, the next three to six months. Say to yourself, If I want to be at “Goal E” in 24 months, I need to be at “Goal D” in 18 months. If I want to be at Goal “D” in 18 months, I need to be at “Goal C” by 12 months. If I want to be at “Goal C” by 12 months, I need to be at “Goal B” by 6 months. If I want to be at “Goal B” by 6 months, I need to be at “Goal A” by 3 months. Then start reaching these milestones by dedicating the vast majority of your energy to achieving “Goal A.”

Be flexible by adjusting your future goals to the practical realities of your operations.

That way your short-term and long-term goals will be aligned.

Creative marketing pays off Establish a fundamental message that lets people know you have the solution to eliminating their pain. Don’t be afraid to adopt non-traditional marketing tactics that can get your brand known and help acquire customers without spending too much money. Once one of my companies had hit its stride—the one that allowed people to send faxes via computer—we capitalized on our logo, which happened to be a finely detailed image of a rhinoceros.

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When a customer would call us inquiring about the product, we would instantly send them a fax that would include an order form emblazoned with an image of this very detailed rhino. They would see that our product not only worked, but that it was able to send extremely intricate images that came to them clearly in a matter of moments. We later went even further, suspending an inflatable rhino the size of a UPS truck above our booths at trade conventions—a memorable branding ploy to be sure!

Customer loyalty must be earned The road to success is a long and winding one. Along the way, always remember that you are entering into a relationship with people; treat them with respect and honesty and they will reciprocate. I know this because of my personal experience developing iPhone and iPad games for Blindfold Games, an app development company I founded that builds accessible games for

the visually impaired community, as well as Objective Ed, a social impact business I cofounded providing students with disabilities with educational games to achieve the best educational outcomes.

The games were developed from the ground up with the needs of this community in mind, and my team of programmers and I have met extensively with visually impaired students and their teachers to determine the features they would find most beneficial in the classroom. In turn, the community has been extremely supportive of our efforts to grow our footprint.

To sum up the lesson, bootstrapping is definitely the way to go for any would-be entrepreneurs seeking to take their fledgling businesses to the next level. It won’t be easy—nothing worthwhile in life ever is— but the potential rewards are there for those who know the rules and have the courage and determination to see it through. Good luck!

Marty Schultz is the author of No Investors? No Problem: A Serial Bootstrapper’s Playbook for Breakthrough Success on a Shoestring Budget (2019). He is the President and Co-Founder of Objective Ed, an organization providing students with disabilities with educational games to achieve the best educational outcomes, and the CEO and Founder of Blindfold Games, now a division of Objective Ed. He has also served as CEO/Founder of McGruff SafeGuard; President/Co-Founder of eSped.com; President/Founder of Omtool; and CEO/Founder of Softbol.

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Neil: Thank you for providing the interview Noah, Noah: You bet, it’s my pleasure.

Neil: Noah, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life to allow us to get to know more about what you do, and who you are?

Noah: Well thanks Neil, I mean really, I have been online since 1997 so I am one of the old guys, in this industry, I started many, many years ago when we still had dial-up. In fact, I am seven months older than Facebook believe it or not.

So, I have been doing this a long, long time and now I have had the privilege of working and helping thousands of... well tens of thousands of entrepreneurs in over 140 countries around the world. And for those of you who are just starting out, or even if you have been doing this for a while, I am sure you all know about how exciting it is to get orders from people around the world. I mean sometimes even countries that I have never heard of, and you have to look at 'where is that?' I have never even heard of that. And boy that’s so exciting, there is just nothing like it, to know that you are touching lives all around the world.

Interview by Neil Ball

So really our mission at successclinic.com, that’s the name of my company, successclinic.com, is to empower and really help small business owners get unstuck, find their voice and automate their business. So that’s our three... we call it the three prongs of our mission, 1) get unstuck, 2) find your voice, 3) and automate your business.

And our mission, our big, big picture is to help 10,000 small business owners double their performance and profits. So really that’s kind of like the big picture Neil.

Neil: So, in your bio, you talk about, you are known as the ‘Power of Habit’s Mentor’. How have you managed to get that accolade and what is that about?

