Some days I feel an urge to dig holes for a living
 

and I never knew why until I sat and thought about it the other day. What I concluded might shed some light on WHY we constantly search for new projects and hop from idea to idea.

Sometimes while driving, either after seeing a client or coming back from the shopping center, or whatever, I'll experience an undirected, unfocused BURST of action-enthusiasm for several minutes. Enthusiasm that would have me shoot off and dig a hole for money if someone should happen to call me and ask me to come dig a hole.

It's an odd feeling/urge of wanting to do something, ANYTHING. And there's no pattern to when the feeling hits. It just strikes totally out of the blue. Sometimes it will hit me real late at night. Or while I'm in the shower. Or while I'm working on a project.

I have never really given the feeling/urge any thought. But when it happened to me again on Friday morning I decided to try and figure out WHY such an odd 'wave' should roll over me.

I believe I've figured out WHY it happens. And the answer also reveals WHY we often jump around from project to project, from idea to idea.

An entrepreneur is a problem solver. It's the nature of the beast.

And prehaps the biggest problem that an entrepreneur needs to overcome is money... or to be a little more specific... the lack of it. And how to get their business going - or expanded - with minimal funds.

It's often hard solving that particular problem without experience. And so I created The Art of Leverage to help. To help remove 'limiting thoughts' and to enable you to see the way forward. And I am grateful to all of you who have given me such positive, unsolicited praise of my humble Work. I Thank You!

One thing has nagged me about business, though. And many of you know I've talked about something I call "The Entrepreneur-O-Matic." An idea of mine that would enable ANYONE - regardless of experience, education or financial backing - to start a successful business.

I believe The Art of Leverage is a step in that direction. And by studying (going over it many many times and doing worksheets) you will begin to see opportunities all around you.

Something is, or has been, missing though. And often that something is called ACTION. Taking ACTION on the ideas and FOLLOWING THROUGH until completion.

WHY?

Why do we take a project to a certain stage and then drop it and move on to something else?

Jim Straw says we seek knowledge but all we get when we invest in a product is information. And it doesn't turn in to knowledge until we ACT on the information and APPLY IT.

I agree with him. We do seek one thing and get another. But WHY don't we ACT?

Fear of success/failure/rejection?

Maybe.

But what if it is something more? Something barely perceptible but there if you look hard enough. Something that is NOT FEAR of success or failure or rejection. Something that has been ingrained into us since birth.

Throughout our lives we try lots of things - sports, hobbies, skills, etc. And we don't let 'fear of failure' stop us - even if we know we won't be any good at it.

So why should it suddenly stop us when it comes to business?

I don't think it does. I think it's that hidden element.

The answer is contained in what I wrote at the beginning of this post "I'll experience an undirected, unfocused BURST of action-enthusiasm... that would have me shoot off and dig a hole for money if...

someone should happen to call me and ask me to come dig a hole."

Think about it...

No customer generation. No quotes being given. No sales talk. Just servicing a customer who calls you all on their own.

Ask any tradesman who does repeated sub-contract work for the same contractor. Ask them if they prefer doing the sub-contract work (which usually means the contractor calls them and gives them the new 'job') or getting and dealing with potential customers all the time to find the few real customers.

Ask any lawnmowning guy if he prefers servicing regulars who are on a schedule - he just turns up and does the work - or if he prefers going to see potential customers to give quotes.

From birth we pretty well have everything handed to us on a silver platter. Sure we may have to bug mom and dad to get some things. But we learn that this works and how to 'play it up.'

At school we are spoon-fed everything. Even assignments are given specific topics from specific sources.

We then get a job and are told what to do and left alone to do it.

Then, as Michael Gerber says, we have en entrepreneurial seizure.

But after years of 'doing what we are told' we find the new road ahead hard. We must now generate the customers who will tell us what to do (what they want to buy, etc). But we don't like that bit. We just want customers to come to us out of the blue. And because that's often not possible we then look for shortcuts. An easier way to generate customers without actually having to deal with them.

We often hear 'do what you love and the money will follow' and 'figure out a way to make money from your hobby.' And people try this and it doesn't work.

WHY?

Because when it's a hobby it's their choice. They control it. But as soon as customers come into the picture, then it stops being about what you want and more about what they - the customers - want.

The photographer who loves landscapes suddenly finds themself taking photos on commission. Photographing things they have no interest in because it's what the customer wants. Their creativity - the very thing they enjoyed about their hobby - is gone. And it becomes annoying - like a passenger telling you how to drive.

