My Book Review & Additional Cliff Notes on Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham – 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform and Out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham, one of the greatest marketing minds on the planet.
About Jay Abraham
JAY ABRAHAM is one of America’s leading marketing experts. He is the founder and CEO of Abraham Group Inc. Mr. Abraham has consulted with more than 10,000 clients in 400 different companies including IBM, Microsoft, Citibank and Charles Schwab. Mr. Abraham specializes in uncovering hidden assets, overlooked opportunities and undervalued possibilities. His marketing methods and approaches have been profiled in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Success, Inc. and Entrepreneur magazines. His Web site is http://www.abraham.com
Main Idea about the book:
Section 1 : Maximize What You Have
To increase your income or rate of success in everything you do:
1. Take full advantage of what you already have — your hidden assets, untapped opportunities and overlooked possibilities.
2. Create multiple sources of income or success — so you aren’t reliant on just a single approach.
3. Change the way you think so you can continue to grow and improve indefinitely.
Embrace these strategies and apply them well to achieve financial security, influence, recognition and the success you deserve.
1. See the big picture
Most people make the mistake of complicating business more than it needs to be.
For example, building and increasing your business may seem intimidating and complex, but in reality there are only three practical ways this can be achieved:
1. You can increase the number of clients.
2. You can increase the average sale per client.
3. You can increase the number of times clients buy.
Therefore, to build your business (and your income):
- Calculate the number of clients you now have — and how you can increase your number of clients by 10% in the next year.
- Figure out exactly how much, on average, each of your clients spends with you now — and how you can raise that average by 10% in the next year.
- Determine how often clients are currently purchasing from you — and find a way to decrease the time between transactions by 10%.
Taken together, those three incremental 10% improvements will combine to expand your business by a total of 33%. And frequently, that will result in a doubling of personal income without much of a difference at all in operating costs.
In short, most businesses are constantly awash in a sea of potential opportunities for growth and expansion. All that’s required is:
- The insight to see how these opportunities can be connected.
- Knowledge of the proven strategies other people have used successfully in similar circumstances.
- The ability to leverage these strategies together to produce greater income and success.
When a person understands what to do, they also understand exactly and precisely how they can get anything they want in their business life and career.
2. Create breakthroughs
As well as looking for incremental gains, you should also be attuned to breakthrough ideas — completely different and original ways of doing the same things.
Breakthroughs create quantum and dramatic leaps forward instead of small gains. A good breakthrough also creates leverage — allowing you to change the entire game of business and seize a sustainable competitive advantage.
To use the breakthrough mindset:
Be opportunistic. Whenever you notice a problem, ask,
‘‘What’s the overlooked opportunity here to solve a problem loads of other people are facing every day?’’
Think in terms of possibilities — about different and better ways of doing things.
Be receptive to novel new ways of doing things — outside the traditional or industry standard approaches.
Look at things logically. Be open-minded. Often the most obvious solutions are the last to be considered.
If you keep an ongoing flow of high-quality information into your mind, you’ll be amazed at the number of ideas you can borrow and adapt from other fields that will generate genuine breakthrough business opportunities.
3. Inventory your strengths
In order to start moving forward to where you want to go, you
first need to know exactly where you are today. To do that, you
need to take a personal and business inventory — a strategic
analysis of strengths, weaknesses and how these factors relate
to the competition.
A good strategic analysis:
- Lists all your business and personal assets and strengths — including character traits, network contacts, background experience, skills and knowledge.
- Categorizes how your business currently generates its business revenues.
- Identifies other businesses that benefit whenever you create a new client and evaluates the potential for joint ventures.
- Articulates your unique selling proposition (USP).
- Analyzes competitors — their strengths and weaknesses along with their competitive advantages.
- Details what your costs are in generating new clients — and compares that with the lifetime value of a client.
- Looks at all the ways you can lower the risk of transacting business with your organization.
- Studies how you go about generating referrals, reactivating old clients and up-selling your existing clients.
- Looks at your client retention track record.
In practice, less than 5% of businesses ever get around to carrying out a detailed strategic analysis of themselves. That’s because most business people spend the majority of their time working in their business rather than on their business.
Until you know what you’re currently doing right and currently doing wrong, you won’t have any ideas about how to improve.
4. Put the client’s needs first
Any business that genuinely and sincerely puts the client’s needs ahead of their own preferences will succeed and prosper.