Noah: I developed a system, many years ago that is now called ‘The Power Habit System’. And basically, what I teach is the ‘Power Habits’ of unconsciously successful people. Now I know that is kind of a mouthful, but what it basically means is there are people that I call the naturals of success, they are often called like the top 2%, and they are just... and I am sure we all know someone like that, it’s like everything they touch seems to turn to gold. And when you talk to them it’s kind of frustrating because they are like 'yes' or maybe MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 75

like 'how did you do that?' and they are like 'well I don't know, I just put it out there and it just started to happen' and you are like, 'ah that’s not very helpful.'

easy to understand and to follow? Is that what you are doing?

Noah: I think so, that’s what my clients say.

And one of the reasons that I did this was So, what I did... I am basically a nerd, like a because I was very frustrated you know self-help nerd from way back... and so I rewith having spent all this money myself. So, ally wanted to break it down, really step-by I was in exactly the same boat, and I ended -step so that people... just regular average up $40,000 in debt, you know working out everyday people, like you and me could use of my parents' basement, after going what they are doing, and through all these prothe only way to do that grammes. So, I know what “I invented a method, though is to understand it’s like to spend all this what they are doing and money, invest all this time a system, or a explain it in a way that anand effort, and yet not get formula called ybody can use. the results.

‘afformations’ which is using empowering questions…”

So basically, the reason that they call me the Power Habit’s Mentor is because many people have come to me after spending tens of thousands of dollars with everybody else, all the big-name gurus, all the famous dudes, and yet they are still stuck. Then they come to me, and they follow my formula and then they get unstuck. So, they start to make a lot more money. We have had clients who have gotten their first books published after many, many years of trying.

People who have lost weight, we have saved marriages, or people have found their soul-mate. So, it’s really, real exciting when you see people use these power habits, really in all areas of life.

Neil: So, your ability to create that effect where others have not, is that down to the fact that you have managed to break things down in to simpler terms that are 76 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

So that's when I said 'listen I have got to just fix this myself, I have got to come up with the solution, if nobody else is going to. And so that’s what I did, I was able to do it and then, and then turn that around, and then in less than two years was able to build a multi-million-dollar online business. And of course, pay off all my debts, work, buy my own home, so I am getting out of my parents’ basement and all that kind of a thing.

And I met the love of my life also, you know my beautiful wife Babette, using this very system, so really, I am the poster child for... if I can do it, then anybody can do it.

Neil: And in your bio you also mentioned your book of ‘afformations’. How important are ‘afformations’ for people?

Noah: Well they are really huge, and the reason for that is... and by the way, we are

using a new word here, it’s ‘afformations’ not ‘affirmations.’ I am sure most people have used or have heard the term affirmations which is a statement of something you want to be true. I invented a method, a system, or a formula called ‘afformations’ which is using empowering questions.

So, what I determined and realised is that those naturals, those highly successful people, those unconsciously successful people, one of the things they are doing is they are asking really empowering questions. Like 'how come this is so easy for me? Why am always in the right place at the right time?'

When you ask empowering questions, what happens is your mind starts to work and give you empower answers. Which of course leads to really great solutions in your life. And so, the point is that many people have said that using ‘afformations’ for them, was really one of the keys to turning their life around, even after they have tried everything else.

Neil: And just one other thing that you talked about in your bio it was unlimited potential. I think there is a lot of people that actually limit themselves, through their own thinking, don't they? So, where does unlimited potential come from for somebody who is holding themselves back with their own limited thinking?

Noah: Well this is kind of a double-edged sword Neil because everybody and their brother, talks about your unlimited potential and unlocking it and that, and that kind of thing. So, on the one hand that’s good, but on the other hand, people get very

frustrated by that because of course they feel very limited. And it’s like, 'well you keep talking about my unlimited potential, how come I am stuck? How come I feel limited? How come I can't access it?' And so that’s very, very frustrating. And I remember that feeling very, very well, you know just hearing all these motivational speakers, talk about this and go 'this is not helping.' You know, so it’s even more frustrating.

So, what I like to do, is really just lay it out very step-by-step, very systematically and say listen, your life is really determined by your habits. But it really gets more specific than that. There are two kinds of habits, what I call the inner-game habit’s and the outer-game habits.

So, your inner-game are the things that you cannot see directly but they affect everything in your life, your thoughts, your emotions, your priorities, your priorities, decision, things you cannot see directly, but you see the effects of them.

But then the out-game are the things that you can see directly, your everyday habits, you know what you are doing, your lifestyle, the systems you have in your business and so on.

