6 Profit Producing Decisions – Part 3 – Lessons from the Running Trail That Every Entrepreneur MUST Know!
Hello and welcome. Jon Berghoff here. Before I start I need to acknowledge that as an entrepreneur or a small business owner you don’t necessarily get paid for your time. I you that you get paid for profits that you produce within time. I’m saying that because I want you to understand that I’m doing my best to make sure that this secret will be worth every second of your time. Also, I want to recognize that as an entrepreneur myself, you probably share in this opinion, that being a business owner feels like being the loneliest person in the world, but being the one in charge, I think we both understand that the value of the decision is sometimes immeasurable. Sometimes the outcome of one decision can be the difference between success and failure.
One of my personal goals is to learn something from everything. I share this because the secret that I’m telling you right now is an example. In my day job I’m a peak performance coach and I teach the science of influence. There are different kinds of influence – there’s influence over others, which is what most people think of; but there’s also the influence over the self. If you’ve ever faced the struggles of running your own business, you know what I’m talking about. Much of what I’ve learned in business as a coach and as entrepreneur and as a salesman has also been helpful to me in running extreme marathons. Last year for example, I ran 100 miles on an ultra marathon through the Shenandoah Mountains and it just so happens that that day was the hottest day of the whole year. It was 100 degrees up and down these steep mountains and a lot of what got me all the way to the finish line were the lessons I learned in sales and business.
Right now I’m going to give you the third of 6 profit producing decisions that are crucial for every small business owner to understand.
Decision 3:
The third profit producing decision is to begin with end goal in firmly mind. I do this anytime I leave my office or home to go train for an extreme marathon. I always envision how do I want to feel, how do I want things to appear when I get to the end of the run. This is a principle that applies equally to business. If you ask me, ‘how does it apply’, I’ll say it applies in so many different ways.
First of all when you look at peak performers, world class performers, both in sports and on wall street, one trait they share is that they focus into the future and they often start by asking, how do I want things to look when I’ve arrived? How do I want it to look completed? And then they work backwards. This isn’t only a long term strategy. It’s also a short term tool. When I do sales consulting, I’ll do a sales presentation audit. I’ll sit down with a client and say we’re going to design a business changing world class sales presentation guaranteed. And of the 4 steps we go through, the first one is just to begin with the end in mind. What’s the outcome we want? It may sound too basic but sometimes it’s the most valuable reminder to get clarity as to where it is we’re trying to get to. Anytime we’re going to have a meeting, many of my clients tease me because they hear me say that most meetings are a waste of minutes (or hours). Of course I say that. I run meetings and ask for meetings all the time. But I say that only to help keep in mind that they are a waste of time when people go into them without knowing what the product is supposed to be. So begin with the end in mind.
To get all 6 profit producing decisions, visit my website: www.400milerun.com
