How Applying Patience Drives Greater Success
In business and in life there is a need for urgency. Urgency is understanding that there is a time limit to get something done, once that time has passed, so has the opportunity. Business and business development have moments of urgency, sometimes often. What we need to be careful of is losing our patience when we are dealing with items of urgency. For most people in business, urgency is easy to create. You have bills to pay, you need cash flow and income to survive, you only have so long of a runway to get off the ground or, maybe, you’re leveraged and have obligations that are coming due or, worse, past due. Finding and maintaining patience in business tends to be much more difficult. We all want things now. Success, money, influence, freedom. Patience works contrary to what we want. 80% of us will sacrifice greater gains tomorrow for immediate gains today. To achieve greater success in business we need to figure out how to make sure we’re part of the 20%! In other words, don’t let urgency drive you as an entrepreneur, let patience guide you instead. Applying patience in your business is the best way to develop a lasting, impactful and balanced business model that can survive the ups and downs of markets and life. One of the best ways to apply patience in your business? Keep an eye on the larger and longer term vision. One strategy to do this is to write down your ‘why’ every morning. Writing down your why will help you develop patience. It will help cement in your mind the purpose of what you’re building. It will help you grind when you need to grind. It will help you get back up when you get knocked down. It will help you make decisions based on the greater good of your business not on the short term benefits of your choice. It will help you reduce frustration, expand your foresight and develop both hope and excellence. In short, patience greatly increases your capacity for long term success in your business. And although it may feel contrary to the sense of urgency most entrepreneurs value it’s one of the greatest ingredients of the greatest business leaders of our generation. Do you dream about making a lasting impact? Do you have a dream about growing your business and becoming an industry recognized leader in what you do? Are you tired of feeling the need to sell your services to others and want to transition how you run your business so it doesn’t feel like it’s running you? Make sure to join us in the Entrepreneur Mastery Lab where we help you develop the beRICH mindset that we’ve invented to help you achieve the success you’ve been dreaming of. You can access the Lab here! If you didn’t know we also have a podcast. In our most recent podcast one of the items we discussed was how patience helped shape the way Thomas Wu of Koyoti Inc views entrepreneurship today. You can listen in to our podcast here! Listen to Podcast
3 Ways Finding Your Niche Will Enhance Your Business
Finding a niche in business and becoming specialized can have an outsized impact on business and growth. Speaking from experience, specializing can do more than make you memorable. It can help you win business, grant instant credibility and insulate you from your competitors. Let’s drill into why specializing can be a great direction to bring your business. It’s easy to be a generalist We’ve all heard the saying before. Jack of all trades, master of none (by the way, not the full saying…) and there is some truth to this. It’s quicker to be a generalist, it can offer more broad opportunities. It can also get you called things like door stop since you’ll take anything that walks through the door. While generalists can bring great insight and connect the dots between various industries it takes more dedication and time to become a specialist and that usually means a slower ramp up and journey. The benefit to it taking a while to become specialized is that most people won’t make the effort. This is called your ‘moat.’ It’s more difficult to do and that makes you more of a unicorn than everyone else out there. You’ll have instant credibility Let’s say you’re shopping for something sports related. Let’s be even more specific, let’s say you want to buy something for outdoor sports. Sure you could go to Walmart or Target or Dick’s OR you could go to Bass Pro Shops or REI. Bass Pro Shops and REI carry instant credibility in the outdoor sports marketplace compared to generalist stores. They are specialized and everything from the equipment they carry to the knowledge of their employees will be geared and tailored for the client that needs and wants something from an outdoor sports vendor. Having instant credibility makes you an authority in your subject matter over ANY generalist, no matter the size. Are you more capable than the generalist, hopefully, yes, but in this case perception is even more important than the reality. As a specialist, you can own your space. Your messaging will be razor sharp Messaging matters. The tighter your messaging the easier you’ll be able to solve for a problem. Chiropractor? Great, you help people who could use help with mobility. Chiropractor that specializes in car accident victim’s? Now you’ll know exactly who your clients are, what their pain points are (no pun intended) and will be able to speak directly to them much more clearly than someone that sometimes helps accident victims and other times helps athletes and also supports an aging population. See the difference? You’re not muddying the water with a number of people you’re helping. Finding your niche and specializing can mean a lot of different things. I can work only with police officers and that makes me specialized. Or, I could work with police officers, fire fighters and EMTs while specializing in tactical physical fitness. The first example is a niche in police officers, the 2nd is a niche in tactical physical fitness.One last piece of advice for all of you want-to-be experts out there. If you’re going to choose a niche and specialize, choose carefully and don’t be afraid to pivot! To listen in to our most recent podcast where we discuss FINDING YOUR NICHE with David Strauss, Esq. You can listen in here! Listen to Podcast To join our exclusive facebook community where we offer free resources, support and wisdom to like minded professionals you can request access here! JOIN OUR FACEBOOK GROUP NOW!
