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A fair exchange is not a robbery. But that depends on a person’s perspective on what’s fair. Take for example a close female friend of mine. She’s a sweetheart really, but she can get bossy when it comes to business. I’m all for that – things need to be right. She came to me with an idea for a business brochure. I thought that was a great idea, especially considering her market and the services she offers. Where my friend lives, people are generally not very familiar with what she does. Because of that, it requires a lot of explaining. If she had a brochure she could save some time by just handing it off with a basic explanation depending on who she’s speaking with. She found a designer who was willing to barter. He would design the brochure and she would provide her service to him for free. That’s a fair exchange. But that’s when the complications started. Poor guy, he wasn’t ready! Designing in itself is not easy. It takes time and you also want to use the elements the client wants. My friend however kept coming up with more and more revisions. Color changes, font changes, the use of certain images, layout changes, etc. All of this is fine and perfectly acceptable – but this delayed the finished brochure by almost 2 months. The final product is excellent; a job well done. The revisions seems to have paid off but was it worth delaying a much needed marketing piece? In my opinion, yes it was. I don’t think it should have taken 2 months, but things have to be right. Let me give you a little piece of business Game. When you have a business card, brochure or a post card as marketing materials, these become your sales people. They have the potential to sell your product or service 24/7 when you’re not around. These need to represent what you do, or have, very clearly. Poor images, color choices or a shoddy design directly reflect on you and/or your business. If they’re really bad, they will “un-sell” you and/or your business. When I teach the mentality of business I always stress that everything you do needs to come from a very clear CENTER. Everything needs to be cohesive and make sense when it relates to your brand. If you’re not being clear, you’re being confusing. And let me give you some more business Game: “A confused customer does not buy.” This simple principle extends to every business. When you go to a fast food restaurant, they have number combos. When you go to the movies you’re usually a line to buy a ticket. Available movies and show times are made clear. The process has been stream-lined for you so that nothing is confusing. Too much confusion and some people would just walk away. It may sound simple, but this is the psychology behind many choices businesses make. And only the “big boys” can bend these “rules”. If you’re just started out in your business, remember part of your responsibility is to make things CLEAR. Simplify them as much as possible. It may make sense to you, but it’s not you that matters – it’s your potential customers and clients that matter. Let’s trackback to the first sentence of this post, “A fair exchange is not a robbery,” and this works on many levels. When you’re doing business there’s an exchange: Your goods and/or services for money (usually). Most people want good quality at a fair price. If the price is high and people don’t feel as though they got what they paid for, they feel “robbed”. This works on the other side of the coin as well. If someone buys a cheap product and it doesn’t last long, they still feel “robbed”. Even though they know the old saying, “You get what you pay for.” A challenge that every entrepreneur faces is balancing PERCEIVED VALUE of their product or service with what someone is actually willing to pay. Too high, less potential sales – but you have to sell less to make a profit. Too low and potential customers may view your offering as cheap or low-quality – which means you have to sell more to make a profit. But you may be fighting an uphill battle because of its lesser PERCEIVED VALUE. So, what do you do? You research. You have to research your market, your potential customers, what your competition is already doing, what technology is coming in that may change quality for better or worse; and even perceived value for better or worse. Sometimes it’s best just to get something out there just to test the reaction. There’s a lot of analytics and some entrepreneurs find this boring and tedious. Personally, I’m one of them. But this is necessary work. If you treat your business like a hobby, you earn hobby money. Period, simple. To my entrepreneurs: Is that thing on? Is your mind, one of your most important tools, on? Or is it off? Do you keep yourself in the right head-space? Is going through 2 months of revisions for 1 piece of marketing material something you’re willing to do? Do you understand its long-term importance and the wide reaching effects? Word of mouth spreads like wild-fire. Don’t set yourself up to burn down your own forest. Remember everything you do must communicate clearly and simply. Think of that like a Hustler’s anthem. Until next time… Curious about the Game? Subscribe to the Uncommon Sense Adviser – Higher level Game to help take YOUR Game to the next level. Also receive news, discounts on future books and products along with early access. Join now by clicking [HERE]. I was having a conversation with a close friend and eventually the subject of fear came up. He realized that debilitating emotion was the root cause of many of his decisions. These decisions kept him from moving forward with business ideas; it complicated romantic relationships and caused problems with family. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you’re scared. A person’s ego will look for every excuse and justification in the book to keep a blind eye to what’s really causing an issue. Fear is one of those subtle emotions that if you don’t recognize it, it can literally Dominate. In The Game we say, “The Dominant force always wins,” and what’s meant by that is what is strongest will eventually come out on top. Even if you don’t recognize it’s there, even if you don’t see it or even if you’re trying to ignore it. According to studies, the fear of success is caused by the fear of failure. It’s the underlying Dominant force. When you fear failing at something, this affects the decisions you make. These decisions are usually decisions that will actually CAUSE failure – it’s a vicious cycle – a self-fulfilling prophecy. You fear failing, it causes sub-optimal decisions and the result of these terrible choices is failure. As human beings, there are also other things we fear such as being emotionally hurt, not being “good enough” (feelings of inadequacy), not being accepted, not feeling cared about, being embarrassed, being judged and many more. This is all based in fear. When I started my first business, I was doing a round of cold-calls and left a message with a business owner. I was 17 at the time and still living at home with my parents. This business owner returned my call the next day when I wasn’t home. My mother picked up the phone and the business owner automatically assumed that she was my wife. My mother was wise enough to realize this was a business call and just played along. When I returned home my mother passed on the message. The business owner wanted to meet with me over lunch and discuss possible future business together. Now, potentially, that was a good thing. But what did I feel about the situation? I felt fear. Here I was, just 17 years old. I knew very little about business and I was scared to meet with this gentleman and possibly embarrass myself. I made the decision NOT to go. In fact, I never returned his phone call. When I look back at that decision now, it feels silly. Whether that meeting went well or not, I chose not to even TRY. Who’s to say, we could have done business together or at the very least, I could have gained a mentor. That alone would have drastically changed my life. I don’t regret the decision I made, but I do recognize that decision was based in fear and therefore was the wrong choice. Live and learn, correct? So, what are your fears keeping you from? A better career, owning a business, standing up for your self-respect, looking into something you’re curious about? Fear is all imagination. It’s a movie or story that you play out in your own mind. It’s not real unless you accept it as something that can BECOME real. Can your fears become real? Of course they can but look on the other side of the coin – what if they don’t? What if what you want is just on the other side of the lie you have in your head? To not even try is to be dormant. You cut yourself off from making your life just a little sweeter. You can try to lie to yourself, you can make up justifications as to why you shouldn’t try something, but at the end of the day you know why you didn’t do it. It’s rooted in fear – plain and simple. Don’t allow fear to get the best of you. To change your life, you have to get outside of your “box”; your comfort zone. It’s really simple: the same actions produce the same results; same causes, same effects. If you’re not happy with your effects then you need to make different decisions. Our enemy fear will always be there. It will torment you; it will tell you whatever you want to hear. It will trick you and pull you back into your comfort zone so you can feel safe and secure. And in that place, you will remain miserable. The choice is yours, it always has been. Either you will or you won’t; you do or you don’t. You can’t play the “victim card” on this one, because nobody is doing anything to you, but you. In the Game we say, “Life is a series of problems that must be solved,” and one of biggest problems to solve is actually YOU. The way you think and how you talk to yourself need to change otherwise you’re going to have to accept your life not changing. Your life can’t change because you’re not doing anything to MAKE it change. It can’t happen any other way. Think about it. Until next time… Curious about the Game? Subscribe to the Uncommon Sense Adviser – Higher level Game to help take YOUR Game to the next level. Also receive news, discounts on future books and products along with early access. Join now by clicking [HERE].