So, it’s only when you master your innergame and your outer-game habits, that’s when success happens, you have to have both. And where I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggling, is either they are doing or focusing on only one or the other, or they really just do not have the systems for eiMENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 77

ther one.

Neil: You have written ten books, but how else do you make money from what you do? I mean it’s obvious from the books how you make money, but how do you make money from the other things that you do?

Noah: Well listen, for those folks who have been doing this for a while or even if you are brand new at it, there is not a lot of money in books. I mean just to be very blunt, the most that a book makes is, you know you can charge about $20, maybe for a hard cover book, maybe, $25. And out of that... I have done self-publishing and I have also done it with the big New York Publishers, I have done it all in terms of book publishing... but either way, it takes a lot, you have to sell a lot of books. You know when you are with a publisher, you are getting a royalty of maybe a dollar 80 cents out of that twenty dollars. So, you have to sell a heck of a lot of books to make any money. In fact, even just to make a living.

So, what I learned many years ago is that you have got to have other products. And for me it’s been the digital online products.

I really love digital products. Most of our products, our programmes, courses are delivered online now. And as I said earlier, what is so exciting is that for me as the teacher, the mentor, the coach, I get to touch peoples' lives and transform lives all around the planet. You know people who could never or never would have heard of me otherwise.

78 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

And that person on the other end, they do not have to wait for a book to be shipped to them, and wait for all those different costs or what have you. So digital and online programmes are awesome and love them and it’s really, really exciting. And frankly you can charge more for them because what happens like in... we have a course called 'Power Habit’s Academy' where I teach the power habit system, I have got a programme called 'Six-Figure Business Machine', where I teach you how to put your online courses up... so the point is that because you are getting time with me, you are getting like for example group calls, and there is videos and stuff like that, that go with it, you know I can charge more for it, and the perceived value is much higher for the student. And so, it’s really a win-win-win, everybody wins and it is a way to, you don't make that or have that six or seven figure online business.

Neil: What do you enjoy most about what you do Noah?

Noah: I enjoy transforming lives, that gets me very, very happy. And when I read stories people write to me on social media, on my Facebook page, or they send me emails, about how my work has changed their lives, the transformations that they are having. Like people going from making $5,000 dollars a month to making $75,000 dollars a month. People who were really out of work and now they have got a sixfigure income. People publish their first book, finding love, losing weight, I mean just all across all spectrums, you know

that’s where I really help people, because if you think about it, where aren't your habit’s affecting you? They affect everything.

Neil: So, when you are not driving for more and more and more how do you relax when you are not working in your business?

So, what I enjoy most is reading those transformational stories and knowing that I am having that ripple effect on the world and of course that ripple effect just keeps going and going, as those people continue to change lives themselves.

Noah: My wife and I like to go to the movies. I enjoy just going and enjoying a good movie, I also like to go ballroom dancing with my wife. We enjoy ballroom dancing.

That’s actually our first date, I took her dancing and swept her off her feet, which is great. So, for all the men out there, husNeil: And what is it that drives you? bands or single guys, definitely use dancing, go dancing with your spouse, your sigNoah: What drives me is nificant other because bewanting more of that. Ha lieve me your wife will “what drives me is ha. I want more transforhave a big, big smile on mation. I want more imyour face and you will really to transform pact around the world, score major points, believe more and more lives you know as I mentioned, me. around the planet and we have that mission to to raise the help 10,000 small business Neil: Do you have any enowners, double their pertrepreneurial role modconsciousness to the formance and profits, I els? earth” would like to see a 100,000 and a million Noah: My role model for small business owners you know, doubling getting in to this industry was the late Dr their performance and profits. So, wherevStephen Covey who wrote ‘The Seven Haber we hit, we are going to just keep growits of Highly Effective People.’ Now I had ing and growing. the opportunity, the privilege of interviewing Dr Covey actually twice before he sadly So, what drives me is really to transform passed away a couple of years ago and he more and more lives around the planet is really my role model because he was exand to raise the consciousness to the actly as you would want Stephen Covey to earth. I think certainly we all know this is a be when I had the privilege of speaking crucial time in the earth's history and in with him you know one-on-one and interhumanity history. And you know I would viewing him. He was humble, he was brillike to be a part of that and to be as big a liant, he was wise, I mean he was like Yoda, part of that as I can. and it was like wow, just to have a person like that, that I was able to meet even for a MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 79

very short time... But you know through his books and his other programmes, I was able to meet him in that way.