A viable business serves its clients. By that, the business puts clients ‘‘under its protection’’ or, in other words, it becomes an adviser focused on the client’s interests first and generating sales second. In these circumstances, the business becomes a valued resource.
Instead of being passionate about the product or service offered, successful business owners are in love with the idea of meeting the needs of their clients.
A business that puts client needs first:
1. Identifies client needs before figuring out what to sell them.
2. Acts as a trusted adviser — not just a sales person.
3. Won’t hesitate to recommend a cheaper solution that’s better.
4. Thinks in terms of solutions rather than merchandise.
5. Acts in the best long term interests of clients.
It’s all a matter of loyalties in the final analysis. People that put their client’s needs first are passionately committed to creating solutions that work for those people. For that reason, they’re trusted — clients look on them as a resource someone else is paying for.
5. Calculate lifetime value
The best possible offer made to a first-time client should reflect the lifetime value of that client’s future business — not just the profits that will be generated from a one-off sale.
Why? Because once you’ve calculated how much profit you’ll make over the lifetime of a client, you’ll realize the initial transaction profit is really of little consequence.
Therefore, make it as easy as possible for people to start a relationship with you. Eliminate any hurdles. Offer a free, introductory period. Give them incentives to do business. Break-even on the first sale in anticipation of recouping your investment over the longer term. As long as you deliver genuine added value, they’ll keep coming back for more.
To calculate the lifetime value of a client:
1. Compute your average sales revenue and average profit.
2. Add the profits derived from follow-on sales.
3. Multiply by the average number of transactions per client.
4. Subtract the costs of acquiring that client.
That will give you some feel for how much business each new client will generate over their entire association with your business. Logically, then, you can afford to spend some additional money in acquiring new clients in anticipation of recouping that investment over their lifetime of business.
That additional money should be used primarily to make it as easy as possible to begin doing business with you. That way, you start your own ‘‘positive feedback loop’’ — where the more business you have, the more business you can afford to generate in the future.
Keep in mind your goal isn’t just to cut the price of that first transaction. Instead, you want to be creating an offer that is so appealing, so attractive that people will be breaking down your doors to do business with you. Create that kind of offer and the fireworks are just getting going.
6. Develop a USP
A USP is your ‘‘Unique Selling Proposition’’. This is:
- The way you differentiate yourself from other businesses.
- The appealing idea that sets your business apart.
- The unique benefit you — and only you — can deliver.
- The very reason people should do business with you.
There are loads of USPs possibilities, such as:
1. Price — The same product for 25% less than anyone else.
2. Service — We make house calls to keep you in business.
3. Quality — Our products have a 5-year no-question warranty.
4. Exclusivity — Only 100 of these are made each year.
5. Selection — The biggest superstore on earth.
The possibilities are endless. A good USP is clear and to the point. It states unequivocally and succinctly why clients should do business with you. It identifies the niche your business fills better than anyone else.
Good businesses align everything with their USP. It colors and influences every action taken. There’s a high degree of consistency between what the company says and what it does. It is the biggest single reason someone should consider doing business with you.
In every business transaction, someone is asked to take a risk — be it financial, psychological or emotional. Smart businesses create ways to assume the risk themselves rather than asking potential clients to do so. Businesses that do that lower the barriers of starting a new relationship with them.
In short, savvy businesses totally and completely guarantee any purchase. They offer better-than-risk-free guarantees — if anything goes wrong, the business will fix it as well as pay the client something of tangible value.
To create an offer people cannot refuse:
- Consider offering a bonus the client can keep, even if they don’t transact any business with you. That shows you value their time and their trust highly.
- Make offers clients can cancel at any time for a full refund, no-questions-asked.
- Offer a double-your-money-back guarantee.
- Offer to buy them a competitor’s product if, after using yours, they like the competitor’s better.
- Let them try it free for 30- or 60-days first.
Test different offers and come up with something that hits a hot button for your clients. People are afraid of making a mistake.
By assuming all the risk, you create a situation where they can’t possibly make a mistake.
Most businesses that have tried this approach actually find if they increase the guarantee, they increase their profits — partly because it puts pressure on them to deliver on whatever they have promised and partly because most people tend to be fair and very few will take unfair advantage of a genuine risk-reversal offer.
In every transaction, think about who assumes the risk and find ways to make certain it’s you, not your client.
8. Cross-sell and offer add-ons
Many companies unwittingly limit the amount of business clients do with them rather than actively offer additional products and services. Instead, they should be offering clients:
- The opportunity to purchase related items that add value to their original purchases.
