- World's number one small business guru and the author of the book "E-Myth", Michael Gerber talks about that, most entrepreneurs, they are
not actually entrepreneurs. They are technicians with
an entrepreneurial seizure. Meaning suddenly they are working a job, they're doing something, and then the entrepreneurial
bug just bite them, and they're like, you know
what, I can do better than this, that I should go out there
and start my own business. And what happens is then you have a plumber starting a plumbing business, or a chef starting a restaurant business. So they understand the
technical aspect of a business, how to do the technical work, but they actually don't
have the necessary skills of a business owner of an entrepreneur on how to actually run a business. So then what ends up happening is they get busy and busy, busy, busy, and doing it, doing
it, doing it, doing it. And they never understand
how to build a business. What Michael talks about that most entrepreneurs, they spend
way too much time working in their business, but
not on their business. In fact, that recently I've had the honor of having Mr. Michael Gerber and his CEO, his wife coming to my training, mentor, learning from mentor and Michael has not attended anyone's
training for 30 plus years. And Michael's work has
had such a profound impact in business career that I am happy that I'm able to share
a couple of key insights with him that has helped him as well. So here's has what he has to say. - It has been totally
amazing, my husband never sits and listen to speakers
because he's the big mouth, he's the speaker, and I am
so proud of you Michael, to sit here and listen to
Dan, it's totally amazing. - One thing he said at
the very outset of today was about the personal brand,
and it struck me so hard because I've been speaking for 50 years about the impersonal brand. Dan to know and I want you all to know that from this point forward,
it will be me sharing my name, my message, my meaning
to everybody worldwide in ways that are just
absolutely astonishing. - In order to build a business
that runs without you, day one, your intention must
be building a business to sell. Even though you may
never sell the business, but day one, you need to plan, you need to structure your
business in such a way that, hey, if I'm going to sell it someday, what would that look like? Right, what do I need to do differently? Well, one thing for sure that you know, you can not just be the one that's doing and doing and doing. That's just driving the business. Yes, in the beginning you have to be the driver for the business, same as me, but later on, what does
that actually look like? What does the end product look like? Meaning what does your business
look like when it's done? That's correct, you
have to have a picture, what does your business look
like when it's completed? When it's finished,
when someone can step in and actually take over, even though you may
never sell the business, but what that means is if
you could build your business in that way, that automatically makes your business more valuable. So when you do want to retire, when you do want to
have a successful exit, cash in, you could do that, even though you never
do that just by thinking and structuring and building
your business in a way that is sellable, it makes
the business more scalable, it makes the business more efficient, that gives you more freedom, freedom to do whatever you want. Maybe you want to use the free time to start another business, maybe you are a serial
entrepreneur just like myself, or maybe you want to focus your time on building your
investment and taking some of the profits and grow your portfolio, or maybe just want to
spend more quality time with your family, but
now you have a choice you're working in the business
not because you have to, but because you want to
because you enjoy it. But you know that you can also step away if you want to as well,
that's what we need to do. You see the nature of business, technology and people and the world that we live in, it means that there's always a degree of unpredictability that
is very, very normal, but most challenges,
most problems in business usually they are not a one-off event. So if you find yourself
solving the same problem in a business again and
again and again, and again, usually it is a sign of
lack of business system in your company. As a CEO of your company,
you don't want to confuse what you don't want to do
with what you need to do. Yes, I am a visionary
like yourself as well, I like a big picture, I get it. But someone, it could be you or someone within your organization better
know how to create systems. One of the most powerful mindset shifts that you need to have,
is instead of asking what I need to do, ask yourself, how do I solve this problem
not once, but forever? You must realize that business
is an intellectual sport. That in order to create
a different result, we have to think differently. That means that we have to ask ourselves a different set of questions. So let's talk about
exactly what is a system. Regardless of what business you're in, there are best practices, they're best ways of doing something that have the highest
chance of bringing about a particular result that
you want consistently. So if you look at the best practices and you're identify those steps and you break it down
into things and in ways that could be written down,
that could be illustrated, that could be document, that could produce those results again and again, that is a system, it's that simple. Think of it like baking a cake, right. If you want to bake a
cake, you want to have the same flavor and same
taste all the time, right. There is a recipe that you know exactly what ingredients and how much ingredients and how long you want the
cake to be in the oven, right? There are steps into doing this and you could illustrate the
whole process in a recipe, in a checklist, or maybe
even a grocery list of where to get those ingredients in order to create that cake consistently, you to have that consistent
performance and outcome. Well, that is a system, it's that simple. Don't over complicate it. And in business, there are many, many, many forms of
systems, I don't want to go into too much in depth because that would be a long, long video. I'm just going to give you
at the most basic level, three types of systems. First, hard system, hard system means it's what something looks like
visually, what it looks like. Your logo is a hard system, right, if you walk into a store in McDonald's, you see a certain theme, the decoration that is a hard system, a
uniform that is a hard system. If you are a web designing company, your template, that is your hard system. If you are a digital marketing company and you built funnels for people, that funnel template,