I knew that the number one thing that people needed was to actually to give themselves permission to succeed. In fact, I And so, I talked about that ripple effect a trademarked that phrase. Nobody was talkmoment ago. And so, he is my role model ing about that back then, now you hear for wanting to have that ripple effect, that some people talking about it. But I actually transformational effect really on as many am the first person to actually break that people as I can before I am dead and bedown of how you actually give yourself fore I leave this earth. And permission to succeed so that’s the legacy that I which I have discovered is “it was just keep try to live up to every day. in fact the number one doggedly asking thing holding people back.

Neil: Absolutely awesome questions, and try to Stephen Covey, isn't he?

So, the difficulty for me find the right was just now what do I do? mentors, try to find Noah: yeh I mean what am I supposed to do? It was starting from the right teachers.”

Neil: Noah, what I would absolute nothing in terms like to do is talk about the of knowledge, experience time before you were an entrepreneur. and money. I had no money, being a colWhat difficulties did you have to overlege student, a typical broke starving colcome when you started your business? lege student. So, I guess if there is any lesson to be learned from me from my story Noah: The main difficulty I had to overit’s that if you have a dream, if you have a come was not knowing a damn thing about 'why to' that is strong enough you will find how to build a business. I mean nothing. I a way. Now there were a lot of mistakes was... when I started successclinic.com in and bumps on the road certainly along the 1997... I was a Religious Studies major in way, but I just always kept that strong vicollege. So, I literally started my company sion in my head and that's what kept me from my college dorm room, you know just going through the long lean years. like Michael Dell. Although Michael Dell was a lot smarter than me. And I had absoNeil: So how did you get from there, from lutely no idea what I was doing but I just the point of knowing not an awful lot, to had a mission, I had a vision, a dream really where you are now? I mean obviously just to touch people's lives, to transform there has been quite a steep learning lives around the world, you know with curve hasn't there? ‘afformations’ , with power habits, which at that time was called permission to sucNoah: Ha ha ha yeh. Honestly it was just ceed. keep doggedly asking questions, and try to 80 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

find the right mentors, try to find the right teachers. One of the big issues in the internet marketing world is that the guys who are very successful at it, tend to be sucky teachers. And so that’s been the worst part is trying to learn internet marketing from marketers. Well most of them are natural marketers, so either a) they don't want to tell you what they did, or b) they cannot really break it down because it’s like asking Mozart to tell you how to write a symphony. He's like 'well just friggin write a symphony.' I am like 'well that’s not helping' ok? You know, so I am the anti-Mozart, I am like, I don't know what to do so that’s I think again being a nerd, why I had to break it down step-by-step just for myself to go 'what do you want me to do?' And then now I think my students appreciate that because a lot of them feel the same way. So right now, I am kind of the internet marketing clean-up crew at this point.

Neil: And did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

Noah: Yeh yeh, huge doubts. I mean I always doubted myself, I always doubted my own ability, I always thought everybody else was smarter than me. And you know sometimes that is true and often times isn't. And that is the number one thing for me Neil was realising not that I am smarter than anybody but that everybody is not smarter than me, you know. And we are all kind of figuring this out.

Now, of course there were some people who were better marketers than me and had more knowledge and experience, that

was certainly true and of course those were the people I tried to learn from. But the main thing for me that held me back for a long, long time was that belief, that 'Well I guess everybody is smarter than me.'

I will give you a just quick example. I had one book come out from Harper Collins, called The Secret Code of Success and their brilliant idea was to release it on January 20th 2009. Well there just happened to be one other thing happening on January 20th 2009 which was the first black president of the United States being inaugurated. And they literally said to me, and I am not making this up, they said, 'well don't worry the media will have to cover something else.'

No, they actually didn't, there was nothing but that for weeks and weeks and weeks.

So, I got utterly completely lost, it was a train-wreck, it was a disaster. And so, I was sitting there going you know little old me, saying 'but I don't think that’s a great idea.'

But I literally said, 'well I guess they know better than me, they have got a big building and you know they must be smarter than me. And meanwhile, no they did not know anything and that was really stupid.

Ha ha.

Neil: What mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

Noah: Trusting the wrong people, not listening to myself, not listening to my intuition. Being conned by con-artists who were very persuasive, just loud. And so yeh that really hurt. And it of course cost me tens of thousands of dollars, and really years of my MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 81

life that I cannot get back. So again, the lesson I think or I hope for folks is you have got to trust yourself, but you have also got to know when you do need help but the help has to come from the right source.