Inventory Management and More: The Apps You Need to Scale Your Business
An efficient inventory management system is a key aspect of a successful business. This is especially important for eCommerce and online retail enterprises. Precise inventory tracking enables your business to fulfill orders on time and without any errors. As your business expands, the need for efficient inventory management increases. If you have an online business, it’s vital to utilize a system with an app to pair and fulfill customer orders on Amazon and Shopify. Utilizing an app that automates and tracks your inventory enables you to accomplish: Error-free order fulfillment Enhanced inventory planning and order management Better customer relationships Without a doubt, proper inventory management is essential. This article, courtesy of JB and The Doctor, will equip you with information on the best business management apps for your business Quickbooks Quickbooks is perfect when you have the goal of optimizing your wholesale distribution, as well as need to access updated inventory and generate sales on the move — for instance, if you have a mobile business when attending sales meetings or events such as trade shows. You’re also able to create a sale order, process payment for the order, and start the fulfillment process right away, so you can rely on streamlined order management. It integrates with Shopify, Amazon, or WooCommerce and has the capability for mobile barcode scanning. Salesmate Salesmate is an advanced sales CRM solution designed to give you more control over your sales, improve your sales process, and grow your business in leaps and bounds. It’s perfect for start-ups, small and medium-sized businesses as it simplifies the sales process. The sales automation feature allows you to track leads by sending you notifications on customer activity. You’re able to stay updated on sales activities and easily measure and generate reports on important metrics. Salesmate provides you with a sales pipeline view and streamlines communication to one place. You can automate tasks, structure your data and track sales emails. As a cloud-based CRM, it’s possible to integrate Salesmate with other apps such as Gmail. It also comes with an in-built call and SMS feature to help you nurture customer relationships. Basecamp Basecamp is a cloud-based project management tool. It facilitates team collaboration, sharing of files, and project organization. Its design is suitable for projects that require constant communication and collaboration. Basecamp message boards enable you to communicate with your entire team or with specific groups. You can create projects, set the due date and assign the task to a particular person. An email is then automatically sent to notify them of the task. You can automate Basecamp to follow up on overdue tasks that you set. The autosave feature makes it possible to retrieve anything you may have accidentally deleted within a period of 30 days. Every project has a designated place to store documents and files. It comes with all the tools such as message boards, schedules, docs, file storage, real-time group chat, and automatic check-in questions. You can drag and drop files or upload them via Google Docs. You’re able to create collaborative documents where the specified team members can edit these documents. The project calendar shows you all projects, events, and deadlines organized by date, allowing you to track the milestones you achieve. Of course, tools make up only a fraction of what makes a successful business. Ultimately, it is your grit, determination, and knowledge that will take your business to the heights you have envisioned for it. JB and The Doctor has the coaching services, podcast, courses, and other resources to help you scale your business and grow as an entrepreneur. Reach out today.
Self Awareness And How You Self-Sabotage Yourself Every Day
Self awareness has a tremendous impact on your success as an individual and entrepreneur. It’s arguably one of the most difficult skills to acquire. As Shakespeare once wrote: “To thine own self be true.” A simple concept and much harder in practice. Knowing ourselves is as much about knowing our strengths and our weaknesses as it is about knowing our why. Here’s where you’ll benefit most from truly having self-awareness. You’ll know what work and focus you’re best suited for and you can prioritize that to achieve the best results. You’ll understand where you need help and can bring on board resources and people to help you identify and offload your weaknesses. You’ll have a keen understanding around your motivation and can fall back on that when things get difficult. You’ll have a much better grasp on realistic expectations for accomplishing your goals and working through projects. Each of these individual changes in your life would lead to dramatic shifts in success on all sorts of levels. Put them together and you have the recipe for a massive adjustment to the success you can achieve. Self-awareness should be something we all spend significantly more time on. Yet outside of the potential for a ‘DISC’ test or some other psychological battery of tests on how we’ll respond to stimuli very few people make a real, daily effort to become better at self awareness. Why continue down the path of limited returns and limited success when there is so much more opportunity out there? Devising a plan in place to get better at self-awareness can triple the results you see in your personal life and business and is an essential commitment for any service based professional or entrepreneur. The truth is as simple as Shakespeare’s words are. If you’re not working on your self-awareness you’re actively sabotaging yourself every single day. For more insight into self-awareness you can check out our most recent podcast here where it’s our answer for one of the questions we received from our community. Listen to Podcast Interested in joining the community and other like minded professionals? Come join the movement where we reinvent how business is done and help you #beRICH! You can check it out here. Join our Free Facebook Group
Habits and Routines – Building An Unbreakable Life and Business