The person suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure wants customers handed to them on a silver platter. The hobbiest wants customers to buy what they have already created and to also have those customers handed to them on a silver platter.

Door-to-door sales got you down? What if the leads to pre-qualified people are provided to you? Not so bad then, is it? You might even do it, wouldn't you? (you would probably prefer them to have already made up their mind to buy from You and your visit is just to fill out the order form)

The difference? The pre-qualified lead is already half sold AND handed to you on a silver platter.

Cold calling on the phone. Same thing. But returning a call to someone who has left a message enquiring about your widget is different. And even better if the person who left the message just wants what you're offering without the baggage of quotes, questions, etc.

The next time you take a project to a certain level and just drop it, STOP and ask yourself WHY.

Do you really fear failure or success or rejection? Or is it really that generating customers and dealing with a lot of potential customers to find the few real customers seems like a hassle?

Michael Ross.

P.S. If there was some thing or some way that customers could be handed to you on a silver platter, so you wouldn't have to deal with potential customers and only serve those who have already made the decision to buy from you, would you go for it?

Re: Some days I feel an urge to dig holes for a living
 

Great post, Michael!

I've organized several seminars, workshops and tradeshows, and found it easy to get speakers and facilitators to "show up and get paid" and do a great job, but darn few willing to work to get "butts in the seats", even for a larger cut of the revenue.

If the audience is pre-arranged, they're ready - if they have to work to attract the audience, it's too hard.

It's happening right now - my partner in developing a workshop for May decided to take the weekend off and go to a spa because of the "hassles" of having to work so hard to get participants - even though we got 150 replies from a hot list of 200 previous clients wanting more info and details!

As usual, your post is spot on, and I'll use it to help get my partner back on track!

Bob

Some days I feel like moving to Costa Rica!
 

You're amazing Michael. You brought up one question which I never considered....why do we
treat business so much more seriously than anythihg else we do in life?

Well, let me put on my thinking cap. It's either
genetic and/or environmental. I know I still remember grownups telling me you weren't supposed
to enjoy work...you just had to do it, that's why
its called work. (Oh geez, make note to self -
make shrink appointment)...but it might be deeper
than that.

As I understand it..long ago and far away, soldiers would put conquered people to work and
pay them at salt. Between the carrot (the salt) and the stick (or I'll kill you), it worked fairly
well. (Reminds of what a friend said once - sex must be fun, otherwise we'd hire people to do it
for us...Mike, how does THAT fit into you leverage theory! he-he) Anyhow, that and all these gurus
running around going "don't work hard...work smart" (why not work hard, too?) "a job is just
above broke)...etc, etc. they're eroding the work
ethic. BTW, one of the puritan concepts (the people that brought us the puritan work ethic)
was that leisure time is for doing something else
that's productive. I have a recording of a paul
harvey talk from a few years ago about work, the
uncommon american, God, etc. that I play at least
once a week...and it inspires me because it reminds me that with the declining work ethic its
a lot easier to look oustanding just by comparison.

Hey, finally thought of the answer. Now students,
if you'll turn to your mental/emotional pictogram
in your square one packet. Note that it says,
somewhere on there, that experiance leads to
confidence. Now, the kid grows up not being taught
business in school, home, etc. (You want to see this concept in action, go recruit a newbie to do
mlm...his mission...to sell one bar of soap...he
has no idea how to do this!)...so, with no knowledge, etc. and not knowing who to ask, he's
totally lost...of course, its more serious because
unlike playing ball (where he has lots of people
to help him, and the only thing around him in the
financial situation is people that can teach him
to do poor people stuff and broke people stuff).
unlike playing ball...he needs to succeed to
eat!

And that, in a nutshell, is why I usually write
very short posts!!

It's a lot easier to dig holes, but you'll never get rich.
 

90% or more of running a business is getting the customer and working the back end (if you’re a smart business operator)

I had a business for 12 years, went from 0- $500,000 in TO then back to almost zero again. It was service orientated (which I would never do again) but it was just as stressful making $500,000 a year as it was making almost nothing because of all the tasks you have to do as well as the work itself.

Most people who fail in business do so because, while they may not have what others want, it’s also because they wrongly think that having a sign and a shop is all you need.

You have to actively attract customers, keep them and work them. If you have something people want, sure it’s a little easier, but still it’s not plain sailing.

