This article is the nineth in a 12-part series on the specifics for setting success-oriented goals and earning more prosperity for your business.
If you’re self-employed or small business owner, then there’s one commonality that we all have – a
belief in self-sufficiency. At some point, we decided that we were better off working for ourselves than we were working for someone else, so we took control over our own life. We determined that our highest and best purpose in the universe wasn’t punching the clock at the factory. We decided that we could serve the world better by starting a business, by serving our customers, by creating something that we perceive to be real independence and security.
That self-sufficiency is a great trait and extremely important to the entrepreneurial life. However, there
are a couple of drawbacks that go along with that mindset. One of the challenges we face is that sometimes we resist the fact that there are other people we need to enlist to help us accomplish our goals.
There are a couple of reasons for that. Obviously, we have all the baggage we carry from our early childhood training. As self-employed people, we also have this mechanism in us that says, “If another person can do it, then so I can.” That’s an amazing ability that most human beings in the world just don’t have. They just would rather someone else take care of them, clinging to the illusion of the 1950’s mindset of working for IBM for 30 years and retiring with a gold watch.
We who are self-employed are not wired that way. We believe that if another person can run a business, we can. Why not? We’re just the same as everybody else. All those people who
are more successful have the same DNA as we do. We have roughly the same opportunities in this country. So we build up this wall and convince ourselves we must be very self-sufficient.
When small business owners get to a certain level in their business, they come to a realization that
they need an accountant to make sure that they’re paying their taxes on time and handling their payroll.
Then at some level they also realize that they need legal representation to create their corporate structure. But far too many business owners in every industry resist seeking assistance with the operation of their business because they believe that they are the expert in that area.
If I’m a hot dog vendor with a hot dog cart in Washington, DC, I’m fine with someone handling my accounting because I’m not an accountant. I’m absolutely fine with having someone help me with my legal structure, because I’m not a lawyer. But I’m a hot dog guy, right? Nobody is going to tell me how I should run my hot dog stand, because that’s what I do. That’s my chosen profession, and I am good at it.
What ends up happening is Hog Dog Guy has just put up this artificial wall that is actually a limitation
to his own business. He convinces himself that because he is an expert, he knows everything about hot dogs and hot dog vending. There are no other people who can expand his thinking, his strategies or his systems to get much better results.
In virtually every industry the 80/20 rule applies. Basically, the top 20% in any industry claims 80% of
revenue. The bottom 80% fight over the rest. It’s the same in restaurants, hair salons, gymnastics academies, auto repair shops, chiropractic clinics you name the industry, 20% of the businesses generate 80% of the revenue. If you’re not in that top 20%, then there are people out there who know something that you don’t know.
To grow your business to the top 20%, you need to identify the people who can help you. In today’s cluttered Internet space anybody with $6 a month can put up a website and all of the sudden, become an expert. In fact, it’s one of the things in the martial arts industry that has been a very negative trend for the last 6 or 7 years. When you are trying to find the true experts, look for the people who are in that top 20% doing the thing you want to do.
I’ll give you an example from my own experience. About 15 years ago I went to a martial arts marketing
workshop. We had a great facilitator who was a very successful workshop provider. He ran us through a group exercise of creating a marketing plan for the entire year. At the end of 8 hours, I had taken 30 pages of notes and was ready to network with many of the people in the room.
At the very end of the seminar the facilitator passed the microphone around and asked us to describe our schools. As each person spoke it occurred to me that I had the highest grossing school in the
room. While everyone in the group was very nice and enthusiastic, they all knew less than I did about how to build their businesses. The facilitator was successful at conducting workshops, but he hadn’t earned his success running a martial arts school at the level I wanted to go.
It was after that workshop that I decided to seek out people who knew more than I did because they had high performing schools or multiple locations. I didn’t want a formula for mediocrity. I wanted to have a proven formula for success. You have to look at the folks who are trying to teach you something and ask yourself have they really been there? Have they really done what you want to do? Have they figured out how to replicate that success with other people’s businesses? If the answer is no on any of those counts, I think you’re just opening Pandora’s box by seeking their advice.
Now what if somebody meets all of those requirements and they really know their stuff, but you just
find them to be obnoxious, or they have values that don’t match yours? There are many people who think you need a good personality match to learn from someone. Do you listen to the guy you like better or the one who has been proven to know what they are talking about?
Well, that’s an interesting question. What I’ve discovered in the martial arts industry, which is exactly
the same in every other industry, the 20% who do generate 80% of the results, have a different set of values than the 80% at the bottom. The people that are just struggling to stay alive are the folks who stand back
