Entries Tagged 'Business Optimization' ↓

I’m watching Jay Abraham’s presentation at the ‘Billion Dollar Weekend’ seminar in Beijing from earlier this year.

Of all people I’ve studied business growth and development from, the one who has made the biggest difference to me is Jay Abraham. I own many of his high priced coaching material, and every single one has made a big multiple back to my business in increased profits.

One of the most profound bits of information Jay has shared with his students is something he calls the ‘Strategy of Pre-Eminence’. It’s a philosophy of doing business that stems from an overwhelming concern for a client’s welfare and best interests.

Over the years, I have heard, read and watched Jay present variations on the ‘Strategy of Pre-Eminence’ at various events and courses - and every single time, one new insight seems to jump out and hit me in the eye!

Yesterday was no different.

For the first time, I realized that not only does the ‘Strategy of Pre-Eminence’ mandate that you NOT sell your clients useless or ineffective stuff - it also directs that you DO sell them EVERYTHING that they require… and not merely cater to their whim and fancy!

Here’s an example.

Suppose you know 6 glasses of water a day is what a person needs to stay healthy and well. If a client walks into your store and asks for 2 glassfuls of water, it is your DUTY to try and sell them on the idea of drinking 6 glasses daily - because you KNOW that is in THEIR best interest!

That realization sparked off flashbulbs in my head. I had been faithfully upholding my responsibility of not directing my clients towards junk products or ‘fad of the day’ stuff that would take away their focus on reaching their stated goals.

But I had not been as enthusiastic or proactive about this other dimension of the ‘Strategy of Pre-Eminence’… giving them ALL that they NEED, not just what they WANT!

Can I force-feed them this stuff? Arm-twist them into buying it all? Manipulate them into it using mind-control tactics?

Maybe, but that would defeat the purpose, violate the ethic of the ‘Strategy of Pre-Eminence’ - because that strategy is a classic example of principle-centric business building and management.

So what’s the key?

Sell them what they want - and sneak in what they need.

It’s going to be my new mantra.

Or more likely, one of many new mantras - because I’m only on Disc #1 of a 12 DVD pack! Methinks the ‘Billion Dollar Seminar’ is going to set my brain on fire!

Want some more Jay Abraham insights for free?

I’m thinking about publishing a new ezine to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from Jay with an online marketing audience, laced and spiced with my own interpretations and twists to applying the broad-based concepts to an online infopreneur business.

If there’s enough interest, I’ll do this more regularly - it all depends upon how many sign up, and then, how many keep reading and respond to the questions and challenges I’ll throw at the end of each issue.

Sign up here if you like the idea - Dr.Mani on Jay Abraham Newsletter

New here? Please pick up your three FREE gifts - click here. Hope you like them. And drop by often!

I’m a fan of ‘effectiveness systems’ - things that make me more effective.

And to clarify, I make a distinction between being efficient (which is doing things quickly and well) and being effective (which is doing the things that really matter).

My bookshelf is loaded with books on time management, goal setting, and personal organization. By putting a lot of what I’ve learned into action, my day stretches to a functional equivalent of 27 hours.

Which is why I bought the domain name, www.Your27HourDay.com, thinking to write a book on the subject.

Anyway, over the years, having explored many options, I’ve distilled the lessons learned into a system that works - and last week, modified and updated my system for working online.

While posting about it on Twitter, Ross Goldberg asked to see a longer blog post about it - so here it is!

The ’system’ involves having a ‘dashboard’ - which is just a fancy word for a web page full of links that I have set as my browser’s default homepage. Every time I fire up my Firefox web browser, this page loads.

I have figured out that simply avoiding having to type in URLs of pages I visit frequently saves between 5 and 30 minutes daily! With my dashboard, I just ‘point and click’.

My main dashboard has these sections -

FORUMS | GOOGLE | BLOGS | MEMBERSHIPS | ECOMMERCE | ROUTINES | AUTOMATION STATIONS

Forums: These are the handful of forums I visit often and post regularly on.

Google: My Adsense and Adwords account pages to review stats quickly.

Blogs: Links to all my major blogs that need frequent updates.

Memberships: Sites I run or belong to, and need constant access to.

Ecommerce: Quick links to Clickbank, PayPal and PayDotCom homepages.

Automation Stations: Shortcuts to my web hosts’ cPanel pages.

The last one is most interesting - ROUTINES.

