Principle 14
Prospecting 50 Percent of Your Working Hours
Only put off for tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
—Pablo Picasso
In this chapter, you will learn why your business cannot and will not grow unless you are looking for ways to drive revenue to your bottom line. Too many people have the mind-set of “Build it and they will come!” You'll learn that as CEO of your own company, you wear many hats, but your most important role is the VP of Sales. With the strategies offered in this chapter, you will see that no matter what challenges you face in business, your most important role is driving revenue to your bottom line.
To succeed in this role, you must understand that if you work an eight-hour day, then you must spend half of each and every day prospecting. If you don't like this activity, then you'll learn how to attract successful salespeople to your team who will prospect, prospect, and prospect. Prospecting is the most pivotal part of your business success. Finally, you will learn where J. Paul Getty's prospecting activities took him and how the results allowed him to become one of the wealthiest people alive in his time.
Without question, the single greatest challenge all entrepreneurs have is managing their time appropriately. You are pulled in all directions, all of the time. As I sit writing this book, another call just came in from some knucklehead asking me for 15 minutes of my time to do some stupid interview or survey over the phone. Are you serious? This is the fifth time in as many days where I have gotten this call. My favorite part of the conversation is that even after I politely advise the caller that I am under a deadline and can't help him out, his next question is always, “Well, then, when would be a better time for us to call you back?” How about never! “Please,” I ask kindly, “remove my name from your list.”
The bottom line is that as an entrepreneur, we do everything and wear every hat, so how we spend our time is absolutely the most important part of our business. My friend and mentor Brian Tracy is a big fan of prospecting first thing in the morning. One time when we both spoke at the same seminar, on the car ride there, he gave me the following advice about prospecting and getting rejected. “If you want to make a million dollars per year, then do everything you can to get 10 smack down, in your face rejections by 9 AM each business day.”
I agree with Brian; if you are continually prospecting, then you will make more money than you will know what to do with. Ten rejections are worth it if you get one “Yes.” Even if you get 50 rejections in a day, one “Yes” may be all you need.
The challenge that remains as an entrepreneur is that you hold just about every position in your company, including:
President
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Accountant
Accounts Payable Manager
Accounts Receivable Manager
Computer Guy
VP of Sales
Oh, and don't forget, you are also the Janitor. With all these roles tugging at you, the challenge becomes: How can you find time to prospect if you are stuck in your office doing administrative busy work all day?
Several years ago, one of my friends, Dennis Sutter, shared the 50 Percent Rule with me that he used to coach his clients. I have applied it to my business because it flat-out works! I also share it with all my clients to help them grow their revenues. Before he retired, Dennis was a real estate coach who helped real estate agents to double their income. He saw the problem that almost all business owners have—the more sales we make, the busier we get servicing our clients' ever-demanding needs, and in doing so, we inhibit our ability to continue prospecting for new clients.
Therefore, Dennis taught me to apply the 50 Percent Rule to my business. What this rule means is that no matter what you do, no matter what your time constraints are, no matter what deadlines you have, you must always spend a minimum of 50 percent of your time prospecting.
For example, if you are in the direct selling business and only have two hours per day to build your business because you have a full-time job, then you need to spend at least one of those two hours prospecting. Conversely, if you are full-time in your business and average working 10 hours per day, then you need to spend 5 hours per day prospecting for more clients.
Bottom line as the CEO of your company, if you are committed to become an Affluent Entrepreneur, you need to focus 50 percent of your working hours wearing your VP of Sales hat and driving new revenues to your business. If you don't like selling or prospecting, then you need to have deep pockets so you can hire a sales force to do it for you and accept that no one is going to be able to market your business as well as you can.
I know; you're thinking there is no way you can spend that much time prospecting. What is the solution if you can't apply the 50 Percent Rule to your business? You either need to accept the fact that you are going to become a struggling entrepreneur, or you need to delegate or outsource all the work you don't want to do.
As we discussed earlier in the book, you need to look for virtual assistants, virtual business partners, and virtual salespeople to work in partnership with you to achieve your revenue goals. I have about 30 joint venture partners I work with all around the country to help me drive revenue to my business. I have a bookkeeper who pays all my bills and an accountant who keeps me on the straight and narrow with the IRS. I have a computer guy, who also doubles as my web master to keep my presence on the Internet. I have a VP of Sales who is always hunting for big elephants. Oh yeah, and I have an amazing editor and proofreader who reviews all my copy before it is released.
As a result of outsourcing all of these important tasks I don't want to deal with in my business, I am freed up to do the three primary things I enjoy more than anything else: speak professionally, book more speaking engagements, and coach my clients on publishing their books and becoming best-selling authors.
