One of the greatest business lessons I’ve ever learned came from a leader of a company that had business all over the world. He had recently been on a 4 month cruise around the world when someone asked him what the secret to his success was. He answered immediately. “It was the same for me as it will be for you. The 20 largest businesses inside our company make up our “Management Team”. We have a cumulative 400 years experience behind us. When we reviewed what we all did in physical activity and what we studied to get where we are, we came up with 10 bullet points that we all did. If you repeat the same 10 steps we did, if you expose the business opportunity this many times, study these books, take coaching and mentorship like we did, you will have the same results.”
He later mentioned that the most heart breaking part of his business is the fact that over a decade ago they put the 10 things that guarantee success in print and provided them to their organizations. He said that the hardest thing to watch was that only 6% of the people that start their business follow through with the 10 steps. He said that over 90% of the folks that do all 10 steps earn over $50,000 a year of ongoing income.
What is the lesson. Very simple. I take this lesson with me everywhere I go.
There is always a model that can be duplicated or created. The kiss of death in business is the “learning curve”. The learning curve saps us of energy, time and money. Why would someone want to be the first through a minefield. If it’s true that business is war, wouldn’t it be better to step in someone elses footsteps? In my most often used growth model, I draw for a business owner a box with 3 small boxes floating above it. In each of the 3 boxes at the top, I draw the letter “M” for model. The first order of business for my company, when I’m brought on to grow any company, is to find and establish 3 growth models. There is always someone in your field of business that has a working model we can follow. There is always someone we can call on to become our mentor. There is always a better built website we can study.
I’ve never met a business that I couldn’t find 3 working models to follow within a weeks time. Let’s do a couple quick scenarios.
Insurance company running $1,000,000 in sales. First order of business is to find out if the owner of that company knows of any insurance company doing $10,000,000. Let’s presuppose they do. I’m giving that business owner the homework assignment of the following: How many reps do they have? How long have they been around? What is there split of business, what type of Insurance do they write? How many folks work in their office, for back office support. I want to see the $10,000,000 companies working model on paper. Once I can graph it on paper, I can begin to build it in the real world for my $1,000,000 Insurance company and I have no learning curve, no guessing. I have a template or a model to build off of.
Let’s look at a $2,000,000 snack food company that wants to do $8,000,000. First thing I did was map their current company into a sales department, back office department and a production department. I found out that 80% of their sales comes from one large account, followed by the remaining 20% split evenly with 20 other outlet chains. They have no web presence to speak of. I found 3 growth models immediately. 1. We found a company selling their type of snack food that had a beautiful and well laid out website. 2. We found another, much larger snack food company we are going to study. 3. I showed them a partnership model we can follow to penetrate other large accounts. There will be no guessing here and growth will be immediate. Growth will be immediate because there is no guessing, we are working inside a working model.
I came up with a great statement that deals with models perfectly. Work inside a model, and don’t quit until you are successful.
That means, just like the first example, where anyone can step into that companies “10 step success model” and succeed, like thousands have, step into a working model and work the model UNTIL YOU HAVE SUCCESS. MOST PEOPLE QUIT BEFORE THEY TASTE SUCCESS.
Working in a model is the only guaranteed success I’ve ever seen.
To put it in a different light.
A husband and wife quit their job and decide to start a fast-food hamburger stand. They live in a town of 250,000 people so they are sure they will make it. They pick a decent spot, with not the highest, but not the lowest rent, and open up for business. McDonalds opens up a block and a half down the street, paying over 10x more rent, which company is going to make more money? Of course McDonalds. Why? It’s not because they are McDonalds. It’s because McD’s did the demographics, they picked the corner with 2 streets of traffic not 1 street, they have a sign 10 times bigger, a national ad budget and on and on and on.
They have a working model, the husband and wife have a hunch.
Save yourself time, energy and stress, make a decision that you will only work inside a proven “working model”. If you are not sure where to find one or where to begin, call me, I’m told that finding and creating “working models” is one of our strong suits.
-Ken
Growth Consulting for Today