Every day you have to make decisions. Probably a good number of them. What if we told you that you only have the power to choose up to 5 good choices to make out of all of those decisions? How would it impact your decision-making? The reality is, there is no magic number of how many good decisions you make. However, there is a limit to your willpower and a definite limit to the number of good decisions you can make in a day. Sooner or later, when forced to make enough decisions, you’re going to run out of steam. Then the choices you make, instead of being good choices will end up being not so good, or downright bad. If this doesn’t scare you, it should! There’s a couple of ways to manage to this and we’ll talk about how to supercharge your willpower in another blog. Right now let’s focus in on habits and routines since they can help you avoid the problems that come from bad choices. So what do habits and routines have to do with making good choices? Nothing directly. But here’s what habits and routines absolutely can and will do for you to change your life and help you build an absolutely unbreakable life and business. Take a moment and imagine what your life would be like if you could always make the good choices and the hard decisions? If you want to get there, keep reading! Habits are automated behaviors. Routines are a touch more intentional and require some thought. Given time, consistent routines will become habit. Look at brushing your teeth in the morning. That’s probably a habit for you (we hope)! As a child, it was a routine that became consistent and over time turned to be a habit. Anything automated requires no thought. When it requires no thought, it doesn’t cost us anything to do it. No willpower, no choices, we’re doing it without thinking about it. The stronger our routines and the more good habits we have the less choices we need to make during the day. The less choices spent on those habits means the more focus you can put on choices that will drive your success in life and business. Over time, given enough focus on strong routines our habits will start to develop. These might be habits like: Getting enough sleepExercising regularlyExpressing gratitudeMeditationHelping othersSelf developmentMentorshipThe list goes on… By developing your strong routines you will, scientifically form better habits. Those habits will require no thought, no will power and will not take away from the decisions you need to make on other things. What does your day look like when you’re making all the best decisions for yourself and your business? How about your week and the month? Imagine a life where over 3 months, 6 months, a full year you are making great choices! Not because you’re superhuman and have the most amazing willpower in the world but because you don’t need to put effort into making all of the other choices that other people struggle with every day. That is the power of strong routines and good habits. To listen in to our inspiration for this blog, check out our conversation with Amy Rasquin of Bfit Health and Wellness. You can check out the full episode of the podcast here. Listen to Podcast If you’d like to connect with people like Amy or learn more about how to harness the power of habits and routines you need to join us in our lab where we provide awesome free content around subjects like these every day! You can request to join the Entrepreneur Mastery Lab right here! JOIN OUR FREE FB GROUP NOW! Join Now
The Scientific Method and Running a Productive Business
Could you imagine a world in which we never listened to our clients? A world where we never really uncovered what was most important to them and what they needed to address their pain? A life where they never achieved the results that were most important to them? It’s why marketers will tell you it’s all about knowing your audience and advertisers will tell you to test, test and test again. At the heart of this is the scientific method. Knowing your audience, knowing what connects to your audience and how to speak to it is all about finding evidence and using the scientific method. The scientific method is an essential aspect to running a business. If you’re just out there guessing about what people want and guessing about what their needs are it’s going to be a LONG journey to really achieve any success or make any sort of impact with people. To achieve real productivity you need to use evidence gathered to help accelerate how quickly you’re able to connect with your audience. On our most recent podcast we had a tremendous conversation with Miranda Fuller of LauderAle Brewery. Miranda sparked our conversation around the scientific method when she shared with us the similarities between her background in science and biology with the business of brewing! To check out our conversation with Miranda you can listen in here or any of your favorite streaming platforms! Listen to Podcast In the meantime, here are some of the best ways to quickly gather evidence to make sure you operate at your most productive. Empirical evidence – no matter what, nothing is more applicable in business than getting into the shoes of your ideal clients. If you want to enhance your productivity make sure you understand the frustration and struggles of your clients and really dig into their business. Tweak Not twerk, please don’t. Tweak. A good process and a process and routine will allow you to tweak what you do to come up with the very best possible methods to be the most productive. This can’t be done without following the scientific method. Interview and survey your audience constantly Business changes and the experience you’ve had is not necessarily the same environment your prospects are dealing with today. The more evidence you collect the more you’ll be able to identify trends and be ahead of the curve on changes if and when they need to happen. Join our Free Facebook Group – Entrepreneur Mastery Lab We strongly believe in creating a space where everyone in business can be successful. Where all of the resources, wisdom and insight needed for business owners and entrepreneurs is at your fingertips. Where experts all over the world can share their experiences and celebrate their knowledge. If you’d like to join us in our vision of building out this dream, join us in our free facebook group here! Join Now!
