An old, bad joke told poorly: A turkey is standing in a field looking at the tops of some nearby trees when a bull walks up and inquires, “Hey turkey, what are you looking at?” The turkey replies, “The tops of those trees there. I’d LOVE to fly all the way up there but my wings just aren’t strong enough to get me there.” The bull thinks for a minute and then says, “Well, you could try eating some of my droppings. After all, I’m a bull and look how strong I am!” The turkey ponders this for a minute and then thinks, well, why not? What have I got to lose? So he eats some of the droppings and then tries to fly. To his surprise, he flies a bit higher than he did before. Encouraged, he eats some more dung and flies a bit higher, eats more and flies higher and keeps this up until he gets to the top of the tree. Elated, he shouts down to the bull, “It worked, it worked!” In doing so, he attracts the attention of a nearby hunter looking for dinner who easily spots him and shoots him dead. Moral of the story? Bullshit might get you to the top but it won’t keep you there.
Okay, told you it was a moaner, but I bet you’ll end up telling it to someone else. Point is, if you look at why so few business actually succeed, let alone deliver any kind of real wealth for the owner, it comes down to one reason and one reason alone: sufficient motivation. I can tell you why the 7 finalists that competed in the Better Your Best competition this year at Boot Camp achieved the successes they’ve had, in some cases a 1,200% to 1,400% increase in PROFITS in a year’s time: because they were aggressively and eagerly DETERMINED to. Unlike the vast majority, they did NOT seek simple, easy and convenient answers to the challenges they were facing in their business and instead intelligently sought practical, strategic solutions that required a lot of attention and simple, old-fashioned hard work. That’s it. It’s the common theme among all finalists that nobody wants to hear.
As a bonus to all my clients, I’ve made available an interview I conducted with John Motazedi of SNC Squared, along with his essay for the Better Your Best competition and marketing campaigns he used to get his business to a point where he’s making more in bottom line profits than 70% of the industry is grossing in sales. You can check this out here if you haven’t downloaded it already. I strongly suggest you avail yourself of this interview because it contains amazing gold bricks of wisdom that should NOT be missed by any sane person. When you listen to John’s interview, don’t do it looking for the “one thing” you can finally do or the magic trick that will bring in dozens of clients tugging on your sleeve begging to write you a check. You’ll be severely disappointed. Instead, listen to his story of how he developed the courage and STAMINA to finally implement the campaigns, tools and materials they (and you) have access to right now as a member of this weird little marketing fraternity for IT business owners. Never forget the hard part is in the doing. And if you want to truly succeed in business or in anything else in life, you must NEVER buy into, seek or try and adopt the simplest, easiest or most convenient solutions to life’s more complex problems.