Systems that make the getting of the customer and the keeping of the customer easier, seem to sell really well, because it can make that most important aspect of business, simpler.

Don’t Microsoft spend 10X the development cost of their software on marketing? They spend 10 million on development and 100 million on marketing.

My customers were 95% business owners and less than 5% actively contacted their past customers to increase their profits, but that in itself can be the most profitable part of your business.

Your past customers know you, trust you, have bought from you. You’ve broken down so many barriers with them, but once they walk out the door after the sale, you go off and throw more money at trying to get new customers.

Hardly any company I dealt with in 12 years ever sent me special offers or anything like that, they just expected me to come back. And customer loyalty is at a historic low, more and more people ar searching for better service, better deals etc.

On supplying pre-qualified customers………wouldn’t that be great! Imagine if there was a business that did that all for you? You just got the fax or email with all their details.

A business locally tried to do this….they advertised that if you wanted a contractor, you rang and then 3 or more contractors would call……the contractors paid to be on the books. Problem was you had to wait for the contractors to call (contractors are notoriously unreliable)I tried this and had to wait three days to get 2 calls from contractors to quote…..the company went broke.

Once you’ve got customers and sales, then you can worry about the work, supply etc. But having the products or the skills with no customers, you won’t be in business for long.

I know 3 companies getting rich...
 

...providing "potential customers" to Car Dealers!

As an "entroopeneer" I've started MANY projects and businesses over the years and truly enjoy "seeing problems and finding solutions".

Mostly finding ways to get more business for businesses. Advertising programs.

One of my advertising clients was a Car Dealer. We were sitting in his office one day and I asked him, "What would you like to have?"

He told me he'd like to have a "Lead System where he would get QUALIFIED LEADS for his salespeople".

So...because I look for what people WANT...I stored this in the back of my memory bank and went about my life...did a little checking into so-called "lead" programs and found the area lacking.

THEN...I read an article in the newspaper that said, "On any given day, 62% of people wanting to buy a car...have "borderline Credit"!"

This got me thinking. Whenever I do this...I put myself in the shoes of the person I'm looking at.

Putting myself in the shoes of a person WANTING to buy a car TODAY...and if I've been late on a few credit card or rent or mortgage payments and I KNOW that I may not make enough money to qualify for financing....I "have an indea" that if I go to a car dealer and the finance guy asks me some "finance questions"....IT WILL BE EMBARRASSING TO ME TO BE TOLD I DON'T QUALIFY FOR THE LOAN!

So...knowing that these people who are ready to buy a car BUT...they know they may NOT qualify for financing....and they do NOT want to be "embarrassed" by being turned down...why not offer a "Pre-Qualification" service via a "Robot" phone?

A service that will take the finance info....plug it into a "non-human" system...and if they check out "OK"....THEN and only then...the Car company can contact them and let them know they've been PRE-APPROVED!

This could be done with a "Voice Mail" system that would answer the calls automatically and ask a series of questions...prompting them thru the questionaire...and at the end...the questionaire would be faxed to the dealership.

The dealership would then contact these "HOT LEADS" and tell them they have been "Pre-Approved, come on in and take a look at our inventory!"

Would the dealership be willing to PAY for this type of service? You betcha Red Ryder!

I didn't have time to look into putting this together at the time but last week I saw an ad for "Hot Leads". It said, "Are Credit problems keeping you down? Call this number for INSTANT, 24 hr Credit Approval!....etc"

I called the number and was led down the path to answering questions. Then, about 30 min later I got a call from a car salesman.

Wow! Pre-Qualified LEADS!

Doing a search on my trusty PC, I found THREE companies offering a "Pre-Qualified Lead" program to car dealers. They were all in the area of $3.50 per lead. One had a minimum of $295 per mo for 80 leads. Another had a mim of $100/mo and $3.50 per lead thereafter. The 3rd charged $7 per lead which included a credit report.

EACH of these companies has 100 to 500 car dealers.

Some of these dealers include the "Credit" number in their TV ads and get a few hundred calls a week! One dealer paid one of these "automatic phone" services $7,300 last month.

Taking the minimum; if they have 100 dealers paying just $295/mo = $29,500 MONTHLY for an "automatic phone system" that does all the "work" for you.

One company has over 300 dealers paying them an "average" of $500/mo....$150,000 MONTHLY!

Hey! Worth looking into!