This is something I learned from ZEN TO DONE - creating routines helps improve efficiency, and keeping only the right things on your routine ensures better effectiveness.

I have 2 sets of routines - one for the morning, the other for the evening. And both are linked from my ‘dashboard’.

I wake up in the morning, fire up a web browser window, click on MORNING ROUTINES, and have a quick reminder of what’s to be done - with links to those websites to make it fast and easy!

What gets on each routine?

That’s entirely up to you, and depends on your personal goals, targets, purpose and available time.

My ‘daily activity’ list in the MORNING ROUTINE looks like this:

1. Process inboxes, reply to messages.
2. List 3 top things to do (Zen to Done)
3. Work on the 3 things.

Simple, yes?

But you won’t believe how powerfully effective it can be - until you try it.

The ‘3 important things’ lesson is again something I picked up from ZEN TO DONE - and it is awesome.

My productivity grew exponentially by following this, because where I once was all over the place, trying to cram as many things on my ‘to do’ list for the day and getting anxious and frustrated, I now calmly execute the 3 major tasks - and DO THEM FIRST!

That leaves the rest of the day free for other things, some fun, some work and even for just ‘wasting some time’ - while still having a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that the important work has been done!

So, What’s NEW?

This system of ‘dashboards’ and ‘routines’ have been a part of my daily life for a few months. What’s changed is the focus I’ve set for each day of my week.

Here’s how my ‘Day of the Week’ task list looks now:

Monday: Compile a final list of links worth checking out for my list.

Tuesday: Negotiating JV deals and work related to my CHD Foundation.

Wednesday: Update blog with new episode of “My Story” or write a new article.

Thursday: Financial and investments related work.

Friday: Promote a product or service to my list, with full review.

Saturday: Reading.

Sunday: Email management and networking.

How does this help?

Where I once would waste time each morning trying to think about what I felt like doing that day, I now just have to look at the list - and start planning my ‘top 3 things’ list.

And by making sure all the important elements of my work find a place on that ‘Day of the Week’ task list, I can be certain that all the work being done is effective, not merely ‘efficient’.

I know revealing what happens ‘behind the screen’ is a poor strategy for magicians. And judging by feedback and astonished questions I get asked by readers, subscribers and clients, I know many think of me as some kind of magician, considering how many things I get done in a typical day.

On two previous occasions, I have blogged in detail about a ‘Day in the Life of Dr.Mani’ - here (2005) and here (2007).

This effectiveness-based approach is what is responsible, in main, for such results. That, and a time management system taught by one of my mentors - and whom I finally convinced to teach and share with others through a book!

The first draft of this book is now done, and we’re looking to make it much better and extensive before launching it to the public. In the meantime, we’re soliciting suggestions and opinions from anyone interested in time management - yes, that includes YOU.

Would you mind sparing a few moments to take a short survey about what you most want to learn about time management, please? Thank you

Time Management Survey - click here

I’m going to skew my results if I want to continue with this
experiment - but that’s ok. The numbers are enough to show
’statistical significance’ Wink

Yesterday, I asked for advice about launching a FREE ebook.

Later, I decided to run a test - and told one of my sub-lists
about it.

There were around 1,500 people on that list. I sent out this
note (yes, that’s all there was, really)

SUBJECT: [[Firstname]], Free?

Yes.

Free.

http://Linkhere

Smile

Dr.Mani

This cryptic note got a clickthrough rate of 20.2%

298 people visited the page.

Now, here’s the interesting bit.

Initially, the landing page looked like this.

Of 149 visitors who reached that page, only 86
downloaded the free ebook (that’s 57.7%)

I was watching this figure and had the idea of making
the landing page more simple and uncluttered to see
if it made a difference.

This is the modified version

Of the next 149 visitors, 103 of them went and
downloaded the ebook (that’s 68.12%)

In other words, with a simple, quick tweak that made
the page LESS cluttered, I increased response rate by
EIGHTEEN PERCENT over the earlier level!

There are lessons applicable from this to EVERY kind
of web page.  For more business optimization tips, get
this free report today.

Yesterday, I read a very interesting post on Avinash Kaushik’s ‘Web Analytics 2.0′ blog, Occam’s Razor.

Avinash is author of “Web Analytics: AN HOUR A DAY” and a speaker on web analytics at various conferences and teaching programs. His blog has some very cool information about analyzing your web presence.

The post I read was called “Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success”.