Tips for Identifying A Great Mentor
Mentorship can bring amazing benefits. Greater income, better self-confidence, reduced anxiety, a strong and growing professional network. Unfortunately, not all mentoring works and finding a mentor can be more difficult than you might expect. Creating Top Tier Genuine Expressions with Daniel Wakefield After our conversation with Dan Wakefield at Top Tier Headshots, we decided to take a closer look at mentorship within this blog and our community. To take a listen to our chat with Dan, and how having a mentor helped him accelerate his decision to start his business and it’s initial growth, you can access our podcast here! Listen to Podcast Here are some tips on how to identify someone that can be a great mentor! You can also use these tips to figure out if you’re in a good position to help mentor someone else and give back. Find someone who wants to give back Mentorship works great, but it will be a mess if both the mentor and mentee are not equally invested in the success of the relationship. A great mentor will have the capacity to put the time into making the relationship a success. Look for someone who already has the skill set you’re looking to develop A solid mentor not only has the capacity for the relationship they also have the capability. Has your mentor already been there and done that? If not, it can still be a great relationship but it may not offer the same benefits you’d expect. Is the mentor you want to work with open to learning themselves? The best mentorship relationships provide value for both the mentor and mentee and teaching is one of the greatest skill sharpening exercise out there. A good mentor is constantly trying to grow and learn themselves and will see the relationship as a chance to learn something from you as well! As with all things, if you need more support or help on this topic please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly about the services we offer. You can also apply to be a mentor within our free, private facebook community. If you haven’t joined yet, you can request to join the Entrepreneur Mastery Lab, here!
Finding Balance
Doing what we need to do when there is no friction, no obstacles, and nothing pushing against us is, for the most part, fairly easy. What happens when we do run into problems, derailers, distractions and we get knocked off course? Having a way to balance yourself and recenter yourself is an important tool as an individual and especially important as a service-based professional or entrepreneur. Knowing the best way to quickly balance yourself is an absolute must. Here are 4 ways we’ve found can work for many people: Option 1: Hit the gym Hitting the gym creates all sorts of chemical reactions and actually alters the way your brain works. In as a little as 2 weeks we can see changes in the brain from someone who regularly exercises and then stops. If you’re a high energy individual, hitting the gym is a great way to push out some of your anxiety and release some of the tension in your life giving you the chance to get back on balance. Option 2: Meditate If you’re always go, go, go, it might be a great idea to meditate to get yourself re-centered. For many high energy individuals, meditation is a difficult activity to explore. Try starting with 5 minutes or less and using a useful application like insight timer to help you take a step back from what’s knocked you off balance. Option 3: Read a book, watch a movie, listen to music When you’re consistently problem solving and putting a laser focus on what’s in front of you, it can burn you out. Books, tv, movies and music can allow you to relax some of that focus and give your brain a break. Like all muscles, if you over stimulate yourself you’ll reduce your effectiveness and it will impact all areas of your life. Giving your brain a break allows you to help find your balance again. Option 4: Get into nature Science has done a wonderful job exploring just how impactful getting back to nature can be. Even in an urban setting, finding a park to relax in can help in a number of ways. If you’ve found you’re off balance or unfocused then take a walk in nature, sit by the beach or walk on some grass. You’ll be amazed with how quickly this can help you get centered again and refocused on what’s important to you Join our Free Facebook Group – Entrepreneur Mastery Lab We strongly believe in creating a space where everyone in business can be successful. Where all of the resources, wisdom and insight needed for business owners and entrepreneurs is at your fingertips. Where experts all over the world can share their experiences and celebrate their knowledge. If you’d like to join us in our vision of building out this dream, join us in our free facebook group here! Join Now!