- Future supply options — automatic renewals, large quantity discounts, higher quality alternatives.
- Combinations or packages of products or services that add value to the original purchase — with one easy decision.
Auto dealers have done this for many years, but add-on opportunities are not limited just to consumer goods. Every product or service has numerous add-on business possibilities.
Some ideas to consider:
- Think about the end result — what a client actually wants when they purchase from you. Offer more of that — for a fee.
- Offer delivery, assembly or installation services.
- Make related products available. Create a bundle of products and services that is a complete solution.
- Add volume or frequency options.
- Offer extended terms — let clients buy over time.
- Offer a larger or deluxe version of your product or service at a higher price.
9. Test everything
Anyone can produce the same results a marketing genius will result — if they just test everything first and find out what the market wants rather than assuming they know.
Every aspect of marketing should be tested first. That applies to each and every variable in marketing:
- · The structure of the offer, especially price
- · The headline or attention grabber.
- · The format of the material used.
- · The closes used.
- · The USP around which the marketing offer is made.
- · The method by which the offer is delivered to potential clients.
- · The guarantee and other elements.
The whole point is nobody should assume they know what works and doesn’t work in the marketplace on the basis of anything except actual field testing.
Testing doesn’t have to be expensive but it does need to be accurate. By using a keyed coupon or telling clients to specify a department number to use when they order, empirical data can be gathered. That way, the marketing can be fine-tuned and optimized for profitability.
Most people are astonished at the difference little changes can make in the pulling power of marketing. If you don’t test, you won’t be aware of the lost profits that may presently be unexploited by your business.
In essence, too many businesses assume they know what the market wants. The smarter approach is to test everything. By comparing the results of one offer against another, some surprising profit opportunities will become apparent.
Key Thoughts
‘‘It’s amazing how many people and companies will say and do whatever it takes to make a one-time sale rather than taking the time to understand the client’s desired outcome. And then have the courage and the concern to tell that client that what they really need is much less than what they told you they wanted. You may, when you take this approach, end up with a smaller initial sale, but you will have just made a new friend, someone who will remember you the next time. And who will, no doubt, tell his friends about you and your company.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘The biggest secret to success in business or a career is to always maintain the edge in everything you do. Logical sounding, yes, but infrequently understood. Even less frequently practiced. One of the biggest “competitive-edge” advantages you’ll ever gain is to always make it easier for the client to say yes than it is for them to say no. When you remove the risk for anyone deciding to do business with you, it results in a powerful advantage in your business and financial success.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘My definition of a marketing genius may be different from yours. I think a marketing genius is someone who has the ability to always get the maximum result from the minimum effort — not the person with the most creative ingenuity. So a marketing genius to me is someone who is both logical and prudent. Someone who only follows the path that produces the highest and best results or returns for their money, time and effort. Anyone can become a virtual marketing genius equivalent by doing one simple thing: testing.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘Before Henry Ford would hire anyone for an important position, he would have lunch with them. If the potential employee would salt the food before tasting it, Mr. Ford would not hire the person. The reason? Salting the food before tasting it indicated the person would implement a plan before testing it — ergo no job. You should test everything. It’s simple, and the payoff can be enormous.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘The people above you (bosses, management and organization leaders) want one thing most of all — they want solutions to problems. Solutions that make them look good and help them achieve their goals. They want the people that report to them to be problem solvers. These strategies will give you those solutions and turn you into a problem solver. Employers will kill for problem solvers.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘An approach that’s as common as dirt in one industry can have the power of an atomic bomb in an unrelated industry.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘Depending on any single approach for all your new clients or career advancement and continuous business is a disaster waiting to happen. If you’re attacking your market from multiple positions and your competition isn’t, you’ll have all the advantage and it will show up in your increased success and income.’’ — Jay Abraham
Section 2 : Multiply Your Maximum
10. Host-beneficiary alliances
Instead of marketing to the general population, smart marketers make offers to people who are ready to buy. How do you find them? By setting up a host-beneficiary relationship with another company.
Here’s how a host-beneficiary alliance works:
- Ask, ‘‘Who already has a strong relationship with the people who are likely to buy my product or service?’’
- Contact those businesses and make them an offer on a joint marketing promotion to their customers. Offer them a risk-free, effort-free return.
- Explain your marketing will in no way detract from theirs, and that you’ll bear all the risks.
- Offer them final sign-off approval on the marketing program — just to ensure it’s worth being associated with.
- Let them handle the orders that come in — so they can verify what results are achieved for the purpose of any profit share arrangement.