As an exercise, I decided to measure two or three of my main blogs to see how they stack up against the indices Avinash mentions. Here’s the analysis for this blog, “Money.Power.Wisdom”

#1 - Raw Author Contribution:

109 posts since June 19th, 2007
Words in Posts 61,939

So, the (Number of Posts / Number of Months Blogging) value is: 21.8
And the (Number of Words In Post / Number of Posts) value is: 568

As Avinash says, this is NOT a mention of quality, but an indicator of how prolific your blogging is… and at 22 posts a month, I’m pretty prolific!

# 2. Holistic Audience Growth

ShortStat tells me this blog has 8225 visits since 8 Jul 2007

AwStats data (can’t believe I haven’t set up a Google Analytics tab for this blog yet!) shows:

Jun 2007 - 5,667 unique visitors and 40,216 page viewsJul 2007 - 5,463 unique visitors and 38,753 page viewsAug 2007 - 6,002 unique visitors and 48,330 page viewsSep 2007 - 5,419 unique visitors and 47,348 page views

Oct 2007 - 7,078 unique visitors and 51,174 page views

Nov 2007 - 5,525 unique visitors and 38,481 page views
(upto 19th)

Avinash says ‘It is important to measure the trend, numbers in each month by themselves are less interesting.’

The trend is indeed interesting to me - because growth is almost STATIC! I need to put more focused effort into MARKETING this blog than just posting to it.

‘Offsite’ Audience Growth aka RSS/Feed Subscribers

This metric won’t be quite accurate for this blog, because I only put up a Feedburner link on October 7th, and haven’t done enough to encourage people to sign up for the RSS feed. Still, for what it’s worth, here are the figures:

136 RSS subscribers
7 new subscribers a day on average

I agree with Avinash on this, “I would take ten extra feed subscribers over a hundred visitors.”

# 3. Conversation RateConversation Rate = Number of Visitor Comments / Number of Posts

For this blog, 250/109 = 2.29

(I’ve subtracted the 20% comments I have made)

There’s some discussion happening here, but still the ‘conversation co-efficient’ of this blog is LOW. C’mon guys - share YOUR thoughts

I’m also more ‘wordy’ than my audience! My blog posts have a total of 61,939 words, while comments have 25,411 words. Hmm… I should maybe talk less?!

# 4. “Citations” / “Ripple Index”

From Occam’s Razor: “People talk about you, discuss you point, throw up on you, praise you. Citations. To measure Citations I use Technorati rank.”

Here’s mine - 172,010

Which could be disheartening - if I forgot I started at a rank of over 4 MILLION!

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to track historic trends for this data, but I will be keeping track from now going forward, to see how this progresses over the following months.More fascinating to me is the concept of a “Ripple Index”.

“Ripple Index - how many blogs, cite you and link back to you over time, and is that number growing?”Ripple Index: Number of Unique Blogs that link to your Blog.

From Technorati, that number is now at 52 - not great, but in that list are many high profile blogs, which is nice

# 5. Cost

1) Technology (Hardware / Software) - estimated at $308.40 for web hosting and domain name. All my software is ‘free’

2) Time - approximately 2 to 3 hours a week (@ $100 an hour, that’s $10,000 to $16,000 a year)

3) Opportunity Cost - intangible, as I blog in my spare time, mainly

TOTAL COST: Annually, $13,308.40 (averaging everything) + a hard to measure opportunity cost

# 6. Benefit (ROI: Return on Investment)

My blog is worth $7,903.56

 

My blog is worth $7,903.56.
How much is your blog worth?

Sounds fair!

ROI: ( -40.6% )I should STOP blogging! Oh, I forgot - I’m using this as my tax write-off

Seriously, though, this blog pays-off in many ways for the effort, time and money invested in it. So go ahead blogging - and read Avinash’s nice article, measure the metrics for your own blog, and keep those numbers growing… FAST.

Recommended Reading: “Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success”

Today morning, I read this article titled “How Did I Double My Subscribers In a Week” by Caroline Middlebrook.

She’s fast becoming one of my favorite writers and bloggers, because she’s open, generous and frank about her data and results - not (yet?) having felt the urge or need to fudge facts and figures to fit an ‘image’, like most MMO-IM bloggers do!

Caroline, I think what you’re doing and sharing is AWESOME.

Just one thing I’d offer as a suggestion - get the ORDER right.

