True Business Ownership

SCROLL DOWN AND CHECK OUT THE VIDEOS BELOW IF YOU’RE IN A HURRY

I made a kind of funny, crazy decision a little while ago.

Limit extremely or stop completely watching TV that

doesn’t in some way inspire or motivate me.

-News… nope

-Most sitcoms… nope

-American Idol… (well the really really bad try outs, those are encouraging, but other than that, nope)

-Sports Movies and Stuff That Stretches my ideas like

Rocky, The Matrix, It’s  a Beautiful Life, Rudy, and on and on.

YES.

So, I’ve been on a bit of a Rocky kick lately, and just got done watching

Rocky IV where he battle’s “THE RUSSIAN”… Drago.

Anyway, I got to the end of the movie and saw that there was about 15-20 minutes left and “THE FIGHT” was just starting.

90% Of the movie is all the build up to the fight.  The fight that the “Boxing Movie” is supposed to be about is only a small part of it.  The rest is mostly Rocky coming to the decision to fight, getting mentally and physically ready to fight and so on.

How This Can Make You More Money

So that brings me to business.  Yes, I could end there and state the 80/20 rule an say that what you think about your bring about and stuff like that.

While that’s true, it’s not what I am going to do today.

I want to give you a real, actionable way to look at it and apply it to your business right now.

It’s in your marketing.

All about guarantees.  I’ve been doing a lot more copy writing lately, so I am listening to a lot of the good old direct mail guys.  I heard Dan Kennedy tell a story and talk forever about guarantees.

I realized that almost NO ONE uses this strategy ever… and there are some powerful ways to apply it.

Here’s a the quick video explaining it.

After all the time we seek for a secret, I have discovered that there is no secret.
This is nothing that profound and unsaid before but hear me out.

When I say there is NO secret, what I mean is that there
isn’t a single secret. There isn’t one principle, idea, concept, strategy,
or technique that is sure to make everything work no matter what.

To really be successful with any principle, always requires other
principles, strategies and techniques to make them work.

This is the power of AND.

It’s actually demonstrated most perfectly by the natural world with
chemistry.

Any element alone by it’s self is just that, a single element.
Only when elements are combined do we get reactions, action, things happening.
It usually requires some kind of state change to make the difference,
but the point is, no one thing alone without the other pieces is complete.

There is not one secret that makes everything work, there is a philosophy and
a series of simple things that when combined you get a result.

So, I’ve been thinking about this lately and he’s a short list of keys to the puzzle:

1- Success Psychology

2- Self awareness: Your understanding of your self, what you’re best at and what you truly want, your purpose, motives, drive, etc

3- Productivity: This is really my favorite.  Our lives are ultimately an equation of inputs and outputs.  I love to draw inspiration from natural laws of how things work.  Newton discover that ”To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”  (part of his 3 laws of motion) Every input your make, every action you take produces some kind of result. Your ability to recognize what you want and then manage your productivity (your inputs) will get you there.

4- Emotional intelligence.

All in all, this is probably an incomplete list.  I’ve kind of just figured out through my own experience that like Jim Rohn said, “there’s always about half a dozen things that all the difference.”

So that’s the big secret, that there is no secret.  It’s a combination.  Your job is to figure out all the numbers on the lock so you can open it up to what you want.

I’ve noticed that there are about 3 Stages of Evolution of the Virtual Entrepreneur

1. Bust your balls, your brain, and maybe your bank account

I don’t know anyone who’s achieved anything you’d want who hasn’t had to go through at least some of this stuff to get there

2. Leverage, momentum, and cash flow…

Aka you actually start making money

3. System Over Ride: Freedom

Outsource stuff just to see if you can or because you feel like it…

You basically don’t have to do anything but you still do you favorite stuff and anything that sounds fun.

Focus time on building, optimizing and delegating systems to people companies or other systems so you don’t have to touch them at all.  Taking you to freedom.

So this basically the pattern I see with most entrepreneurs who make it from start up to freedom.  Have you seen differently?

You can do it.

It will work

It is work

What do you have to be grateful for?

Don’t you realize the possibilities

Be YOU

Be YOUnique.