Creating Perspective
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and it could be! 1000 words, however, isn’t such a good thing anymore. Today, whether in our business or personal life we have a unique challenge to deal with: We have limited time and a limited amount of attention. 1000 words is all well and good, but it’s better to ‘paint the picture’ with as few words as possible. Painting the picture Painting the picture is a simple concept we use when we’re discussing how best to show value by creating perspective. It’s not enough to make a firm statement to someone about why they should make a decision. In fact, you could have a number of very logical, very good reasons why someone should do something and until you paint the picture for them, in a way that is really communicated to them, it won’t matter. In order to show value, we need to create perspective by painting the picture. That means we need to color in the lines. We can make a statement such as: “by buying this TV you’ll have 4k resolution, great refresh, pixel smoothing and a smart TV all in one.” This sort of statement can all be true, it simply won’t mean much to the person we’re communicating to. If we’re going to use this sort of statement we need to follow up language that paints the picture: “4k resolution means that when you’re watching a show, you’ll get the best possible definition, you’ll see every fine detail. The refresh rate means you’ll be able to watch live sports crystal clear and when you’re watching the game the pixel smoothing means you won’t have to deal with any of that choppy looking movement that gives people headaches. All of that and you’ll have access to all of your streaming platforms you love right at the click of the button so your tv connects with your phone, tablet and the rest of your life seamlessly for the best possible experience.” There is a big difference between the first statement we made and the statement we make where we paint the picture. By painting the picture someone is now acutely aware of why these things are meaningful to them. They are now aware of the VALUE within the statement you made. The very best way to paint the picture is to combine elements from both of these statements into one communication. Start by figuring out what’s of value to your client, identify how your service or business provides that value and then focus on the value for your client by painting the picture. This way, if and when objections come up, you can always go back to the value you’ve already shown because you’ve painted the picture, colored in the lines and created perspective for the person you’re communicating with. How else do you create perspective in your communications? Join our Free Facebook Group – Entrepreneur Mastery Lab We strongly believe in creating a space where everyone in business can be successful. Where all of the resources, wisdom and insight needed for business owners and entrepreneurs is at your fingertips. Where experts all over the world can share their experiences and celebrate their knowledge. If you’d like to join us in our vision of building out this dream, join us in our free facebook group here! Join Now
The Trust Fail – The 3 fastest ways to lose trust
Trust. It takes time to develop and no time at all to lose. It’s also one of the most important ingredients for any business or individual to achieve success. No trust and a business will suffer, guaranteed. We’ve had the opportunity to see a number of companies lose the trust of their clients and end users. Whether it’s Facebook and the other social media companies manipulating our feeds, or more industrial companies like Volkswagen lying about their emissions. Interestingly enough, neither of these companies have failed from lack of trust but they have been hampered, they have lost revenue and they have had to spend incredible sums of money to protect their brand and begin to rebuild trust. While larger businesses can sometimes afford to slip up, that’s not as realistic for many small businesses that live and die by their reputation and the trust they have with the people they serve. Here are 3 of the most common ways businesses LOSE trust and how to avoid doing it yourself. 1. Setting Poor Expectations It’s ok for results to turn out differently than you expected in business. Not everything will happen as you’ve intended, life does have a habit of surprising us and that happens in business too. The key problem with setting poor expectations is it throws into question your competency and ability to follow through on your promises. No amount of guarantees or money back can eliminate this risk. To avoid this loss of trust, maintain constant communication with your clients so you can reset expaectations as needed. 2. No Accountability We’ve all heard excuses from people and businesses before. They are tired, pretty lame and we don’t buy it for a second. Things will go wrong and when it’s something in your domain you need to own it. If it’s your company, your product, your brand, it’s on you to own the bad with the good. Failing to take ownership for mistakes and not holding yourself and your business accountable is a surefire way to lose trust. This is an easy one to fix. If it’s on your watch, it’s on your watch. Own it, don’t offer excuses and make a true promise to be more conscientious about preventing the same thing from happening again. Use it as an opportunity to get better in the process for all of the people you serve. 3. Forcing a fit If you’re in business or a service based professional you have something that someone wants or needs. Understanding exactly who your ideal client is incredibly important to building a successful business of any sort. Working with the wrong clients is a proven way to put yourself and whomever is unlucky enough to be working with you into a bad situation. In this instance, it’s always best to stick to your sweet spot. Serve the clients you serve best and be very careful about who you choose to do business with. One of the fastest ways to lose trust is to take on a client or business that isn’t a good fit. To avoid this make sure that you’re willing to turn down the clients and the business that is not right for you. You can do this by making your value proposition to your clients and prospects incredibly clear. You can also make sure you vet people OUT from purchasing your products or services to ensure you have a good marriage between your services and the people using them! For more around the topic of TRUST you can check out our most recent podcast here! We strongly believe in creating a space where everyone in business can be successful. Where all of the resources, wisdom and insight needed for business owners and entrepreneurs is at your fingertips. Where experts all over the world can share their experiences and celebrate their knowledge. If you’d like to join us in our vision of building out this dream, join us in our free facebook group here!