And it’s really hard, it’s just hard especially when you have got really persuasive salesmen, trying to sell you stuff. And as I just mentioned a moment ago, me having that self-doubt that was just was a really, really bad costly combination.

and be an author, to speak on big stages and to write books and teach and coach, and mentor people. But I did not know what I wanted to talk about. And I just made a decision even before I discovered ‘afformations’ and discovered 'The Power Habit System', I just said, 'I don't want to say the same thing everybody else does.'

Everybody is parroting the same things, the same stories over and over again. And I think that just that determination to just add some“I think the point is So, for all the folks, I would thing unique to the space, I that people get stuck just hope that you get that think frankly is one of the on what is my passion? other perspective and mayreasons that people come And that is probably be talk to some friends or to me after spending monsomething and say 'is this ey on all the big names, all the wrong question. I the right mentor? Is this the famous dudes, not think that a better the right teacher for me? making the money, not question would be 'how Or the right coach?' And of having the result, then do I want to add value course, we all do the best they come to me and they to the world?” we can with the knowledge get the result, they make that we are given. But that the money, you know they certainly would have been have that breakthrough. nice to have back. So again, my hope is that And I think that’s a big, big part of that. the other folks can learn from my mistakes.

Neil: A lot of people are told to follow Neil: What are some of the things that you their passion when it comes to their cadid before you started your business that reers and jobs and even businesses. What would be helpful tips to some of the lisis your opinion on that advice? teners who haven't yet taken the first step of the entrepreneur's way?

Noah: That’s another double-edged sword Neil, and the reason for that is because I've Noah: I think that going back to having that found in life you can have many passions, 'why’ to having that vision, that dream reand you can even have many purposes. I ally. It is a dream, but the difference... and think the point is that people get stuck on we have all heard the phrase 'a goal is a what is my passion? And that is probably dream with a deadline.' I think that’s sort the wrong question. I think that a better of true, not really... but really the point is I question would be 'how do I want to add always knew that I wanted to be a speaker, value to the world? How do I want to add 82 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

value to human beings or to the earth?'

And so, for some people, adding value might be being a palaeontologist, or being a marine biologist, and studying dolphins and aquatic life. If I was not doing what I am doing now, that’s what I would be doing. With a name like Noah, you want to be with animals.

stronger question to be able to get to your goals.

So, do you see what I am saying? It’s not all about the money and it’s not all about finding a passion per se. But I like to look at it that way, how do I want to add value to whatever it is that I am doing? And even if you are working in a job... if you are working in a job right now and you are saying 'god I really want to start my own business'... How do I want to add value? Because that’s the only way you are going to make money, money comes from value, it’s not the other way around. So, I feel that that’s a stronger question for someone to ask.

Neil: Noah, what I would like to do now is to talk about the entrepreneurial journey a little bit more with you. Is culture important from the beginning in a business?

Neil: I think it’s a, it’s flawed advice really isn't it? Because your passion might be something that you cannot make money out of, for a start, which is obviously a bit of a dead-end.

Noah: So, a good example possibly is like an artist... you know if I am an artist and I am painting, that’s my passion, well great how am I going to make money? So then having that question, 'well how can I add value?' That’s going to lead you I think to ways that you can monetise that, that you can make money because as I just said, money comes from perceived value. So, I think that will enable you to... it’s just a

Neil: Yes, absolutely and I think your 'why' comes in to it as well, doesn't it? You have got to have a strong 'why'? Which again I suppose is the value thing, at the same time isn't it?

Noah: I feel it really is and let me explain why. Even when I started, it was just me in my college dorm room many years ago, almost two decades now that I have been doing this online and helping folks and teaching people.

I realised that the number one most important thing was customer service. And I don't know where that idea came from, I certainly did not invent it, but I just... I had a knowing inside of me that if I take care of my customers, they will take care of me.

And as the years went on, I saw how lousy customer service is on the internet. I mean it’s just horrendous.

And so, I mean I have been in conversations with marketers and they say things like, 'well we are ok with the 50% refund rate.' And I am like, 'are you insane? I mean that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.' But frankly, they are just making so much money, they really do not care. And I am like, 'man that just sucks.' So, I said, 'listen, I am going to take care of my cusMENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 83

tomers.

