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Habit Building: Sticking with It

I have a ah long guy. So in new jersey, when fall comes this approaching soon enough now that all the long guys come out and leaf removal is where they make their money. They're sitting out the rakes and blowing machines and all these things. Well, ernie, my long I came to me this past fall and said, hey, mike, winds blowing the leaves. I know some of the leaves gotten your gutter I love to clear out your gutters from his perspective, he had a captive audience. You know, he has a customer's already buying from him. Captive client. I can sell more things. So you want me to clean your gutters, it's? Only seventy five more bucks? Sure, I need him clean. So what does he do? I seem get into his car. Always getting equipment out. He didn't have equipment. He just had his ingenious idea, too. Offer more things. He ran toe home depot, came back in a couple of ladders and then he's up on the roof, scooping this stuff out. Well, scooping this stuff out, I'm looking at his truck, and they're set ...

those blowers that could be blowing the leaves of the neighbor next door. He's, clean up the leaves, comes down off the things is, you know, I don't know too much about roofs uh buys up on your roof and you have some singles coming loose uh it's pretty simple I could replace it now this count cause you're my first customer would you want me to fix the shingles? I'm like yeah sure why not do it back to home depot back by the end of days thinking he's going to repair my chimney and then back in the house like I want you to everything here at the end of day he made the total bill to me was like fifteen hundred dollars not a bad day. The interesting thing is he charges I think it's uh four hundred dollars to take care of a long and he can get done in about two hours to blow bag and get the leaves out of there he could go to two five properties in ten hours and make two thousand dollars he spent ten hours on my property may fifteen hundred he could make two thousand do always properties but here's the amazing thing is if he went to the local bar and talk to the guy that just does lawns and they're talking about the the money they made that they were both talking about how much money they made but the guy buying the drinks is the other guy who just is one thing efficiently because my guy I had to get supplies come back and there's that kapil equipment those blowers they're just sitting there not being used they need to go buy shingles and do new things he's all over the place and that is what our business does many of our businesses like always I will more service at one more thing and actually it hurts our profitability destroyer profitability if you put your profit first you start taking money first is going to force you to do fewer things there's less money available you have become more efficient you have to become like the heart surgeon a specialist and and you dictated premium so that's how that works takes money to make money bull I need to wait until I'm profit first so there's another piece of resistance I get saying yeah I want to build a problem business but I got to be profitable to become profitable which makes no sense to me profit is a mental decision uh marcie was saying this earlier she came and said, oh my god this morning we sat down that this whole thing is just a mind game if business is meant to fail and I believe it I'm going to fail but if I decide business is going to be successful, I'll be successful the story why share there was a speaker ah public speaker who did selling from stage I know you're you don't do sign from stage and I don't either I hold reverends asking report says that two meals reference for a stage I think we're meant to deliver information, but there's certain speakers that also like the cell from the stage. Well, this one particular person I don't know her name went to a seminar on how to sell from the stage and, um, this instructors up there and says, if you follow these certain techniques, eighty percent of your audience at the end of your speech will buy your product in the back of the room, so she says, okay, she goes and starts doing speaking and tries using these techniques, and after a few practice sessions after doing a few speeches, she gets upwards of fifty percent, sixty percent yearly new year or so later, she's now sixty five percent, so she had speaking sixty five percent the audience would purchase whatever she has to offer at the end, then seventy percent, but she could never get this elusive eighty percent shot upwards of seth eighty five percent close of the audience well, happenstance three years later, she runs across this instructor that told her this original method to get eighty percent they're having breakfast together and she said, sounds says, I have to ask you, you told me if I use your techniques that get a percent, I'm using him, I've brought now to seventy five percent what's the last technique what am I missing? He looks at it he says you got to what she says I've only gotten a seventy five percent you said you could get to eighty I said I didn't say eighty I said eighteen percent eighteen percent you see the perception our mind becomes the reality that we execute on she heard eighty and she made that pretty darn real if we're eighteen we start playing up to eighteen if you say your business can't be profitable, you'll prove yourself right when we said these numbers up here from the instant assessment showed you before the's all these different numbers they're pretty healthy numbers some businesses can't be there I'm saying just decide you can't be there make that your number and you'll ultimately find a way to get there you'll navigate your way there too it's fascinating what you're saying, michael? Because I think probably the biggest number of questions we've had coming in from the online audience of the last couple days have been exactly this they've given really detailed examples of their business but they can't see how to make it profitable they're asking all sorts of questions about basically of dancing around that how are they going to get there but it's not going to be profitable until you choose exactly just choose be profitable you know one thing tim said uh tim says sabrina said doctors schleicher some other folks at it I've been saying to and actually is a little bit of danger is checking out with the industry's doing because if you check out your industries