Use the audio player below or click the icon to download the mp3 to your computer or mobile device. Curious about the Game? Subscribe to the Uncommon Sense Adviser – Higher level Game to help take YOUR Game to the next level. Also receive news, discounts on future books and products along with early access. Join now by clicking [HERE].
There’s a difference between information and knowledge. This was personally something I had confusion about for many years. It caused me to waste a lot of time. In The Game we have a saying: Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding. It breaks down like this: (1) Knowledge: The learning phase; (2) Wisdom: Learning how and when to use the knowledge you’ve acquired; (3) Understanding: The “marriage” of knowledge and wisdom – complete insight. Because you truly understand something means you can be looked at as an expert. This of course doesn’t mean you know every facet about something, but you could be considered an authority in that particular area you thoroughly understand. A big problem is that some people get INFORMATION and KNOWLEDGE confused. If you’re not gaining knowledge, then you’re not really learning something. If you’re not learning something, then you may never acquire wisdom about it and reach a full understanding. So to simplify it – which I always like to do – let’s look at the dictionary to define these 2 words. Information (noun) (1) knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; news. (2) knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data. (3) the act or fact of informing. Knowledge (noun) (1) acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition. (2) familiarity or conversance, as with a particular subject or branch of learning. (3) acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report. (4) the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension. That’s a mouth-full I know. But as we go through these definitions we see some differences. Information is primarily data and facts. Knowledge can also be facts but, it also involves study, investigation, learning, experience, familiarity, and awareness. Getting information can lead to knowledge, but alone it’s just being informed about something. Stay with me. EXAMPLE: Information would be getting the temperature for the day; the fact that there was an accident on the interstate near you; someone telling you that there’s a sale at your favorite store. Information is good, but there is little learning or study involved as there is with acquiring knowledge. So, it’s good to discover that your car not starting could possibly be the cause of your battery or alternator (or a few more things), but if you don’t KNOW what those are and how to check them, then you’re stuck. You would have to seek out someone who KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS more than you. You have information but no practical application of that information. You have facts but are unable to apply them to investigate or solve the problem. If you took the time to learn how the battery and alternator work together in your vehicle, then you would have acquired knowledge; something tangible that you could use. I’m not sure about you, but when I was in high school learning algebra, a common complaint among us students was, “When are we ever going to use this in real life?” Granted, this was because we were lazy. However, there’s some validity behind that statement. Although you acquired information (facts) AND knowledge (learning the application of the information), once you know longer use it, you lose it. Unless your career or business path involves mathematics, would you use algebra? Do you even remember the more complicated formulas? Has your child ever come home and asked you for help with their algebra homework and you sat there looking crazy as you tried to recall the information? You may have learned and gained KNOWLEDGE about algebra at 1 point in your life, but since you stopped using it then you didn’t proceed to gain WISDOM in it. You don’t know how and when to apply algebra equations, so you really don’t UNDERSTAND algebra. What does all this mean? Glad you asked. I used to read – a lot. And although I had a lot of information, very little of that was knowledge. I could quote things, recite facts and regurgitate other’s ideas, but if you asked me how to USE that information for my benefit, most of the time I couldn’t. I would read an entire book on real estate investing. I gathered a lot of information and a little knowledge, but since I never applied that knowledge, then I didn’t really learn anything. It was just facts and statistics floating around in my head. I sounded smart, but I had no WISDOM – I didn’t know HOW or WHEN to apply that knowledge. Therefore I could never claim to completely UNDERSTAND it. I’ve said this before: knowledge is not enough! The best way to really learn something is to USE it. Then as you make your errors and mistakes you grow wise. You know how to use it and when. After that point, you start to really understand it. Game is a great thing. It’s all information and knowledge but if you never use it, then you’ll never actually learn it. You end up cutting yourself off from wisdom and understanding. If don’t understand what you’re doing then you could be doing more harm to yourself than good. Peep Game. Stay in motion... |
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