Mark Victor Hansen, author of ‘The One Minute Millionaire’ says that there are 5 kinds of leverage: Other people’s

Money, Experience, Ideas, Time and Effort

He says that ‘when the combined forces of mentoring, teamwork, networks, tools and systems is applied to a strong, long lever, miracles can happen in minutes’.

Other people’s experience – very few people achieve success without effective mentoring;
A Mentor shares with you their experience/expertise in business and gives you tips on the most effective way they’ve found to achieve success. They also model the way they think you should manage your business, give you advice about business development strategies, how to get the most result for your effort, and how to negotiate challenges. Basically a qualified ‘sounding board’ that you can turn to for anything business related.

Other people’s time and effort – success is not a solo project – it needs to be shared. A team is part of your lever; it makes success quicker and easier. People working together can accomplish far more than they can separately. 1 + 1 = 11 instead of 2;

Imagine the challenge of completely re-landscaping your back yard! The quickest way to get the job done is to arrange a ‘Working Bee’. You would invite a group of friends around (preferable those who don’t mind using their muscles) to help with the ‘big’ tasks that would have taken you a long time by yourself. The advantage of this is not only benefiting from the extra ‘effort’ but also feeding from the momentum and ‘energy’ that is created by a group of people who share a common goal which in this case has a significant benefit for you!

Business team members do not have to work for you in exchange for an ‘income’ but can also be more like ‘business partners’ and benefit in other ways such as cross-referrals or if they are long term colleagues, may assist you because of your relationship – like your ‘working bee’ friends!

Other people’s contacts – the more connections you have the more leverage you possess; It has been said that by the age on 20 the average person has met over 2000 people. When starting any business you need to maximise your exposure by alerting as many contacts as possible so that they can in turn communicate with anyone of interest in their circle of contacts.

Running a successful business used to be dependent on what you knew. Then, who you knew became important. In today’s economy, it is far more critical to what extent you know someone. So it’s not what you know or who you know, but how well you know them that really determines the amount of business that can be generated by a contact.

All successful business people build networks. Networking is the process of meeting people (also known as contacts), either through a contact that you initiate or through an introduction by a third party. Networking allows you to meet, and establish a relationship with, people who may not have heard of your business through any other means. Networking is critical for any business success.

Does your business capitalise on other people’s efforts and contacts?

All successful business owners search for successful systems before they launch their money-making vehicles – having the right system gives you enormous leverage.

Gerber says that one fatal assumption that business owners make is that they think they must understand the technical work of the business where instead what they need to understand is a business systems that does technical work – successful people source other people or systems that understand the technical complexities that they don’t need to understand.

McDonalds is the perfect example of a business system. Everywhere in the world all McDonalds stores operate in exactly the same way. The greeting, the uniform, the food preparation.

Gerber says that anyone can make a better burger but not everyone can build an efficient system. the true product of a business is the business itself. It’s not the hamburger; it’s the McDonalds system!

The concept of working ‘on’ your business and not ‘in’ it involves developing or adopting a system that can be followed by anyone, duplicates the same success and works independently of YOU.

Pretend that your business will be the prototype for 5000 more like it that all need to work in exactly the same way. Does it meet the test?

Think of your business as a product – what are the individual components and how can they be constructed so that they can be replicated over and over?

If your business has easily replicatable steps then, once established, you can spend your time doing what you want to do!

Kiyosaki says, in the ‘Cashflow Quadrant’, that there are 3 kinds of business systems:

1. Traditional Corporations – where you develop your own system

2. Franchises – where you buy an existing system

3. Direct Selling/ Marketing – where you buy into or become a part of an existing system

Within each business there are three key areas – sales, marketing and operations.

Does your business have bulletproof systems for all three?

1. Marketing – does your business have a system that will generate prospective clients on a regular basis? All businesses rely on building a long-term client base so what are the systems that your business will use to generate contacts for potential clients?

2. Sales – does your business recognise the importance of prospecting? What is the system that will be used to provide a consistent approach? Depending on your business you, or people working for you, will need to allocate a reasonable portion of time to making contact with prospective clients each day so this is a critical area for a system to be implemented.

3. Operations – does you business provide a seamless and positive experience for the client/ consumer? Ensure that with any business you start-up or purchase, the operational processes maximise great service to the client from the moment they choose to become your client through to any after sales service they may require.

With any business there are overheads but do yourself a favour and ensure that any overheads are kept to a minimum and that the system minimises your involvement with inventory, warehousing and distribution. Your time when establishing your business is better spent in creating your client base not chasing up lost orders or finding space to store products!

Mark Victor Hansen states:

“94% of failure is caused by the system not the people and all wealthy people have systems”.

Til next week – the final part of the puzzle…

Helen.