All in all, the concept is simple but enormously productive. The key to success, most frequently, lies in coming up with a rewards package that appeals to the host company so they feel comfortable sharing one of their business assets. There must also be a high degree of trust the alliance won’t offer goods or services of poor quality.
The benefits to the host are:
- · An additional revenue stream.
- · No costs are incurred — hence no financial risk.
- · Leverage of their customer base is increased.
- · Cross promotional opportunities may be available.
One thing to bear in mind, however, is forming an alliance of this type usually takes time. Allow potential hosts to get up to speed about your products and services before asking them to make a decision whether or not to participate. This will usually be a process, rather than a one-off decision.
11. Generate referrals
Many business are of two minds about referrals — they realize direct or indirect referrals already generate a significant proportion of new business but despite that have no formal referral program in place.
To develop a workable and effective referral program:
- Set the stage. Suggest to clients the sort of people they know who may enjoy the added value you deliver. Get them thinking first — don’t surprise them.
- Provide a template — a list of ways to identify the people who may benefit from whatever you offer.
- Make an obligation-free offer to confer with their friends and give them a sample of what you have to offer.
- Make a special offer. Explain the only way this offer can be accessed is by being a friend or contact of an existing customer. Deliver genuine added-value, and the offer will come across well to both the person giving the referral and the recipient.
Referrals are always the least expensive, most effective and highest leverage way a business can be built. If you look at your clients as valued friends, set up a formal system by which they can refer their associates.
Referral generated clients buy more, stay longer, negotiate less, understand and appreciate what you offer and, in turn, refer their own associates.
12. Reactivate past clients
Your inactive client base is a huge and often unexploited resource. Get these people to buy again and sales will soar.
Most people stop buying for one of three reasons:
1. Something totally unrelated has happened in their lives.
2. They’ve had a problem with what you offer.
3. They can no longer benefit from what you offer.
How do you get them to buy again?
- Contact them sincerely and humbly. Invite them to do business again — and make it worth their while with a special welcome-back offer. (This will get back everyone who has just never got around to doing business with you again).
- Focus on their needs — ask what can you do to serve their needs again. Be candid with them — the impact can be powerful. (This will be the best approach if someone has had a previous less-than-satisfactory dealing with you.)
- Make a no-strings-attached special offer — like a gift certificate or a voucher.
- Send unsolicited gifts or samples.
- Contact them in person. Talk with them. Ask why they have decided to take their business elsewhere. That information alone may highlight shortfalls in your product or service delivery you weren’t even aware of.
- If all else fails, diplomatically ask lost clients to refer someone else. What have you got to lose?
Any business that cuts its attrition rate in half will generate a significant boost in revenues — frequently as much as 20% or more.
13. Use direct mail effectively
Direct mail (in the form of regular mail, e-mail or a fax) can be a great way to generate new business and penetrate niches. It can be used as a supplement to personal contact, or as a standalone marketing device.
A good direct mail package or piece:
- Gets the reader’s attention — with a powerful headline.
- Details clear and distinct advantages in the body of the letter — with a simple, concise and vivid recital of the facts.
- Provides validating proof of all the claims made.
- Persuades the recipient to seize the benefits offered.
- Motivates the reader to act, respond, order or call.
Everything else is open to personalization. The direct mail piece may be long or short, filled with clinical facts or brimming with warmth and human interest stories. Similarly, for some offers, coupons work well as add-ins while for others, a simple letter is far more effective.
In short, direct mail, properly used, can be a tremendous way to generate new clients. Again, the best way to find out what works in your specific field is by testing and comparing results.
14. Pre-qualify your marketing
Obviously, if you consistently make offers to people who are inclined to do business with you, your success rate will be higher than if you talk to people who are unlikely to buy under any circumstances. Pre-qualifying means you focus marketing on those people most likely to buy.
How can you find high-quality prospects?
- By using a list broker — who will have available mailing lists of people broken down by all sorts of classifications.
- By renting client lists from other non-competing businesses or other organizations.
- By contacting major list compilers — like Dun & Bradstreet.
- From trade organizations.
- From the inactive client lists of your direct competitors. (Make them an offer. You never know — they might agree if you reciprocate.)
- By capturing the names and addresses of the people who come into your store.
- By approaching the businesses that sell to people with the same demographics and tastes as your clients.
- By placing small and creative classified ads in newspapers.
