From Mediocrity to Millions More

My big thing is research… Specific research… Research with a purpose.

Understanding the people I want to reach, to impact. Understanding their problems, so I can construct solutions for them. And not just any solutions, but solutions that measurably improve the quality of their life.

I can do that by impacting the quality of their business.

How they attract clients, how they craft offers their clients will respond to. How they build a relationship with their clients.

Or I can do that by impacting their financial intelligence.

Making them aware of why their wealth challenges exist. What the real problems are, the deeper issues and the specific strategies they need to follow to turn things around.

I do it because I’m driven by a desire to make a difference. To have my life in this world mean something.

BUT….

I am able to do it because I focus on profits.

I have met people who have a compelling and noble desire to help others. And yet they have no business “savvy”, no awareness of the skills they need. And consequently they suffer.

I’ve also met people who have tremendous business awareness and who don’t care if they make a difference or not. They just want the money. They too suffer, not from money issues but from a serious lack of fulfillment.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to just make money, I can’t do much for you.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to “make a dent in the universe”

as Steve Jobs put it, then let me share some of my life lessons with you. In fact I’ll go further in these posts. I’ll share strategy with you. Tangible and practical insights you need and can use to grow your business.

BECAUSE…and this is the first lesson for so many people I see…

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IS A BUSINESS

We don’t live in a spiritual economy. In other words you don’t pay your mortgage with spiritual energy, or random blessings. You need real cash.

The desire to help others, through coaching or consultancy or providing services or products is the FUEL for your business.

Getting people to PAY for what you offer is BUSINESS baby!

And all the necessary skills that involves are essential, critical and can’t be outsourced to someone else, or ignored.

You need to have these skills. To use them effectively so you don’t waste time and money. And rapidly enough so you make more money than you spend, which means your business can grow and allow you to reach even more people.

And if you struggle to get your head around this, then you’ll struggle financially and spiritually for the remainder of your life.

Making a difference brings with it a set of problems which require solutions.

The problems get compounded further when you realise the people you want to reach are too busy, too stressed, too distracted to just give you their attention without a really good reason.

You can’t possible think you’re the only person who wants their attention? How many marketing messages have you been bombarded with today? How many do you give your attention to. Very few. You switch off because you recognised 99% of the messages you’re fed are of no value to you. So the remaining 1% you just assume are of no value, so you ignore those too.

You might start by setting a goal.

Every one sets goals. Well, maybe not everyone, but everyone you hang out with probably does.

But setting a goal, doesn’t automatically mean it will be achieved.

Any goal setting process, should immediately be followed by a goal achievement process.

i.e. a PLAN. A plan that highlights how you going to make the goals real.

A plan that highlights where the gaps in your knowledge are; the problems you’ll need to solve to make the goal a reality, the skills you’ll need to both create, find and implement the solutions.

And you can’t create this kind of plan in a vacuum. If you’ve never grown a successful business before or even if you have, your awareness of the skills needed to be successful today, not 5 years ago, could be in for a shock.

You don’t know what you don’t know. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Ignorance is rapid, intense, ongoing pain.

A pain I’m going to show you how to avoid, by sharing with you the skills and insights you’ll need based on my research, and my results past, and present.

To get you started, let me share the big chunks of the plan I used to go from zero to over $2million in 12 months

1. Define profitable niche
2. Research core complex of marketplace. (Know your
   customers and your competitors)
3. Define Big Promise
4. Create compelling offer
5. Design sales presentation
6. Organise free tutorial events
7. Deliver inspiring, sales presentation.
8. Deliver program

This gives us volumes to talk about. More importantly though it gives you hooks to identify where you need to boost your skills and knowledge.

And before you throw that old chestnut of “it’s common sense”, consider this quote.

“Of the small businesses that fail, over 90% do so because of a lack of skills and knowledge on the part of the owner” Dunn & Bradstreet

I meet coaches, consultants and solo-preneurs almost daily. And its common to hear “I am finding it difficult to get off the ground” or ” I really need a clear path from hello to getting a client”

Lets change that.

To making a difference consistently not once

Paul Elliott