First, you get either a ‘marketing’ or a ’selling process’ set up, tested, tweaked and if not maximized, at least working consistently well… and then ramp up traffic to the process.

If you throw a million visitors at a non-converting process, you’re literally throwing away a lot of value. For instance, if you got 16 RSS subscribers from 335 visitors off Yaro’s blog (a ‘conversion rate’ of 4.9%), and worked on improving that to, say 20%, you’d get five times more value from the same traffic - and a proportionate rise from even bigger surges.

And reading Yaro’s article, I noticed something that might account for the lower conversion - this quote: “She hasn’t made a dime at it yet, but she hasn’t actually attempted monetization yet either. What she is doing is totally dedicating herself to growing her blog and so far she’s on the right track.”

The first bit is a direct quote from your own blog. And most ‘make money’ bloggers will ignore your excellent advice and content for just that reason - “Oh, it doesn’t work - after all, she doesn’t make money doing it!”

Reminds me of what Steve Pelzer says: “Never let them see you bleed!”

You write: “All in all, I have had over 22,000 visitors in 11 days”

With a well honed conversion process, you *might* have 2,200+ extra RSS subscribers instead of 250 - though the 250 is nothing to sneeze at.

On my new ‘Infopreneur Blog‘, I’m conducting a whole bunch of social media experiments.

In the last week, I have got 1,222 unique visitors (without using my in-house list, JV partners or paid traffic) and I have 20 RSS feed subscribers and 1 email subscribers - a miserable 1.6% conversion.

It’s why improving conversion rates will be the prime focus of my work BEFORE driving more traffic - because without the conversion working better, the traffic is less valuable.

On a completely unrelated note, that blog has already made $400 - from members who paid to observe and learn from the process I’m using to promote and monetize it.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is, while doing a ‘for profit’ venture, to plan revenue and profit models first BEFORE even starting the project - and then testing small before rolling out big.

I go through this in greater detail in the series of posts, “How To Launch a New Blog in 2 Weeks”

All this data you’re sharing so willingly is worth GOLD to anyone who already has a monetization process for a blog or website. The niggling question that keeps popping up in my mind every time I read your posts is… “Why isn’t she making money with this?”

By all rationale, you should. You know that, anyway, though, don’t you? I sent you a direct message on Twitter about it. Let me know what you think.

In the meantime, please keep sharing these wonderful posts - I’m finding them very helpful

I’m planning the next contest on this blog

The first contest I ran was fun.

No, it did not get 500 people participating. But then, if you’ve known me for a while, you’ll know I go for QUALITY, not sheer quantity.

And just about every ‘review’ people did of this blog was a piece of high quality writing - stuff I gladly link out to because it adds value to you if you choose to visit and read.

Here are some of the ‘winners’:

* Irene writes about stress on the Chair Massage Biz blog.

(Read “He Needed Me” - it’ll bring tears to your eyes… it did mine!) Also check out “In My Hands”

* Kang did a short blog post (he’s a fan, and his ‘review’ is glowing - thanks, Kang) about a few things here that caught his attention - it’s on his Kaizen blog.

* Manoj picked my thoughts about online socializing tools to focus in his review at his Money Making Basics blog. Yes, friendships do come first!

* Walter Gavurnik wrote about the work I do with children born with congenital heart defects. Not surprising - he’s one of my strong supporters, and has made generous donations to the CHD foundation. See his post at the ‘Marketology’ blog

Hope you enjoy these blogs - and you can still participate in the first contest, check out this post for more details.

Now, about today’s contest.

It’s more like a ‘guessing game’ - or a test of predictive reasoning - however you choose to view it.

I crafted 4 different versions of a promotional email and sent it out to a different section of my list each.

Which one will get the highest response rates (measured as readers clicking on the link to visit the website)?

= = =

Email #1:

SUBJECT: The BEST $10 You’ll Ever Spend!

I think you’ll agree after taking a look.

http://www.Niche2.com/newbieguide/

All success
Dr.Mani

= = =

Email #2:

SUBJECT: Have I priced this too LOW?

I’m wondering if the low price is making
people wonder if it has any value at all!

Hmm… maybe I’ll hike it to $47 or more
(after all, it’s worth that much - at least)

http://www.Niche2.com/newbieguide/

All success
Dr.Mani

= = =

Email #3:

SUBJECT: If you’re a beginner, then…

If you’re a beginner, I can’t imagine ANY
reason you should wait to grab this

http://www.Niche2.com/newbieguide/

All success
Dr.Mani

= = = =

Email #4:

SUBJECT: If it’s FREE, then why…

If it’s free, then why should you buy it?