doing you're saying ok this is what I should be doing why? Because the industry says it doesn't mean you have to do it you can pick any number you want so pick audacious numbers a few seconds ago I was talking to guys I said how do you how do you do double your revenue at half the cost that's an audacious question that the uh big hairy audacious noble question set these big numbers out there for yourself to target and you may actually surprise yourself maybe you won't maybe you expect and you'll get it we'll surprise your industry because you've done it I've another friend I wanted to bring on her name's uh sarah shaw sarah are you with us come on there she is I am how are you good good to see you and see you in a while I know a good thing I changed at the last minute because I had pictured onto it would have been twins I told you to wear pink shirt is pictured thinks things are you in colorado today I am cool so you you help businesses you helped coach businesses in the retail market and so forth can you share a little more with our audience here exactly what you do and I want to talk about accountability yeah, I worked with mostly women entrepreneurs in helping them either develop their product or take their current product the next level helping them but sales, marketing and getting their products to celebrities, npr and okay and so these air price that they've invented and you're trying to give him some massive exposure I know you've had some pop like just your own brand of beer you released a purse uh in all of a sudden it popped and use a quick lost key should've strategy used yeah. Are you talking about my hand back of your hand? Not your hand back. Okay, so, uh this is a long time ago. Uh but basically I had him up with an idea that was really unique and it was a little bag that was cut with pinking shears so there was nothing else like it on the market and because what I just did with basically was get on the phone with people and show them that my product stood out was different than other peoples and it just took off like wildfire and I started to get it to celebrities because I you know, somehow the idea came to me in a flash and I was like, I live in l a where I lived at the time and I should get products to celebrities and that helped me get into magazines and getting my products you know, on tv and I was on access hollywood and entered here e entertainment and shows like that on dh then ended up getting them into movies and that really got me a lot of exposure. Yes, legally blonde reese witherspoon had your products and so forth so here's what's interesting is you found a method and, you know, teaching method for people to take a prize and make it instantly famous make it world renowned but as you coach clients, we've had so many calls saying cash, they're dropping off the wagon or not following the process they they don't say accountable so what we're talking about in this segment is accountability why do people fall off the pan wagon? They have the method they know how to do it, you know, private first I know your methods why they stop doing things, I think a lot of people just want a magic pill and they really wanna have either they want to get a formula that they can fall below on dh they wanted, you know, they want to think that they can stick to the formula it's kind of like a diet why do so many people fail in a diet? You say I'm going to lose ten pounds and then you start your diet and your loser you know, a couple pounds in the next week you don't quote lose the same amount near like oh this is a nightmare I'm never gonna lose it and then you start to lose steam so I think it's sort of the same the same with building a business you know, people don't see the results that they're looking for immediately they intend to lose the steam and they just either want to hire it out you know, like people hire out chiara and a lot of people hire out marketing and things that they don't think that they can possibly ever understand and one of the things that I find invaluable in launching a business is making sure you understand and know how to do every aspect of your business whether you continue to do it or not is questionable because you often you know you have two job things out event actually you can't do everything yourself but a cz long as you know oh how things work then you can actually be intelligent enough to know whether the person you pirate is actually doing their job and so I think this falls into a lot of the theories that you talk about your buck too so it sounds like people fall off the accountability wagon. What I'm hearing from you is they fall off the accountability wagon because there's certain elements or pieces that they just have disdain for they don't like doing it sadly that not everything is going wrong is a certain parts we're going wrong is that my hearing that right yeah or they say you know our goal is to sell to one hundred stores this year and then it's you know november and they've only got fifty or you know and then so they're like I'm never going to get to one hundred that's an impossible number I should never have picked that number and they start to kind of go into this downward spiral of despair and so you know, so I was just listening to what you were saying about the woman with the eighteen versus eighty percent and I think it's it's sort of that same theory and that you know they set a goal and if they can't get to the goal they often don't watch the building momentum towards it so you know if you say I'm going to get a hundred stores for you in a year that will you divide that by twelve and you know that's no more than ten stores a month so if you only get three stores a month you're clearly never gonna hit your goal well unless you have some windfall you know, on december thirty first so I think it's looking at all the aspects of your business and being able to sort of check it off your list like yes, I got to my goal and you know and then not and then realizing that if you didn't you have to reevaluate everything and look at it again and say okay, well I'm clearly not doing it in a way that works unnecessarily a wrong way but the way that works for my business and then reassess and start again tell me about the flip side you have some clients many clients have been wildly successful I'm thinking of laurie I think that was her name specifically who introduced me to yeah yeah yeah wildly successful what is she doing and how is she staying accountable