In this video, I will break down the last two strategies that you can use to grow your business in 2021.
As entrepreneurs, we often suffer from ‘Shiny Object syndrome’.
We tend to do so many things at once that we’re not focused on one thing.
That is why it is always important to focus and specialise.
In this video below I explain what that practically looks like in a business.
Yes, doing less to achieve more is possible!
Finally I discuss the importance of investing in yourself.
I believe it helps on both a practical level (which is more obvious) and on a mindset level (less obvious).
Both of which I explain more in my video below.
Video Transcript
Okay, so, let’s get into the next thing, which I alluded to just now, which is to focus and to specialise, okay?
I think many of us entrepreneurs, we suffer from the ‘Shiny Object’ syndrome, right?
So, “Wow, we can make money here, let’s go and do this”, “Oh, we can make money there, let’s go and do this”, right?
And eventually we realised we’re doing so many things that we’re not focused on one thing anymore, right?
So this year, especially this year, even though my cash flow for most of this year is worse than previous years, but we stuck to our focus, okay? And, you know, in the past two-three months, especially I’ve been saying “no” to a lot of projects, okay? Even though they are very lucrative and stuff, I’ve been saying “no”, because it is so important to focus and specialised because then you can develop systems and then you can really scale, okay?
So, and that’s why we’re focusing on the speaker niche only, okay? And not just speakers, so we’re not going to take on just any speakers but only speakers that already have a good offer, they’re already marketing.
They’re spending a significant amount of money marketing, so that, you know we don’t want to work with people, and I’ve made this mistake even this year, where we’re taken on people who are startups, and you know, basically they’re like on you every second day saying, “Okay, where’s my sales?” “How come I’m not getting any sales?” Blah blah blah, right?
Yeah, it’s not worth the time or effort, I realised, and you know that’s why we’re focused on, you know, speakers of a certain caliber only, and who can actually sell and who can actually have a good offer that people actually want, and they’re actually benefit people, okay?
So, I know that it’s somewhat of a focus, it’s somewhat of a specialty,
So when you want to focus, make sure you focus on a niche that has money, okay?
For example, if I were to start a new agency, I might focus on, say, plumbers right?
Okay, plumbers that fix pipes and all that kind of stuff, right? I could focus on plumbers and get leads for them, right? And I won’t do anything else, just plumbing, right? But I would also focus on the highest value product that a plumber offers, so I won’t go and say “Okay any plumber I would do marketing for you”, no, but maybe I’ll go and focus on plumbers that specialise in repiping the whole house or something like that, which you know, if they get one client it can be worth like $10,000 or something, right?
Rather than plumbers that fix leaking toilets, right? Then they might may get paid like 50 bucks for it, okay.
So yeah, it’s also important to focus on the most lucrative part of your niche as well.
Yeah, hope that makes sense about specialising and focus and similarly in your business, is like, you as the business owner.
Like, for me, for example, I specialise in one skill only and I become really, really good at it, okay?
So my one skill is not presenting, obviously, it’s not selling, okay? Because I really can’t sell for nuts, but my one skill is copywriting, okay? That is my strongest skill, right? And then I outsource everything else to my client, my staff, okay?
So my team like Alex, for example, is great at video editing. I don’t want to touch video editing. I don’t even want to try, because I know it’s a complete waste of my time, okay? I give the design work to Angel in my team. And yeah, I don’t even want to try and design my own stuff because yeah, I know that’s not going to work, right? And I’m training Arthur, some of you have met Arthur, to become my ads manager. So eventually I want him to be better than me at managing ads so that I don’t have to touch that at all, okay.
So, that’s something for your own business growth that you need to consider, really focus on your strengths and just outsource the other stuff or find people to help you with the other stuff, right?
Okay, so similarly, for those of you who have physical products, right, you say, “Oh well you know, I’m making you know pens, for example, how can I specialise?”
You totally can.
You can make high-end pens for executives, for example, create a brand out of it. You can make pens that are cute for children, for example, who have rich parents. You can make a pen for, and branded for like blue collar workers, for example, or branded for a particular niche market, okay? And focus on marketing to that niche market only.
So yeah, those of you who say, you can serve for all that, consider this, consider specialising, it’s time to specialised because sometimes it’s very paradoxical, but less is more, okay?
And that’s why, just to give you an example, right now, that’s why we’re able to command top dollar from our clients right now because we specialise and that’s why guys like Vince wants to invest money into my company, even though I don’t need it, but he wants to help the company to grow and stuff , it’s because we specialise, okay.
If your general is a jack of all trades, it’s yeah you get jobs here and there, you get income from here and there, but you’re never able to grow your business to phenomenal levels, okay? If you want to grow your business to phenomenal levels, you really need to specialise, you know, don’t be an Amazon because you know, you don’t have, you’re not worth one trillion dollars, your company is not worth one trillion dollars to compete, to you know, secure the mass market, okay?
That’s a very, very tough game to play in, right?
Be willing to sacrifice those markets and those niches that are unprofitable or just profitable, or you don’t think you can be number one, okay? If you can’t be number one in that niche, don’t even bother.
