One of my Inner Circle clients—Jan—who happens to be working on building her business while traveling in Malaysia sent me this comment.
“I just wanted to share my ah-ha based on our call today…
One of the things I did earlier was complete a survey from one of your links, I cannot remember what you called it but I scored myself then had my husband score me (without seeing my scores) regarding knowledge, skill and attitudes. I remember you wrote attitudes are the most difficult to correct.
My ah-ha is from a statement that you made today that I have to train my mind to think about “making money”… I’ve never done that before! Frankly, I’ve been working my own incongruent belief issues (attitudes) in preparation for step 2: applying the flow charting technique that you mentioned to retrain myself to think about “how-to make money”! Totally amazing how the Universe/Law of Attraction works… thank you for allowing the Universe to work through you to bless others!
This flowcharting my thought process is something I did years ago with choosing how to prioritize or spend my time in alignment with a goal I was working at the time. I suspect this will be the same thing; however, do you have any examples of what one of your flowchart index cards look like that you would be willing to share?”
On another post I will share with you how this flowchart system works, but suffice it for now that I want to share with you an important principle around creating the most expensive programs in your niche.
As a child growing up, my father was always about dollars and cents. Not surprising since my father was an accountant.
He would often talk to me about assets and cash flow.
I remember some of the conversations we would have driving around town. He would say, “Glenn, look at this corporation. Look at their fleet of vehicles. Look at their nice offices.” He would sometimes surprise me with the following, “You know what? As good as it all looks, that company is going ‘down’.” My dad would go on to share with me that many of these companies were heading towards bankruptcy. Why? They were asset rich and cash flow poor.
Let me share with you how I resembled these companies for the first two and half years I was in business struggling to build momentum. I was literally toiling on the Internet doing just about everything wrong. I was amassing a huge amount of debt trying to figure things out. I was asset rich. I had all kinds of programs. I was a recognized trainer. My company had created programs that were recognized by Fortune 100 Company ADOBE Corp. and many other companies around the world. Yet, please take note of this, the asset I built was NOT monetized properly. I was asset rich and cash flow poor! It was horrible!
What you want to make sure that you’re doing, and I catch a lot of people doing this, is that they create their whole fleet of products and services detached from market feedback. I’ve had clients that do this. They are out creating five, ten and more different products and services all at the beginning of their entrepreneurial endeavors. And they are doing this without the proper feedback needed from their target market.
What they have failed to do is to fully engage their marketplace to allow them to begin to sell and market. They have not tested the worthiness of their idea ensuring that it is matched with a hungry market.
Remember, your twin tickets to freedom are sales and marketing. You have to remember that everything you’re creating needs to be tested in the marketplace. What a lot of people like to do, and this is what the old Glenn did unfortunately, is to create programs and services devoid of testing the efficacy of their idea among potential consumers. What they end up doing is working hard to create what they think the market place will want, all within the context of a dream—the dream one day making it big. It feels great. It sounds romantic.
When push came to shove, it does NOT do what is absolutely critical for you business success. That was actually getting into the marketplace immediately to test my ideas. This makes a lot of people nervous, but what it does is it not only helping you with valuable feedback, but it teaches you to begin to learn how to sell and market yourself in the context of product creation.
The biggest ah-ha moment as I self reflect on how I set two Internet records four years ago is that you must constant check the efficacy of an idea in the context of making money. Don’t fall into the trap of spending hours, days and weeks thinking you are in business. Prove it with cash flow. And do it by flipping your business funnel upside down immediately as you sell your writing.
I’ll have a lot more to say about this.
For now, if you are struggling with your business, you don’t need to. Phone our International Headquarters in Canada at 519.542.3043 and let us help you author your future.
To Your Legacy!