The better you know your current clients, the more clearly you’ll be able to identify common demographic features. When you spot these similarities, think about the best way to approach more of the same. Often, the best way to do that will be glaringly obvious.
Pre-qualifying allows a business to target its marketing with surgical precision. It generates marketing efficiency — because the marketing program is focused and specific rather than general and vague.
Pre-qualifying is a multiplier of marketing success, yet surprisingly few businesses ever get around to it.
15. Use telemarketing
Telemarketing is also widely underutilized, but once again it can be a highly productive marketing activity.
To use telemarketing effectively:
- Use it as a follow-up to a direct mail approach or an inquiry from the prospective client.
- Start on a small scale first. Get everything working smoothly and productively before ramping up your telemarketing.
- Make sure there’s enough profit in whatever you sell. As a rule-of-thumb for most goods sold this way, one-third goes to the telemarketer, one-third covers expenses and the remaining one-third goes to the product supplier.
- Always have a plan when telemarketing. Have a list of topics to talk about and objectives to achieve. People are sensitive about their time — you must be organized to succeed.
- The best telemarketers are relaxed and conversational. They avoid asking manipulative questions that insult the intelligence of the potential client.
Many businesses that make direct mail offers find their results increase markedly if they follow up with a brief telephone call inviting action.
16. Use the Internet
Selling on the Internet is straightforward. All that’s needed is:
1. High quality products and services people want.
2. A great Web site that sells effectively.
3. Visitors to your Web site that are qualified and motivated.
Some ideas for effective Internet marketing:
- A compelling headline built around the key benefits of the product or services offered will be much more productive than the commonly used ‘‘Welcome to the home page of ABC Corp.’’ You only have a few seconds to get visitors engaged.Don’t waste it.
- A Web site is the perfect place to test different offers, different prices, different headlines and every element of your marketing program. You’ll only know how these elements affect results if you test.
- You can change your Web site every day if you want — and it won’t cost a cent. Use that to create a message that is dynamic and innovative.
- A Web site is a great way to distribute free samples of what you have to offer. Do everything you can to encourage visitors to sample as many of your products and services as possible.
- The Internet allows you to interact with clients. It also allows clients to share their experiences with each other. In other words, you can and should build virtual communities where clients contribute to the Web site directly. You can do that through bulletin boards, polls, surveys, contests, success stories and visits from experts in your field.
- The Internet allows you to target your marketing with laser-like precision. There are literally thousands of highly targeted and specialized electronic newsletters you can access.
The Internet offers impressive business building and marketing possibilities for the future. It will take some time however to develop the requisite skills and expertise, so keep at it.
17. Business bartering
Bartering is incredibly good fun. It gives you the ability to increase your purchasing power many times over. It also frees you from working capital restrictions and allows you to delay payment for the products and services you need to grow your business.
To set up a viable business barter program:
- Go to your most logical prospects and propose a direct exchange of products and services. Stress that you’re trading for full retail value — not their cost. That leverage factor is the key draw card and attraction of barter.
- Don’t put time limits on barter arrangements. The offer of unlimited time to realize the benefits is highly attractive.
- If the prospect is uninterested, try to set up a triangulation deal. That’s simply a 3-way barter transaction — where the first party’s products are traded to a second party in exchange for goods or services from a third party who, in turn, pays something of value to the first party.
- Bartering works best if all products are fully transferable and readily tradable.
- Even if you don’t directly trade yourself, you can still earn a sizable commission (30-percent or more) by acting as the middleman putting a barter deal together.
In the modern economy, the availability of accurate computer-based accounting systems has given a new lease of life to barter systems. The opportunities are limitless. A barter system even flourishes during times of economic downturn.
