In this post I’ll share what I feel is the second key component to building a thriving, successful business. In the last post (http://codygfoster.com/?p=141) I said nothing replaces hard work. Hard work is the foundation on which every successful person or business builds. Here is a secret business strategy that can multiply your hard work…
2. If you want more, GIVE MORE
This concept is incredible in the fact that it always works. I’ll try to logically explain why I think it works, but just know it ALWAYS works. If you want more of anything, give more first. If you want more money, start giving away more money. In business, if you want more clients, start giving away more value.
Commonly referred to as the law of attraction, this concept is so powerful that your business will immediately start to see benefits from giving more. Think through how you can give away more, either to existing clients, prospective clients, business partners, employees, etc.
In our business, we’ve routinely practiced giving away as much valuable information as we can to advisors that we are trying to convince to work with us. Years ago we started sending a weekly email featuring sales ideas, 3rd party articles, educational information, marketing ideas, anything that we thought could help an advisor run a better practice. Not only do we send this to the advisor that are already working with us, but we started sending it to those prospective advisors that hadn’t moved to us yet. Most of our competitors are afraid to give out their “info.” Somehow they think it’s better to hold back the value you bring until someone comes on board.
Over the past few years, I would guess I’ve heard this from a new advisor that just moved to us a minimum of 150 times – “You know, I realized that I’ve gotten more value and ideas from you all in the past 6 months than my current FMO has given me in 5 years.”
That doesn’t mean they moved to us right away, in fact, we have advisors that we’ve been dripping value on for 3 years that finally made the decision to move to us, but eventually it works.
As we’ve continued to give more to our existing advisors, our referral business has exploded. Today, over half of the new advisors joining our firm are referrals from our existing clients. The more we give them, the more they give to us. It ALWAYS WORKS!!
Think through your business, or frankly your personal life, and figure out how you can give more, the results will be incredible.
The goal of every business should be to make money. And not just break even, or turn a little profit, you want your business to do really, really well. The better your business does, the more value you can provide to clients and employees. I’d like to share the 4 key things in upcoming posts that I think will help you build a better, more successful business. I’m not saying this is everything, but in my experience, these things are key to building a thriving, profitable business.
1. NOTHING replaces hard work.
There are no overnight sensations, there are no get rich quick tricks, and despite Tim Ferriss’ bestselling book, there are no 4 hour workweeks. If you want to build a successful business, it’s going to take a lot of hard work. Somehow, over the past few decades, people have started to believe it’s possible to get rich without putting in great effort, what a shame. The most successful people in the world also happen to be the hardest workers. Now, they may make it look easy, but that doesn’t mean it is, or that they haven’t put in tons of hours.
Last year I attended the Global Leadership Summit where I heard one of the best pieces of advice. At the Summit, a Pastor from Charlotte named Steven Furtick, made a very profound statement. Quick background on Steven – He moved to Charlotte about 5 years ago with 4 other families to start a new church. He was only in his mid 20′s. In 5 years, they’ve brought in 10,000 plus members to the church and have built one of the most incredible churches I’ve seen. But the first year or two were a struggle. At the Summitt, Steven mentioned that he would always get frustrated because he would look at these other successful churches and they weren’t seeing the same results despite the fact that they were working 80 hour plus weeks. All these other churches made it look so easy. Finally, when talking to another successful pastor, it hit him. He was comparing his back stage (all the hours, hard tedious work, effort being put forth) to other people’s front stage (the finished product). It’s a huge mistake that you can’t make. Successful business make it look easy because they’ve put in hundreds of thousands of hours to build it to where it is today. They didn’t get there overnight, and you won’t either. But if you keep working hard, eventually success will come.
Which leads to my final point about hard work, made famous by Darren Hardy in The Compound Effect. Successful businesses are built by doing little things consistently well over time. It’s not the one big idea. It’s doing the same things over and over again that you know will lead to success, and letting the results continue to build and compound.
So the first step in running a successful business is this, NOTHING REPLACES WORKING YOUR TAIL OFF!!
Sometimes, the most overlooked aspect of business, is that there are several key players that must be taken great care of for a business to thrive.
The first is the business itself, or making money. As obvious as it sounds, every business needs to make money, and a lot of people don’t realize that. I was watching a TV show the other night called Restaurant Impossible, where a famous chef comes in and fixes up everything wrong with these failing restaurants. It’s crazy to see these businesses that are in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars, and losing more each month. It puts incredible stress on the owners, the employees, and the service to the clients usually falters also. If you own your own business, your goal should be to make profit.
The second key player is the client, you have to take great care of your clients. If you don’t do this, eventually you will fail.
The third key player is the employees. I know many business owners that don’t take good care of their employees and it ends up impacting the other two areas.
This all may sound obvious, but the truth is, most business owners don’t do a good job of balancing and satisfying all three areas. The company may make good money, but they don’t pay employees well, offer little to no benefits, and have high turnover. It’s only a matter of time before it will catch up to them. The company may make good money, and pay their employees well, but they do it at the expense of fostering and developing deep, long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial for their clients. It’s only a matter of time before it catches up to them.
Take 20 minutes and evaluate how you are doing, on a scale of 1-10, in taking care of these 3 crucial areas of your business.
Is the business making money? Is it making enough money? Do you have adequate savings built up?
Are your employees happy? Do you pay them fairly, and are they excited about working for your company?
Do you have raving fans for clients? If not, why? What can you do to take better care of your clients?
The most successful businesses in the world understand that these 3 areas have to be balanced and served at the highest level.