that is your hard system. Something that you could replicate and duplicate for other clients. Then number two, you have
what I call soft systems. Soft systems meaning what
something sounds like, example, it could be how
you greet a customer, how you handle complaints, how you sell, how you upsell, how do you cross-sell, how you communicate with your prospects, your closing script,
that is a soft system. Now, every single time
your sales person gets on the phone and just says
whatever he feels like, aah, I'm just, he's just winging it, well, that is not a system
and depends on his mood, some day he closes well, some
day he doesn't close so well. That is because you're not
giving him a system to follow. Now, I'm not saying that you have to give him a script to
follow word for word, and he's talking like a robot, but there should be
some standard questions, some standard script that you know, kind of an outline that
he's going to follow every single time he gets on
the phone and close somebody, that's a soft system, that's
how you get predictable sales. You don't want, if you have
a team of 10 sales people, you don't want all of
them close differently. Yes, they have their own little style, but they should all follow
the same soft system. And third, you have information systems. When I say information systems, I'm referring to your standardized
processes and reports. So if you have your KPI report, your key performance indicator report, that is a form of soft
system, your training program, that is a form of soft system. For example, within our organization, we have a 30 day onboarding
process for team Dan Lok, any new hire that we hire, they
go through a 30 day process that immerse them into our
culture, our core values, our mission, what we about
what we are not about, how we do things, so that we don't have to manually train someone all the time. They're going to go through this process, there are different assignments, there are books that we recommend to read. And in 30 days they can then hit the ground running very, very quickly, then all we need to do is
just integrate them with whatever that we are working on and they could get started
very, very quickly. Because think about this, people come and go and that's life. But the jobs that people do will remain even though those people
are no longer with you. Isn't it a lot easier to find someone to fill that position, if
you have systems in place, someone could hit the ground running, versus what most business owners do and this is what I used to
do, I made that mistake. That when someone leaves
right, their capabilities, their skill sets all going with them, and now you have a void. Now you need to start from scratch, you hire the person, you spend a lot, a lot of time training that person, right, very, very costly,
versus every single time someone leaves your company,
it creates a huge burden, it creates a massive amount of chaos, that you got to clean up that mess and you got to go in every single time to be the hero to save the day,
you do not want to do that. Thing about this, how most
business owners operate, think a bit like a car
right, without systems, what you do is every single time
you're going to hire someone, you're going to have him or her, or you build this car together, right, and you going to teach
that person how to drive. And finally, after a long period of time, you've got a car and
that car is kind of going and the driver is there, but the problem is when they leave with our systems, they take the car with them,
they take their skills, they take their resources and
capabilities all with them, Now, guess what? You got to build another car again, you got to find the person,
you got to work together, you got to build a car before you have something running versus, think of the car as the system. And if a driver has basic driving skill, you could bring somebody
to drive that car, so you lose a driver,
okay, you lose a driver, kind of sucks, but you still have the car, that's the system, you
could bring another driver who has some basic driving skill. That person just kind of
needs to learn, get familiar, okay, well, this car is
a little bit different from my last car and my last job, but the mechanics are saying right, kind of the basics are same, all I need to do is just kind get familiar with just the feel of the car, that person can get up
to speed so much quicker, versus someone takes the car with them every single time you lose someone that is very, very costly. So the system would run the business and your people would run the system, that's how you build a business that runs without you,
a business that scales and air free level is an other devil. What got you to a $100,000
a year in revenue, won't get you to 1 million. What got you to 1 million,
won't get you to 10. What got you to 10, won't get
you to 30 million and beyond because the very team, the very same team that you have at a $100,000, won't be the same team at a million, and it won't be the
same team at 10 million, and it won't be the
same team at 30 million. What you need to focus
on as an entrepreneur, as a business owner at every
stage of your business, they're completely different,
and that's the challenge most business owners face. They don't know how to shift
from an entrepreneur to a CEO. If you want a proven path of exactly what you need to focus on at every stage of your business growth, and also, how do you shift from
the entrepreneur to the CEO? How do you wear the CEO hat? You could download our Dragon
100 Path with the link below. - Dan's a force of nature. - He's improved arguably
millions of lives, where they can provide
themselves with more money. His materials are great, excellent he's at the top of his game. - For everything he says has a purpose and everything he does is done with heart. - So what I've seen from Sifu Dan Lok I didn't see us from
anyone else, he's done it, he's been there and he's still doing it. - Because of Dan Lok,
my revenue went 30% up. - I actually get like a clearer picture of how I should run my business. I can feel it that he really
want to help his student. - Start taking hold of
more advanced strategies, on building our brand
and creating content, leveling up our team. - In an environment where I
could actually be around people that were going to support
that, encourage that and hold me to a higher standard. - Dan is a great mentor
to get you not only in the right frame of
mind, but then to give you the knowhow, the tools,
the skills to get there. - If you will just follow his advice. Go step by step according
to his blueprint, you will achieve results more
than you can imagine about.