Key Thoughts
‘‘It can cost a small fortune to acquire a new client — but it costs almost nothing to gain back an old client. When you recognize that over 80% of all lost clients don’t leave for an irreparable reason, you can instantly take action and get many — even most — of those clients back. And when they do come back, they tend to become one of your best, most frequent and most loyal client groups.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘How would you like to have one thousand to ten thousand tireless salesmen and saleswomen working around the clock, calling on the maximum number of the absolutely most qualified prospects for your product or service — and never forgetting to make any selling point or any closing argument? That is available to you with direct mail.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘Are you richer than you think? I think you are. I hope the process and the tools we’ve covered will help you achieve everything you’ve ever wanted or will want. I hope you’ll take what I’ve shown you to a much higher level of application and enrichment than even I have. That’s what I’m expecting. Because that’s the reason I’m sharing this powerful performance information with you. With that stated, let the game you decide to play finally begin.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘Most businesses spend all of their time, effort and money on conventional, externally focused advertising, marketing or selling programs when a fraction of that time and money would get them many times the results if they developed a formalized internal referral system.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘One of the biggest wastes of time and opportunity that I see is people who do not qualify the prospects they target. Instead of going after primary prospects, they go after suspects. The difference between a suspect and a prospect is quality. A suspect is someone who might have the capacity to buy your product or service. A prospect is someone who is qualified today. They need your product or service. They have the capacity to pay for it. They have the ability to make a decision now. They are the prime, qualified targets for what you do.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘To some people, making money may be a real thrill. You may only want to make enough money to have the time to enjoy it. You may not care about material things. Other people may want all the material things. I am not passing judgment. What I’m saying is you can’t have what you want until you first know what it is. And you can’t know what it is until you really first realize what success means to you.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘No one is a hundred times smarter than everyone else. So why do certain super achievers achieve more? They have a better philosophical strategy.’’ — Jay Abraham
‘‘A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from.’’ — Jay Abraham
Section 3 : Continue To Grow And Improve
19. Set New Goals
Where do you want to take your business in the future? Your chances of getting there increase if you:
- Set specific goals about where you want to go.
- Make the goal attainable.
- Have the confidence to set your goals higher and higher as you learn more and become more competent in everything you do.
Achieving great goals calls for reverse-engineering. If you know where you are now, and where you want to be in the future, you’ll also have a fair idea what it will take to get there. So all you have to do is work backwards and precisely calculate what has to happen to make that journey.
Remember, there are only three ways to grow your business:
1. Get more clients.
2. Get each client to do more business.
3. Get clients to do business more often.
Generally speaking, when people think about growing their business, they tend to focus on getting more clients. Yet expanding the amount of business each client does or increasing the frequency of purchase are often easier to achieve.
Remember, in the world of business, problem solvers are the highest paid people of all. Therefore, a good focus point is to become expert in this area and skill. You’ll find the promotions, recognition and power flow to those who have the skills to solve the real world problems other people face.
Above all, in everything you do, put in place multiple strategies for success. Don’t allow your achievements to rest on just one marketing method, or just one way of attracting new clients. Have in place a number of programs. If your business will grow by attracting new clients, imagine how rapidly it can grow if you also have a parallel program designed to get a 50% higher unit of sale. And if that is supplemented by a program which allows clients to do one or two more transactions each year with your business, your growth will be truly impressive.
Setting business and personal goals that are higher and higher should become the habit of a lifetime.
20. Think big
Surprisingly, most people as soon as they enjoy a little success immediately stop doing whatever it was made them successful in the first place. Why? Because they have already exceeded their initial expectations, and they don’t want to grow too big
Therefore, don’t be afraid of growing and improving. Watch out for great principles and ideas that are working in other areas and figure out how to adapt them to your own requirements. Keep improving and expanding your business.
Don’t arbitrarily limit your own success, or put a false ceiling on how much you earn. There really are no limits except those you impose on yourself.
21. Know your true assets
You’re actually richer than you realize already. Everyone has assets they aren’t even aware of. The sooner you discover those assets, the better.
Sounds a little hard to believe? Answer four questions:
1. Have you ever stopped and identified the expertise you have developed, or taken an inventory of your personal assets?
2. What skills have you demonstrated in the past that added value to a business?
3. What have you accomplished that other people would like to copy in their own businesses?
4. Who would be very keen to acquire the expertise and experience you possess?
Often you’ll find there are literally dozens of companies that would love to have access to your hard earned expertise. So why don’t you go into business for yourself consulting with those people?
There are a limitless number of ways you can sell your expertise, with the most obvious being to:
- Sell your ideas, know-how and services on a contract basis — perhaps for a fixed fee plus a performance based bonus calculated on increased profits or revenue growth.
- Rent your expertise — perhaps by offering seminars and follow-on consultation services where you explain the ins and outs of whatever you’re an expert at.
- License your ideas — with compensation based on a percentage of the benefits derived.
There really are no limits on what you can do except those you impose on yourself. However, you owe it to yourself to get the most out of each and every day. Therefore, take stock, set your priorities and then think creatively about how you can achieve your goals as effectively as possible.
That way, every day becomes full of personal achievement and enjoyment. You won’t be locked into a job or career that you hate but you’ll be free to do whatever brings you the greatest personal satisfaction. That’s the greatest payoff of all.]]>