There are 28,000 New car Dealers and $74,000 Used dealers in the country.

These 3 companies already doing this cannot possibly cover the thousands of dealers.

I am definitely going to do further checking.

If you'd like to look into this further...call this number...
.................800-610-0079

Have fun!

Don Alm

Offering "Pre-Qualified LEADS" to businesses is worth




Some of my Unique, money-making programs.

Don's right
 

Don is right about the auto dealers. Michael Gundran owns Advanced Credit Marketing which provide nationwide vanity toll free numbers to autodealers. Some of the numbers are 888-24approve, 888-24autoloan, 888-4easycredit.
He ports the numbers to a national phone room that provide operators 24hrs.

The dealers add the vanity # to their print and TV ads.

When people call in the operators ask questions and fill out a credit information sheet. They can tell which dealer the lead goes to by the zip code of the caller.

The credit info sheets are faxed to the auto dealers each morning so they have a stack of leads to followup on when the sales staff comes in.

The dealer pays a certain amount per lead.

Michael also has websites that correspond to the phone numbers such as 24aprove.com and 24autoloan.com.

They work the same way but the phone room is unnecessary so he makes a larger profit because he does not pay the phone room.

Thomas

Re: Work Ethic
 

Joe:

> with the declining work
> ethic its
> a lot easier to look oustanding just by
> comparison.

SPOT ON!

I always get people calling me looking for a job.

And what I find when I speak with these people on the phone is

1. Many are just calling so they can have the details they need to fill in their unemployment 'proof of looking for a job' sheet. Without which they wouldn't get their 'sit down money.'

2. Of the remainder, many want a job but don't want to work.

When asking which hours would be preferred, one recent guy said he wanted late-afternoon to evening work and not early morning - like starting at 6 a.m. - because he would have to buy an alarm clock and he didn't want to spend $10 or $20 doing that.

3. Some just want something they can do while they look for something else. (so much for reliability, and thanks for telling me)

4. The small small small number left are those who are serious and really want to WORK.

I add their names to my books. But by the time I need them they've found something.

If you want to work, then you will always find something and usually in less than one week.

As soon as you start putting silly conditions on what you're willing to do - like not willing to start early because you would have to buy an alarm clock - then you won't find anything.

The funny thing is, what most people reject by way of work and job, and which is done by ethnic people who may or may not be able to speak fluent english, usually earns them more money than the so-called prestige job.

I've known process workers that earn around $50,000 a year - with overtime - while the manager of their department gets a salary of $30,000 and has to keep doing courses as well as work the longer hours.

Michael Ross.


Do you have what it takes to make Leverage work for you?

I'd be on your doorstep . . .
 

If I lived in Australia.

What I've found, when looking for work - any work - is that employers look at the resume and education and decide that "You'd (meaning me) be bored," or that "You've got great skills, but we're looking for . . .."

And that's IF, AND ONLY IF, they decide to interview you.

Oh, well.

Mary

What's that? Your resume? I don't want to see it...
 

To me, education means nothing. So you passed some test at some time. Big whoop. Doesn't mean you can get along with others in the office/field or that you can even do the job. Doesn't mean you are willing to work, are reliable, or are proud of your efforts.

You've done a course? Bully for you. Doesn't mean you can do the job as we do it. (You might know Excel but you don't know how we use Excel and so you would have to learn. And if you have to relearn anyway, why do the course?)

Are you willing to work? Are you reliable? Do I get a good 'vibe' about you?

These are more important to me than your resume and education.

Past experience might be nice. But if we can't get along then it doesn't matter. And besides, your past experience might include 'habits' and 'ways of doing things' that aren't well suited to the situation you would be in with me. And if you aren't willing to change to 'how we do it' then there's no hope of working together.

People can go in cold and learn virtually any job, on the job. Of course, there are exceptions such as computer programing, and medicine and law which require qualifications by law. But in the most part, people do have the ability to learn on the job and perform well - IF they are willing to work.

And, in my opinion, whether you are a 'junior' or not, if you do the same work you are entitled to the same pay. And any business that pays a junior less, just because they can because of government advised pay rates, is guilty of slave labor.

My experience says, it's hard to find good people who are willing to work.

I've had people turn up to an 'interview' wearing thongs (flip flops), heavy metal t-shirts and with chuncks of metal hanging out of their face (eyebrow or lip pierced). Unbelievable!

Michael Ross.