Exercise
Think for a minute about your business and list below five roles you currently have in your business but don't enjoy:
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
4. _______________________________________
5. _______________________________________
Now, list five people (whom you probably already know in your life) to whom you could contract or outsource this work:
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
4. _______________________________________
5. _______________________________________
You may be hesitant to hire other people to help you because you're thinking, How in the world am I going to be able to afford to hire these five people? Well, first of all, you are not going to hire them as employees with salaries and benefits; you are going to outsource your undesirable work to them as independent contractors with no salary, only an hourly wage with a preset limit to the amount of hours required to perform the roles you ask them to perform.
For example, if you do the math, you may find out that it will cost you $2,000 per month to outsource this work. However, as a result of reappropriating all of these tasks, you'll have “found time” to prospect, which may bring you in an extra $10,000 per month in revenue, thus resulting in a net gain of $8,000. And that's a realistic and conservative example for a small business owner.
Maybe you are a bigger business so you will actually need to pay out $20,000 per month to free up your time. As a result, if you are hunting for big elephants, I suspect with this horsepower behind you, you could bring in $100,000 per month resulting in an $80,000 net profit. You get the point: Outsource and delegate to your team so it frees you up to prospect, prospect, prospect!
If You Build It, They Will Not Come
What do I mean by this phrase? Well, one my favorite movies from years ago, Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner, was about an Iowa farmer who plowed over his crops to build a baseball field so some fictional baseball players would return from the dead and revive themselves to play baseball there each night. In the film, Kevin Costner's character keeps hearing this voice that tells him, “If you build it, they will come!” Finally, he decides to build the baseball field, and then the baseball players show up. Of course, this idea works in Hollywood movies (and it's a great movie by the way), but it does not work that way in the real world.
I remember 10 years ago, when I first self-published Creating Your Own Destiny, I called up Dan Poynter, who was and still is the self-publishing guru for all ages. I told him I had $500 left in my book budget and that I needed some coaching. He said, “For $500, I will give you two hours of my time.” I quickly agreed, and it was one of the best investments I have ever made because I learned what I believe today to be one of the single greatest marketing secrets by which every Affluent Entrepreneur lives.
Dan Poynter taught me that a successful book is just like raising a successful child. He advised that a mother will gestate a child for nine months before giving birth. Conversely, it can take an author nine months of writing before publishing his book. Next, he said the mother (and hopefully father too) will then spend the next 18 to 22 years of her life raising the child. So just like raising kids, as an author you must spend the next 18 to 22 years raising your book if you are to be successful.
With this wisdom in mind, I have applied this metaphor to my business as an entrepreneur, and I share it with all my clients as well. The point is this: Just because you launch your business (open store front, start your online presence, manufacture your product, create your service, etc.), it doesn't mean you will be successful. Getting into business and launching a product or service is only 5 percent of the work. Just because you build the business, it doesn't mean the customers will come. Billions and billions of dollars could have been saved from waste if all business owners applied this knowledge to their lives.
Just as with creating a bestseller, 95 percent of the work is in the marketing and promoting of the book. Just like raising a successful, confident, contributing member of society, your child needs 95 percent of your effort to be raised correctly, so when you open your business, you must spend the rest of your life doing the 95 percent part in marketing if you are to be successful.
Affluent Entrepreneur Profile J. Paul Getty
J. Paul Getty was many things in life, including an oil tycoon and a playboy. Throughout his life, he struggled with his marital relationships; he may not have been a moral role model, but when he worked and prospected for new opportunities, his work ethic was tireless and effective. After graduating from Oxford in 1914 with a degree in economics and political science, Getty spent his summers working his father's oil fields in Oklahoma. That was just the beginning.
In his autobiography titled, How to Be Rich, Getty wrote that the keys to success were to: (1) Rise early, (2) Work hard, and (3) Strike oil. Following this model eventually allowed him to gain controlling interest in over 200 companies including Getty Oil.
While others in the oil industry remained content to search for oil in the United States, Getty decided to learn Arabic and prospect on the other side of the world in the Middle East. He discovered a piece of land near the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that he was convinced had oil and lots of it. As a result, he agreed to pay the King of Saudi Arabia $1 million per year and $9.5 million in cash up front for the right to drill this land over the next 60 years. After four years and a $30 million investment, no oil had been discovered.
However, in 1953, Getty hit the jackpot, and his oil wells produced 16 million barrels per year for many, many years to come. This finding made him one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet with an estimated net worth eventually to exceed $1 billion.
I never said that becoming an Affluent Entrepreneur would be easy. In fact, it will not. That is why there are no crowds at the top of the mountain. Most people are not willing to do what it takes to be successful. The Struggling Entrepreneur would not be willing to learn Arabic and travel to the ends of the earth to prospect the way J. Paul Getty did.
Always remember that the success of your business will not come with the building of your business, but rather with the marketing, prospecting, and customer acquisition duties you perform over the course of several years. “Overnight” success may take you 10 to 15 years.
Therefore, no matter how busy you get wearing a multitude of hats and playing numerous roles in your business, make sure that your VP of Sales hat is the one you most often wear. Spend 50 percent of your working hours prospecting. As a result, sales will be made, your revenue will come in, and you will be on your way to becoming an Affluent Entrepreneur!