So, one of the things that we have at our company is we are a customer service company that does business in professional growth. We are not a business in professional growth company that has customer service. And having that as our mantra that I have said until... I've repeated it ten thousand times, my team is sick of me saying it, but they know it’s ingrained in them, and so it goes to all parts of our business and our culture.

And so just that one sort of rallying cry, that one mantra that we have, I think keeps us really focused, so our refund rate is about 2-3%. You know, and it’s stayed that way this entire time that I have been online. 2-3% as opposed to 40-50%. So, I think it’s working and so I think culture is very, very important, even if it’s just you running the show.

Neil: Absolutely.

Neil: Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out, that would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

Noah: I think basically how to market properly. How to market properly. And what I mean by that is... as I said a moment ago, the marketing gurus tend to be sucky teachers and they leave all the good stuff out, and I call it the marketing black box.

There is the black box and they are like 'I will tell you what is in the black box if you give me a lot more money.' And I am like, 84 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

'oh my god, I am going to kill you.' You know, so that’s really, really aggravating, and so I have had to spend over a quarter of million dollars just to understand what is in the black box. Now that I have opened it up, I am like 'oh alright well that was pretty easy really' There is a lot to it, don't get me wrong, marketing is a moving target, that’s one of the annoying things about it, is that what worked in 2007, and even 18 months ago, probably does not work at all right now, especially with Google and changes and all that stuff.

So, the point is that I think no. 1) understanding just the basic principles of marketing. And then 2) also realising that we are here to serve our customers. And I have always done that second part, but the first part, that was the really hard part. So, I mean it took a long time to be able to get that in my brain. Just to how do you position? How do you package your stuff? How do you monetise it? I mean I did not even know what the word monetize meant back then. So that was for me the longest part.

So, I guess for folks starting out, I mean if you can really focus on... I just say ethical marketing. I know that sounds kind of silly or maybe even like a cliché but one of the things that always annoy me about marketing and marketers, was I hate lying and I hate liars. I hate people who just do not tell the truth. And I thought I had to become that guy, I thought I had to become someone who was always hyping things up and just making things up. And I am like it took me a long time to realise, I hate that so much. And I am not going to be that guy.

So, stopping doing that has been probably the best thing that I have done in a long, long time.

Neil: How much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

think that is going to enable you to make even better decisions.

Neil: Noah, what do you think the secrets of success are in business, what would you think the key things are?

Noah: You have to balance gut feeling or Noah: It’s two. Number one, is to give intuition with data. You can think that yourself permission to succeed, meaning something is really great and it isn't. Honallow yourself to succeed. Allowing yourestly, so you have gotta balself to reach that level of ance...you know, one of the success, that you probably You have to things that I do is I watch do not believe you can do. balance gut Shark Tank every week. You And then number two, is feeling or know that show, Shark Tank? learn how to ethically marAnd also, they have got a ket. How to market ethically. intuition with new show, ABC does, called And of course, that is going data.

'Beyond the Tank'. Where of to be different for each percourse, they are in the tank son, I am not here to teach and they get the deal or do ethics but really, I think we not get the deal, and then well, what hapall know what feels right for us and what pens after that? What happens after that is does not. of course the most important thing. So, the point is, you learn that the sharks are alAnd so, like I just said a moment ago, for ways right, you know, if you have made a me, any type of hype or lying or even like billion dollars, you tend to know what you stretching the truth, I cannot do it, I just... I are doing, you know. And they just asked am uncomfortable with that. There is some the right questions. Ok what are your people that are very comfortable with that, sales? What is your cost of acquisition and so hey good for them. da da dah dah? And you pay attention to the questions they are asking; they are alSo, once you understand how to give yourways the right questions. self permission to succeed, and then also how to market ethically, how to package So yes, gut feeling is important and you and promote your products and your prohave got to go... like again, even my examgrammes, how to put them together, so it’s ple of not knowing what the heck I was donot one-to-one, but one to many. I feel ing, I had that vision, that gut feeling if you that is really the secret of success. want, but eventually I really did have to learn what it takes to make those data driv- Neil: Life is made of constant change en decisions. So, it’s always a balance and I whether we like it or not, and many peoMENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 85

ple say the only Constant in life is Change.

How do you try to keep up with change?

wrong but what if we go for great?