You are unique, and that is valuable.

Whether it’s the economy or the policies and procedures or the socialistic tendancies and trends of our society, it’s cleansing time. The weak are going to be weeded out, the roads are going to be cleared and only those with high performance engines are going to be allowed. We’re all going a lot faster.

The road is wide open to those who will open their minds.

Whatever you why really is. What ever you are really truly passionate about, that is where you’re attention needs to go.

Here’s Mine, these are the places I have true passion and empathy:

1- People that are entrepreneurs, people who have a dream, who know it is possible and who want to make a big, positive difference in the world
2- People in spiritual pain. People in lack. People who are frustrated
3- Adrenaline junkies and hippies. Snowboarders. Surfers. Skaters. Skydivers, etc. Adventure travelers.
4- Travelers and adventurers. The people who jump on a plane and all of a sudden everything seems allright.
5- Artists. Particularly photographers.

There you go that’s me.
There’s my why and my yeses and nos and frustrations and gratitudes.

Here’s the reality.

It’s going to be easy to succeed at whatever you want, but particularly your business…if you’re legitamate, honest, and sincerely want to provide real value to people.
If you really want to make it work. It can and will.

Great Book Of The Day That I Would Recommend: “The Go-Giver”

Yesterday, I talked about the idea that you will make a lot more progress being and entrepreneur first and “social media celebrity” second.  Which makes sense, you know it does.  How to be an entrepreneur is a much deeper, near infinite topic.

It’s actually simpler than you think…

Problem + Innovation + Marketing = Entrepreneurial Success

Just focus on a market that’s big enough, passionate enough, and that spends enough money to:

A) be worth your time

B) be profitable to you

-Andrew James

Why most people starting in social media, purely for social media’s sake get screwed.  And how to make a lot more money, gain a lot more followers, faster…

Let me preface this by saying that this will be a rant and a random meshing of several of my thoughts together, but that I think this may be some of the most important stuff you can think about for YOU on social media, like ever.  Because if you’re doing it for business AT ALL, you had better get a real strategy and clearer vision behind what you’re doing and why. ALSO, this is really me figuring out some of my own stuff, I am writing this for me more than anything, but I hope it helps you at the same time.

I realized that my goal is never to be a “social media celebrity” and that trying to be a social media celebrity and focus more on being an entrepreneur, who uses social media for authenticity, passion and fun.

A while ago, I wrote an article called, the “Ultimate Branding Strategy,” while I think that branding is not really the right focus, it’s something we all have to think about and it’s important. Here’s a link to it. I may not still completely agree with everything I said back then, but I think it’s one of my best articles ever.

You may also like my article: How To Build A Huge Following in Social Media

There is also an interesting pattern I have noticed about the people who have the most followers on twitter for example.

They are all famous or important for some other reason, and they used social media to amplify that.  I’ll admit, what we talked about 6-12 months ago with social media and who was doing well was really a pure game because normal celebrities like ashton kutcher were’nt on there yet.  You almost can’t count that because there’s all kind of famous for the sake of being famous, and did it in other mediums.  Even the movie stars focused on being entrepreneurs in a way, they set out to make movies that made a lot of people happy, not to get a million followers on twitter.

THE POINT: Build something great for it’s own purpose and yours and bring all the authenticity, transparency and you and your greatness and uniqueness to the world including social media, but not because of it.  Here’s my two strategic axioms.

Entrepreneurship First, Fans and Followers Second.

Market First, Product Second.

Case In Point:

Our e Commerce company (not going to mention it here because that’s not the point and there’s privacy stuff) just jumped into social media and there isn’t one person that’s the face and we use it and are authentic and all of the other stuff, but our face book page grew from 0 to over 10,000 and generating 5 figures in sales per month just from the links on face book in about 30-60 days.  That’s incredible really when  you think about it.  It’s because we focused on serving a specific need of a large similar group of people, not trying to get a large group of similar people to focus on us.

…It’s because we focused on serving a specific need of a large similar group of people, not trying to get a large group of similar people to focus on us.”