to the progress in her business making more profitable growing the business selling moorhouse she pulling it off drop it first of course of course is the answer to everything you know when I learned that from you I you know started teaching it to my clients and because it worked so well behind however sticking with it she sticks with it when others fall off the wagon well because I think she sets she sets real goals for herself like I remember when she first started using it she said I'm going to take my family on a disney cruise no, it isn't something vacation and you know she knew she needed whatever let's say five thousand dollars or something and so she sort of did the homework and backed things out what I had advised her to do was write if you need five thousand dollars which is you know whatever percentage of her gross revenue that she was doing I don't remember if she was taking ten, fifteen or twenty per cent of her sails and putting it in her profit first account but whatever the percentage was she figured out how many units she had to sell in order to be able to set that money aside and so it was sort of a back words way of looking at things and I like to break things down that way just in general for sales strategies with my clients and so she just took it a step further to figure out what she needed for the profit first account and then she just set her goal and whatever it was you know, I need to sell five thousand pieces, you know? And she divided that into her store you know, store sales and numbers and all that and then figured out what she needed to do and she is just a selling machine and she'll just do she just does what it takes you know, she works all the time, works really hard and, you know, has and hires people to do sales for her and nose where her weaknesses are and isn't sort of bogged down by those and and I think because she does know how to job things out where she she finds her own weaknesses or dislikes, then she is more profitable in the end because the other people doing it actually do like doing it yeah you know I've heard is saying that people can improve a weakness by an inch but can leapfrog a strength by a mile you know yeah push your strengths now one thing I've had the privilege of is you invited me to attend a couple masterminds you've run I was telling the audience here I've been to many I'm fitting one for fifteen years you prime managed one the most effective powerful master minds I've ever attended any secrets you can share with us and how to run these accountability groups these masterminds so that everyone wants to get one started where the tools resource is methods to get started and run one as well as you do it um I think I think it's really building the camaraderie between the people who were there and getting them involved with each other emotionally as well as just sitting in the same room because often they don't know each other and you're bringing especially the first time you know in a lot of mine have been sort of scattered with different group around the country or people coming in from all over the place so it's not like they have been meeting for coffee or anything and they knew each other from social media but that's not a face to face situation and so I think building a sense of camaraderie in the group really makes people stick to it and stick to each other and in fact you know, the these people you know, having meals together and also sharing personal stories about yourself I think really will help people bond in a different way than just, you know, here's my marketing problem now what do you think you know? Because everyone I mean people can really contribute to those kinds of things in masterminds and give people ideas but I think I don't think people really bond over business I think they bond over personal relationships. Yeah, I agree I think when we just talked business it's brainstorming but when we bond over experiences it becomes true bonds friendships because you shared a similar story he's, right? Yeah. Um so any final tips were run a little tight on time here, but any final tips you can share on if you want to stay accountable to profitability if you want make your businesses profit possible. And by the way, I don't know. I think I share the percentage of profit you were running in your business share thirty five percent bottom line thirty five percent profit in sarah's business that's after you took a salary after you paid your taxes after everything thirty five percent profit by the way, it was a mistake when we were writing and originally meant to put in a twenty five percent I actually hit a three and so we should target thirty five percent and he said okay and it was a random number and but you pulled it off for consecutive years in your business and I was sending two kids to private school and saying two kids were private school right and moving to durango and so if we want to start increasing profitability or business, any last tips on getting started in sticking with it yeah, I think you just have to make a choice as to what percentage you're willing to give up and I think you know, in it and relinquish to the profitability I mean because it's uh I think you need to pick a number and just stick to it no matter what and I would you know, we we didn't have any overhead in my business it wasn't a product based company, so I wasn't developing anything that cost me, you know, money to store anything like that. So I think in a service based business you khun definitely decide to give up a larger percentage from the get go whether it's anywhere from, you know, twenty to thirty percent I think twenty five percents probably pretty reasonable for most people, but you know, but if you have a product based company, I think you have to get down into the somewhere five, ten, fifteen percent and even do different amounts depending on whether it's a wholesale transaction with a store or whether you're selling retail on your website that's but I always encouraged my clients to dio because the profitability theirs is totally different. And so but making that commitment, tio doing it every single time. I mean, every every time a transaction comes through and use, see paypal or your credit card or whatever coming through in that exact moment at the end of every day before you trance for that money to your bank account, you transfer the first you take your calculator and you transfer the percentage into your profit first account, or at least