Lessons From Millionaires/Billionaires | Scale Your Business NOW

If your business is stuck, check out this post and discover some amazing things I learned from chatting with a number of multi-millionaires, and yes, a handful of billionaires.

Earlier this month we headed to a mastermind conference in Austin Texas and we had the great pleasure of meeting some of the brightest minds and entrepreneurs in all of America.

In the above picture, you will see a photo of myself, my business partner, Dan Pine, and CNBC’s TV personality from “The Profit“, Mr. Marcus Lemonis.

COOL SIDE NOTE:

Pause for a little brag moment: I have continued to have conversations since I met Marcus, and we’ve enjoyed some dialogue and may potentially help with the marketing of one of his largest businesses, Camping World. 🙂

I’ve been a huge fan of Lemonis for as long as I can remember. Most of you are probably familiar with the bar rescue show, where the star, Jon Taffer, is known for finding failing bars, and putting things back in place to get them profitable again. Now, I want you to imagine a guy that can do that in any kind of business, be it a cake shop, a furniture store, or a butcher. That’s Marcus Lemonis. The man is absolutely brilliant.

PEOPLE | PROCESS | PRODUCT

If you ever sit down and binge-watch this series, you will quickly realize that there are three core focuses he looks at before investing in a business.

1. People
2. Process
3. Product

If your business is doing $1 million or more a year, odds are you’ve got good people and a great product. But if your business is stuck, more than likely your process is broken, and if you know how to fix that, you be surprised how quickly you can scale your business almost overnight. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

MEETING THE POWER PLAYERS

While in Austin Texas we really were able to absorb a lot of great ideas from people who started with nothing, many who struggled very badly along the way, only to find themselves as some of the most successful entrepreneurs ever to walk the face of the earth. One of the speakers at this event was a guy who built $1 billion business that started from one gym. Over his first 12 months, he literally slept in his gym. He failed (temporarily) because he did not understand how to scale his business.

After spending a full week with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, there was one thing that really stood out that helped make these leaders successful, and I thought it would be an injustice if I didn’t share it with all of you.

Imagine, being surrounded by some of the most brilliant business people in the world. To name a few:

• Roland Frasier – The man, the legend. This dude is the mastermind of masterminds. Roland Frasier is the Co-founder and/or principal of 5 different Inc. Magazine fastest-growing companies (e-commerce, e-learning, SaaS + real estate). He sold 24 businesses with adjusted sales ranging from $3 million to just under $4 billion.

• Karen Scott is an American fashion designer. She is the executive chairwoman, designer, and former chief executive officer of Kendra Scott, LLC. In 2017, she was named Ernst & Young’s National Entrepreneur of the Year. Valued at over $1 billion, her brand encompasses fashion jewelry, fine jewelry, home accessories, nail lacquer, and beauty products

• Emmitt Smith (Former Dallas Cowboys star turned investor). Most people don’t even know that he’s not just an entrepreneur, he’s also an inventor. Emmitt Smith had a wonderful story and it’s still very active in the entrepreneurial spirit.

Kris Krohn, who am I at I am in the process of partnering with, manages over $1 billion in real estate investments.  He is an author, speaker, and breakthrough mentor who helps people break through their limitations and unleash their full potential. Kris is the founder of the Limitless movement, a mentoring program designed to help people live their Limitless Life.

So what is their secret, many would ask? Obviously, you would not be able to sign this up in a single blog post. But after a full week of listening to their hardships and success stories, there was a takeaway that you could apply right now and start seeing results.

Most people usually start by trying to tackle business matters like:

• How can I do more marketing?
• How can I sell more products?
• How can I cut some of my expenses?

And while these are all great questions to be asking, there’s a more important place to start.

You might be surprised at how simple the answer to this question is.

Visualizing and Mapping Out Systems

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you’ve got a fairly successful business, you’ve got a product that people desire, and are willing to invest their money in. But perhaps you’ve hit a plateau and are struggling to take your business to the next level.

Here’s what the problem usually is. In summary, entrepreneurs oftentimes fail to put together an operating system so that their business could be scalable without having to be in the middle of it the entire day.

There’s an old expression, “you either own a job, or you own a business“. If you own and a cake shop and you’re the one doing all the baking, you basically own a job that happens to pay a little better. If you’re a roofer who is still on top of the roof nailing shingles, you do not own a business, you own a job. If you own a [insert business type] and you do the [insert labor here] you likely also own a job and not a business.

Now, I’m not saying the business owners should not be actively working in their business. But your number one goal needs to be that you develop a business that is scalable without you. In other words, instead of you working in the business, you need to be working on the business. And, there does come a time that you cannot fulfill the labor portion of your business and work on the business at the same time. It’s just impossible to grow wearing too many hats.

Business Process Mapping

How do you create value? What’s your value creation process? Have you mapped this out?

What happens from start to finish (i.e, you get a lead… then what happens? then what happens? then what happens?) Every step of the process, ask the question, then what happens? Map it out. Put in on paper. Figure out where your priorities are. This will help your entire team understand the flow your prospects and customers go through.

• We recommend starting this process with your best-selling product or service.
• Define the ‘triggering’ (what starts the process, i.e. ads) and ‘ending’ (what ends the process) events, i.e fulfillment. It generally should not end at just delivering the product or service. Because if we stop there, there’s usually a high cancellation rate. We need to make sure they receive the product. If they’re happy with the product. Offer them assistance if they need something beyond it.

Once we have this established you need to publish it.

Below is just a hypothetical illustration of what this might look like for a health club owner.

The better you and your team can visually see the process, the more likely you’re going to be able to find where your business is bottlenecking. It will help you see where you might be missing out on opportunities. You absolutely need this if your goal is to scale your business.

I’ll be sharing more on this as the weeks unfold. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some guidance, or considering selling your business, reach out to us, and let’s chat! We may be able to help.