And you know he talks about the Noah: I study guys who are smarter than 'Hedgehog Concept' and the 'BHAG' and all me. You know people like Gary Vaynerthose catch phrases that he got. I just think chuk, who is a dear friend of mine, but he that’s my favourite book. And a few years is like the smartest entrepreneur that I ago, I had the opportunity and the priviknow. You know, people lege to speak on the same like that and just try to... stage with Jim Collins, that you know they seem to be was really a dream come I know that there are really good at looking true. So yeh I would say people out there, around corners and seeing good to great is my favourmillions and millions of what is next. So, you try to ite book on entrepreneuripeople who are do that. As you just said, alism. the only constant is starving for the change. So, at the end of Neil: Noah, what I would information that I the day, you have got to like to do now is speculate have, and that I have just make sure that you are about the future a little bit been able to supply to focused on doing what you with you. What one thing the folks online who can control. And you canwould you do with your not do everything, so just business if you knew you have found me and try to focus on doing one could not fail? have heard of me and thing at a time and things heard about me. tend to take care of themNoah: I would like to go on selves. a tour of North America and then a tour of the Neil: What is your favourite book on enworld. I know that there are people out trepreneurialism, business, personal dethere, millions and millions of people who velopment, leadership or motivation? Can are starving for the information that I have, you tell us why you have chosen it? and that I have been able to supply to the folks online who have found me and have Noah: Gosh there are so many, well the heard of me and heard about me. And I one that sprung to mind is ‘Good to Great’ just want to transform more lives like I said

by Jim Collins. I got that book on my 40th earlier, so I would love to do a tour. birthday, and that really changed my life, it really, really helped me to realise that...

That is something we are gearing up for. yeh right there, the first sentence, good is Hopefully in the next 18 months, 18-24 the enemy of great. And I saw that, and I months, we will be doing at least a tour of am like, 'wow man I have been settling for North America, and hopefully the world. I good.' And good is good, don't get me have fans in all different countries, as I 86 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

mentioned over 140 countries now. And so that’s my dream right now, my vision and you know I do not know how we are going to do it, because it’s expensive and there is a million questions and I do not know how to do it. But you know if I could from my college dorm room to... where I did not know one single thing... to here, I am like, you know that's like reminding myself, 'aright, come on I have gotton through worse than this' so let’s see if we can do it.

Neil: Go for it.

Noah: Yeh Neil: What skill, if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business?

Noah: You know, that I think, the answer to that is creating funnels that really convert.

And for those of you in marketing, if you are a seasoned business owner or if you are just starting out, I am sure you have heard of the funnel or campaign funnel.

We actually now built this for clients, we call it our campaign profit blueprint. But that was a skill Neil that I knew absolutely knew nothing about. And I realised that it was one skill that was really holding me back or the lack there of... was how do you build these funnels? How do you build a campaign that converts? How do you go from cold traffic to somebody who has never heard of you, to ok they have heard of you, and then they buy from you, and then they become a life-long customer?

How the heck do you do that?

So there a lot of moving parts in that, that’s not just one thing, it’s many things.

And I think going back to our mantra for successclinic.com, going back to that fact that we are a customer service company, that teaches business and personal growth, I think that really, really, really works here in this skill set. Because knowing that we are focused on the customer, focused on their needs, their wants, their desires, their goals, and then how can we serve them the best, that has enabled us to build it faster than what most marketers do.

As they say, 'how can we squeeze more revenue out of every customer?' Okay that's not...I am not trying to put a judgement on it, I mean of course we all want more revenue, more profit’s and more bottom line, but for me that question did not inspire me. The question that inspires me is 'how can we help more people transform their lives around the world?' So that’s what inspires me.

And so, for the folks, what question inspires you? And use that, focus on that.

And so that would be the skill for me that I would pick.

Neil: In 5 years from now if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

Noah: I would like it to say, number one, they believed in me, they believed in us.

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number two that enabled me to reach my goals, whether it’s in business or health or weight loss or relationships, whatever it is.

You know enabled me to build me 6, 7 and 8 figure company. And basically, number three is he told the truth... he told the truth, he told it like it is, it was not what I always wanted to hear, but he told the truth. And that was really sometimes... it was a hard pill to swallow but I am really grateful that he did that.