that's how I did it, and to me it was a ritual and every every day like it, you know, if I was quitting at five five to five, you know, I'd sit down depending on how many transactions came through, and I would just transfer the money into the profit first and then on dh, then put everything else into my, uh, business jacking account and that's how I kept a tight rein on it and even on the days that I was like, oh, god, but I just can't even can't spare whatever I could, so use that five hundred dollars or whatever it was, you know, I was like, I can't I made this commitment, and this is this is my diet, you know, and I have to stick to it now and I love that that one little tip is making a ritual someone was suggesting I think yesterday when it came to exercise or something like that is when you wake up in the morning put your gym clothes on first and it triggers the ritual I love that you have specific time every time you were doing this yeah and sarah I know people find you an entrepreneur dot com and instantly famous dot com and sleep famous products dot com instantly famous but thank you for your time is good seeing you get to the radio soon I think with crystal we're coming out way got your room all set up for you later, theo yeah, I mean that's no easy feat, you know, thirty five percent bottom line after salary and everything and when it came to building your business we reverse engineered it stuff who? You know sarah, you don't personally that's right? You've worked with here, right? She's awesome she's awesome. Right kiss she's absent does he help you with your products? Yeah, make sure I learn from her how to do a line sheet and how to call stores and you know how to send him e mails and all that kind of stuff on a sicker on you now to get down to six products or maybe three I know you think she was talking I was like reading you know what sarah's right like because you know there's those shiny objects right? So I mean I've taken her um seminars and programs and all that kind of stuff and her stuff is amazing and she knows how to run a retail product based business if you have one she knows her stuff was right here in creative life at some point you get e I should teach you should um but that's the thing like so I would do it and just like she was saying like I totally have fallen off the wagon um I would do it for a while and then things were totally working and so that I would go back to doing you know things and I would focus I instead of focusing on stores then I focused more on customers and social media and all that kind of stuff since I was like, well, maybe that will work and then if I get all those fans then they'll bye from stores more you know, it was kind of thinking maybe I need that and then so and then it was the new shiny object of we know maybe this and well I wrote down I was like go back home's when I get home look up all of you my sarah info and like really does hold on just one thing she said that you caught my attention is reverse engineering reversing our profit here's a quick tip I wanted to share it with all of you you khun d'oh we went well instead of saying this so much I want to sell this year why not say to our business for this upcoming year or about me period I want to make I want take home for myself x number of dollars I want a profit of will say at the end of this year say ten thousand dollars right? So you write that number down if you know your profit per cent and you do from that that the target allocation percent we should do that instant assessment you simply take this target number you have divided by point one five and it tells me to support that I need sixty six thousand six hundred sixty six dollars of sales of sales so you can reverse engineer this now becomes my sales number and six fifteen percent of that is ten thousand that deter my profit and then I can figure out all the other numbers from there the two numbers you want to know he's gonna likely be profit and owners pay how much do you want take home or how much you want to come to you be distributing, pick the number in advance and reverse engineer out what would be a good number rina for you to take home as a salary for yourself what would be comfortable like not crazy understand company you say hey, this is a good salary coming here one hundred thousand hundred you think one hundred thousand dollars home in salary it's going to be very comfortable year now we look back at the instant assessment and so far back and slides I don't want to run it through but your owners pay would be that if it's a thirty percent number right thirty percent of your uh income your sales goes toe owners pay profit I can't run the numbers are phony and successful saves ten percent um and so forth now would I do that take your number one hundred thousand push the divide button divide by point three and it tells me to support this you need three hundred and thirty three thousand three hundred thirty three dollars in annual sales so now you know your sales targets so you figure out how much you paid it then by putting that chart I gave you earlier it tells you how much you need to sell but then he'll tell you how much profit you'll have is thirty three thousand and it tells you how it's reserved for taxes three three three three three three times point one five is the tax number urine have forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars for taxes fifteen percent and then the remainder is going to be for operate expenses three three three three three uh minus one hundred minus fifty one two three minus three, three three they're your eagles, so one hundred fifty thousand dollars, if I could have done in the head faster is your operating expenses okay? Most of us, we try to figure out how much we're going to sell this year first, and then we'll see how play things play out. Why? Why not break the rules here, too? Why not pick the exact gun numbers? I won't be taking home, and it will tell me the business and the house needs to run now. You know, the type customers you need to be attracting, what size revenue you need to be generating are ever selling to each customer. You know what kind of money we tak talking away. You can predict what your tax liabilities are going to see for yourself in your business. And you know, if I do this and I want this, I have to figure out how to get three hundred thirty three thousand hours of sales, all taken care of, delivered and done for one hundred fifty thousand dollars in cost.