On Popularity and Politics: POPULARITY IS NOT A STRATEGY… Authority may be

Personally I think focusing on this stuff is draining, painful, selfish, and ultimately pointless.

Most of all it’s not strategic.  This whole game is all about marketing.  Social Media allows us to do marketing in ways that create transparency and trust like never before.  You have to remember though that there is only so much space in people’s heads, and that the tighter your niche the easier it is for you to be number 1.

You can build, automate, systematize and own and leverage a business built on the purpose of serving a specific need.  You can do it more than once.  And probably will in your life time.  People change jobs and employment all the time.

Remember Why Steve Jobs or Jet Blue Or Anyone Being On Twitter Was Cool In The First Place…

It was because it was actually steve jobs, or because they were actually and already cool or important.  It was like inside access to the life of someone you never thought you’d be able to talk to and now you can ask them a question! Cool!  You can see what they’re thinking about and doing… awesome!

So, if you want a lot of people to follow you and think that you are awesome, go out and actually BE awesome.

(PS you might be awesome at teaching about social media or marketing or whatever, and that’s my point.  People are interested in that, and therefore you because of your awesomeness in that… get it?)

At least that is what I am going to focus on doing more of…

You Have TO Be REALLY, REALLY, REALLY Careful with time management, if you’re an entrepreneur…

Here’s my point, so you don’t have to wade through everything.

An entrepreneur is someone who solves problems at a profit. In essences, like peter Drucker said it’s “innovation and marketing.” SO basically, all an entrepreneur really does is create something that provides value to people that they are willing to exchange money for, and builds a system to serve that value again and again.

” The problem with time management is that you get efficient at doing things you shouldn’t be doing, when you should be focusing on building systems (either people systems or machine/technology systems) to do that work.”

-Andrew James (that’s the quote)

I believe focusing on becoming an effective person, manager of energy, and creative person is really the key.

Everything I have Said Has Basically Come From The Books Or People + My Own Thinking:

• The Power Of Full Engagement
• The E-Myth
• The 4-Hour Work Week
• Eben Pagen
• Rich Schefren

Rich taught me something extremely simple, yet profound.  Here are the two on going jobs of an entrepreneur:

1- Managing Projects (a small number of specific, high leverage projects)

2- Creating and optimizing systems (which is usually the project)

So there you have it.  You don’t need to become efficient at doing most of the work.  Yes there is stuff missing from this list.  My point is, start thinking in terms of VISION (which is the creative awareness find the problem and fix it stage), Projects (the set it up and make it work the first time stage), Systems (the get other people, processes or whatever in place to run it for you stage), and Optimization (continual incremental improvement around your greatest constraints and/or opportunities)

I know this was super short, and not very in depth.

If you want more information like this, or IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME (that would be cool, really I would like a good conversation to ensue) then comment below and I will for sure do a video, podcast, or more posts to talk about it… And respond for sure!

Andrew James

Before you discredit reading this because you think it might be a diatribe about why money is not the most important ting or whatever, let me just say that that is not what this is about. This is about a man with a $9 Billion dollard R&D budget, and a critical mistaking in thinking of most of us entreprenuers.

I’m sick in bed with the flu today, so if any of this sounds a bit off, forgive me.

There is so much good free informaiton out there these day’s its mind boggling. Recently I’ve been enthralled with Stanford’s eCorner, their technology ventures program.  Today I found a key not address by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and old dorm room neighbor to Bill Gates at Harvard.

He asked an important question. In light of contraction of financial markets and current economic circumstance and the tightening of venture capital and almost all kinds of capital he asked:

“If there was 4 times as much venture capital money avaiable do you think there would be 4 times as many innovative companies?”

His answer was no, and that there may be 4 times as many companies, but not 4 times as much innovaiton or significant companies that would go on to mean something… (and therefore make a lot of money)

This validated a huge breakthorugh in thinking that I have had lately.

I’ve been learning about and thinking a lot about the “Theory of Constraints.”

I’m not going to try to explain it here, it is too in depth of a topic. But the basic premis is that every system has a goal and every system has a key constraint, one thing that is the limiter, the bottle neck to progress.  It’s kind of like the 80/20 rule on steroids.