Neil: Noah What is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

Noah: My favourite quote is five words long, and it really is what has guided me all of these years Neil, online and helping folks, and that is to 'Give yourself permission to succeed.' Give yourself permission to succeed. If you don't give yourself permission to succeed, you will be holding yourself back from the success you are capable of.

We call it 'driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake' And frankly most people are doing that. And not of course... they don't mean to do it, they don't even know they are doing it, they are not conscious of it. Once you become conscious of it and give yourself permission to succeed, we have seen incredible results from that, just incredible transformations in people's lives. So that’s the quote that I like to live by and like to share with folks.

Neil: That’s great advice that.

Neil: Do you have any favourite online re88 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

sources you can share with us?

Noah: You know what, this is going to sound really silly, but my favourite online resource right now is Facebook. Now I know that sounds kind of lame, but let me explain. Number one, I like to see what people are talking about, you know on Facebook, of course they are talking about a billion different things, literally because there is a billion people. But my point is that when you look at your newsfeed, you go... and everybody has their newsfeed which comes from what your friends are talking about... I like to see what folks are talking about, you know, what’s on their minds.

And then Another thing is if you have your own Facebook group, you can do polls, you can ask folks what is on their mind or what would you be interested in? If I came out with this type of programme, is that something that you would be interested in?

And then of course, Facebook advertising, you know, we are using Facebook ads now, we are just starting with that, I know there are plenty of people that know a lot more than I do about Facebook ads, but you know, having those kind of ads is I am sure most entrepreneurs know by this point, Facebook knows everything about you and me, I mean we are a bunch of data points.

And so that targeting has never existed... or I should say that level of targeting has never existed before on planet earth, so it is very, very powerful. So, I like to use Facebook both from the personal and what I just said, just looking at friends and just

asking folks. And then of course with that really unbelievably specific targeting which you could do. So, I mean as lame as it sounds, Facebook I think is, is my favourite one.

Neil: What is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

Noah: Well as I mentioned, our mission is to help 10,000 small business owners double their performance and profits. And you know we help small business owners get unstuck, find their voice and automate their business, those three main areas. So, we do help people with inner-games and outer-game.

Noah: You know it really is to So we have got programmes, ask that question "how can I courses, mentoring proTo catch the add value today?" "How can I grammes to help folks with all reader's attention, add value to my target marof those, whether you think place an ket, to the folks that I want to you are...you know you want interesting serve?" And you can use that to get unstuck, you want to in any area of your life. You find your authentic voice or sentence or quote can do that in your personal you want to just, 'hey autofrom the story life. How can I add value tomate my business, reach that here. day to my spouse? How can six or seven figure level'. add value today to my family?

That’s what we do. And we How can I add value today to strangers as I have been doing it a long time and hopeam walking down the street? And as you fully we will be doing it a lot more. are on Facebook... and how can I just you know encourage people and inspire peoNeil: Noah, it’s been an absolute honour ple, and you know when they are sharing interviewing you, you have shared with us, something about their lives, and say hey so much today with in terms of talking great job Bob, and I am with you Sally, and about the power of habit’s and your congratulations Mary. You know I mean ‘afformations’ and why you should have people need that. It is so simple, it doesn't them and unlimited potential and transcost any money and everybody is dying for forming lives, your story, your views on that, is starving for kind of just kind of valicustomer service, the secrets of success, dation, attention, recognition. So, the nice and the list goes on. And you have given us thing for all of us it doesn't cost any monsome really great advice, so thank you very ey, it costs a little bit of time but I think the much for the interview. rewards will far outweigh what you put into it.

Noah: Well it’s my honour Neil and thanks for inviting me today, it was really, really Noah, is there anything else you would like fun. to add about your business?

Neil: You are welcome Noah, thank you.

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Meet Noah St John NOAH ST. JOHN is known as “The Power Habits Mentor” and is famous for inventing AFFORMATIONS and helping busy people achieve financial freedom. He is the author of 10 books that have been translated into 12 languages, including his latest bestseller The Book of AFFORMATIONS® published by Hay House.

According to Stephen Covey: “Noah St. John’s work is about discovering within ourselves what we should have known all along – we are truly powerful beings with unlimited potential.”

Noah delivers keynote speeches, online programs and live events that have been called “The only training that FIXES every other training!” www.NoahStJohn.com LinkedIN: @NoahStJohn

Twitter: @NoahStJohn

YouTube: @NoahStJohn 90 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3

Facebook Page: @NoahStJohn

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