And that’s one of the things I tell my team, “Guys, we want to be number one in the world for speakers, okay?” That is our agency thing and I keep reminding them all the time, you can ask Alex, do I say that all the time? Absolutely.
And you know many times we get clients already, sometimes telling us that you guys are the best agency we’ve ever worked with, and you know, that includes some really, really big names out there, you know. So these are from clients in the U.S that we work with. They tell us that, okay, I don’t know whether we are the best but that’s our target to be the best in what we do, okay?
And that’s why we’re able to command top dollar for our services.
Okay, so, moving on.
Okay, this is the final one. I’m going to share today.
So the final one is to invest in yourself.
This year, although cash flow wise, overall, it’s been a bad year for us, although now we’ve come back out of that trench, that valley. This is the year I’ve probably invest the most money in myself, my team, our education, everything, right.
I was telling how much we invest this year, I invested this year in education and stuff, education and training, and coaching. I’ve invested, $25,000 close to $25,000 US dollars into training, up-skilling and coaching and all that stuff. Probably more than 25,000, I can’t quite get a grasp but around 25,000 US dollars is what I’ve invested in myself.
Okay, because I know that for every business as the leader, I don’t want to be the bottleneck that stops my business from growing, okay. I want to make sure that I am like, the Michael Jordan of my industry, okay?
And that’s why I’m happy to invest that money because if I look at stocks and look at everything in the past, the thing that gave me, that has consistently given me the best ROI is investing in myself, right?
That is without a doubt, it has to return many, many fold.
So that’s why I’m not afraid to invest in myself.
The key thing is also the time as well, it’s not just the money.
So, every week, I’m constantly learning, right? Constantly, like at the moment, I’m doing a six-week copywriting course to level up, okay?
So that’s why I’m not afraid to to share any of my knowledge because I know that even if someone else, my competitors come on and steal my current knowledge, I’m still going to be ahead of them because I’m going to outwork them every single time. Okay? So yeah it’s fine if they come and steal everything, because I know that I’m going to be better three months from now, I’m going to be better six months from now, and I’m still going to kick their ass, every single time and that should be your philosophy as well.
If your competitors steal your knowledge today, are you going to be better than them in six months time?
You should be.
If not, that means you’re not investing enough time into yourself, so, and it’s also about sacrifice as well, okay?
In the past few months, I’ve, you know, this is getting a little bit more personal and a little bit more in depth, and you might think I’m crazy or whatever, that’s okay. So, one of the things I’m doing right now is I’m doing intermittent fasting. Now, I’m doing it only two times a week.
But, you know, I hope to extend that two more times a week.
Why?
Because it keeps my mind fresh, because whenever I eat stuff, right, if especially dirty stuff, it affects my performance, okay? And I want to be performing at a 100% all the time, so I want to, by doing intermittent fasting and not eating till, like, say lunch time, I’m able to get really good work done in the first part of the morning and you know, I know I’m good from there. Eliminate the TV, video games during the week. No TV, no video games.
So that keeps my mind clear as well.
Eliminate social media. So I, you know, make sure that I don’t get on social media and watch, you know, pet videos and dog rescue videos and stuff like that, okay? Cause’ that can sap up a lot of time that you don’t realise, okay.
And the other one final thing is I want to encourage you, yeah, improve yourself, invest in yourself. But also, I think the one key thing, if I can finally leave you this, with this one key thing, is to develop an abundance mindset, alright?
So this year, I’ve donated quite a lot to charity especially during the last quarter or two.
Why?
Because, it’s not that I got a lot of money to donate, you know, I don’t pay myself a lot because most of my money is in my business, anyway and, you know, I use it to grow my business. but I’ve donated as much as I could.
Reason for that, yeah, one thing it makes me feel good, second thing it helps people, but I think most importantly, as an entrepreneur, it helps you develop this abundance mindset, okay? That, you know that, okay, I’ve donated this huge sum of money, no worries, I’ll make it back, right?
It’s not about karma or anything like that.
It’s just about that mindset to say, “Okay, I’ve donated this amount of money, which would take me X amount of days to work or however days of my salary for the month.” But having that mindset to say, having that confidence to say, “Yeah, no worries. That’s nothing. I’ll make it back easily, okay?”
That is going to be massive for you, as well.
Yeah, I just see a lot of people, lot of entrepreneurs, have this fearful mindset that they’re like, “Oh so scared to spend money and stuff like that. If you’re fearful, you know, you can’t expand, right?
I know Vince recently had an event, and like, a lot of people pay the deposit and they will offer the opportunity to donate that small amount to charity, but there was still a certain percentage of people who wanted their money back, it was like, only like 10 US bucks or something like that, right? And I don’t get it right, but I understand people are, you know, coming from a lot of fear right now.
But release that fear, guys, because that is going to make a huge impact, right?
If you’re fearful, your clients can sense it, other people can sense it and you know your whole energy collapses, right? It’s not good for your business, alright?
So I hope, yeah, I’m sharing from personal experience as well, so don’t fall into that rut, I was in that rut for a long time, where I’m fearful, where I’m like trying to get stuff for free and all that kind of stuff. It’s not a good place to be, okay?
Expand your energy, expand your giving contribution and that will make a difference in this coming year for you.