The revelation is that money is almost never the constraint.

There’s the old axiom in the investment world that there is a lot more money chasing good deals than there are good deals chasing money.

What’s important to recognize is that in our world, your funding may not come from a bank or an investor.

The main source of funding is from your customers.  If you  have value, people will pay for it.

My recognition is that money and funding are tools for scaling businesses and ideas that are already valuable, not the keys to creating value.

If you want to make it in this economy, it’s about innovation and value creation, not money.

Comments? I’d love to hear your take on this and see if we can discover more together by interaction and discussion.

This list came from Bill Bartman, he is a self made billionaire, and I have the privilege of getting some great video coaching from him.
I’m always amazed at how simple success formula’s are, if you think about it, and will actually do this, it’s amazing how much is possible and what you can achieve.

1. Think Big: It doesn’t cost any more to think big
2. Believe In Yourself: Some of us still have doubts and incorrect beliefs about ourselves. “You’re already good enough, you already have enough, to start.
3. Share the vision: Big visions, when shared attract help from those who can make it possible
4. Execute: It doesn’t matter how big you think, how much you believe in yourself, or how many people you tell, if you don’t execute and take action, nothing happens.
5. Focus: “I have met a lot of people who are extremely successful, and have 9 zeros behind their names,” but none of them have been trying to do these two things at the same time.
6. Never, Never Give Up: I like the mantra Og Mandino put out in “The Greatest Salesman In The World,” “I persist until I succeed.” By definition, if you do this, you can not fail. That very thought becomes very powerful and starts to give you the belief to actually do it.

I have some links about “philanthroprenuership” on my site here.

This is, the essence of why I am in business.  I have two fundamental values I hold in being an entreprenuer, no matter how great my success or failure may be at the present time.

1- To make my life and idea life and the greatest expression of what it can be.

No amount of work, or cause or anything is worth it if it ultimately does not contibute to the ultimate currency of happiness.  Be it service, a cause, money, work, or play.  My business must start with the end in mind of creating an ideal lifestyle for myself, and drastically imporving the quality of life of those whom it touches.  I have to say though, that with out true service to others, and seeking to improve charitably, my life would be far from ideal.  Thus the second core value…

2- To make the world a better place and to have an impact at levels of mass and individual significance.

There is no sense (or true possibility for that matter) in elevating your self without elevating others.  In fact, I believe (while I may not live any of this perfect, it is the ideal value) that it is only possible to elevate your self by elevating others.  Often the greatest beneficiary in a charitable transaction is the giver, not the receiver.  Regardless, I see entrepreneurship as a means to the end of making an impact for good in peoples lives at levels of significance that effect positive change.  Imagine the possibilities that are created and the ever growing crescendo/butterfly effect of assisting a town that had no access to internet or electricity or education to gain it.  The impact of making possible clean water where there was none, or possibly more important making available sanitation where there was none.

I am writing this as an introduction to an inspiring example of these very concepts.  I love to hear and see the new ideas, perspectives, and predictions that come out of TED Talks.  Today, I came across this video which inspired this post.  It speaks to the fact that Philanthropy is not just for those who have a foundation or a lot of money.  But rather that we are entering an era where we will truly crowd source philanthropic initiatives, and this is perhaps one of the single greatest shifts we have ever see in collective perspective.  For the first time in a long time we are beggining to be able to make massive changes at individual levels of significance, because of individual participation and impact.

Katherine Fulton, shares 5 models of new philanthropy, you’ll be amazed at what she has found.

Please watch this video, and see who you are and what your vision is at the end.  I am posting this because I sincerely care about it, and this is a big part of me, my mission and vision.  I would sincerely like to hear your point of view, please comment below or talk to me about it.

Katherine Fulton’s team at Monitor Group has been tracking these changes, and she has become an eloquent advocate for the “New Philanthropy,” surprising audiences with her insights on an underreported phenomenon of momentous significance.

As president of Monitor Institute, she works with today’s most imaginative, entrepreneurial leaders (not just in philanthropy, but also in business and government) to pioneerbreakthrough next practices in how complex social problems are framed, confronted, funded and ultimately solved

-Ted