Because there’s an awesome bonus you cannot
buy ANYWHERE - that’s a part of the content
package!

http://www.Niche2.com/newbieguide/

All success
Dr.Mani

= = =

Which one do YOU think will work best?

Just post your answer as a COMMENT here - along with a link to your website/blog or an email address, so I’ll know how to contact you if you win.

What’s the prize?

Hmm… Let me see. How about if I gave the first 10 winners (who picked the best email) free access to this new content resource itself? Learn more about the prize at “Dr.Mani’s ONLINE BUSINESS BASICS Guide”

Why “Purple Cheese Fondue“?

Well, this riff is about Seth Godin’s new book, “Meatball Sundae” - and I read a few others with titles like “Chocolate Spaghetti, and Tribal Pizza, so in keeping with the theme…

On his blog, Seth Godin asked a very thought-provoking question:

“If you were alive in 1947 and knew what you know now about the last sixty years of mass marketing, what would you have done? What would you have built? Was it just about making better TV commercials?”

What would I change?

I would change the way I built my client/customer database.

And I would make the NAME of my client/customer the central piece of data, the one around which everything else hinged.

Not the product line.

Not the marketing method used to make sales.

Not the region, or language, or ad medium, or profitability.

The PERSON.

So that, when I analyze my data, I won’t be searching to see if Widget B shipped more units, or Campaign Y brought in more sales, or Infomercial J had a higher response rate.

Instead, I’ll be searching to see what Ann Smith from Ontario bought last summer, or what John Doe from Arkansas needs to be offered next week, based on his past record with my business.

Just like I do in my medical practice.

Journals compile data from a vast patient demographic. I study them to stay abreast of trends, understand latest breakthroughs, and be informed of potential pitfalls.

But when little Arun walks into my consulting room, I don’t directly transpose the data from a book to his treatment.

No. I recall (by reviewing his record) that Arun had an allergic reaction to a drug (so I can’t use it again), had a problem after his surgery (which limits choices for the next phase of his treatment) and comes from a unique social and family background (to which follow up care needs to be customized).

And while all this is done within the broader framework of current ‘best practices’ (as learned from experience and research and study), this process is also personalized to Arun… and then to Carla, and Kumar, and Shanti, and Vinod, and on and on.

Until, after some years, my brand - “Dr.Mani, the BEST pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon” - is built around the results I get.

And the cycle is completed, when I compile data I collect from my unique, personal experiences, and present them as a collated research paper that’s published in a journal, adding to the volume of collective wisdom suitable for a broader based demographic.

So, to return to 1947 marketing, yes, I’d have made a better TV commercial to tap into the mass marketing effectiveness that was then possible.

But then, knowing that in 60 years we would enter the era of ‘nicheification’, I would build my client database differently.

Each client would get a unique entry. In that entry would be stored all relevant data - what interests them, what they bought and why, how they heard about us, what their preferred communication channels were, when they bought and when they returned, what else they bought and why… and the database would grow and grow and grow - all the while hinged on the UNIQUE CLIENT RECORD as the crux.

So, as the database grew bigger, I could use it to perform mass media marketing just as effectively as anyone did in those days… but with one significant advantage over others - that when the era of mass marketing lost efficiency, I still had enough PERSONAL information to get niched, individual, narrowly focussed - and still have impact with my target audience.

Lately, I’m hearing a delayed echo of the popular mantra of the Web in the pre-bubble late 1990’s…

“Hey, it’s FREE!”

The phrase is used as an excuse - for something that won’t work.

The phrase is used as a reason - to clutter your life with one more download.

The phrase is used as an incentive - to invest your time and energy on stuff.

That’s just downright STUPID.

Nothing is ‘FREE’.

Not really.

For those who think a free giveaway is free, here’s a term you may have heard about (or not)…

Opportunity Cost

It’s the cost of an alternative opportunity you might have had, one that you lost because of the free thing you were trying instead.

Opportunity cost is measured in time. What else could you have been doing in the time you wasted reading that trash filled ebook - just because it’s free?

Opportunity cost is measured in space. What else could have occupied the space of that widget that you displayed on your site or blog - just because it’s free?

Opportunity cost is measured in effort. What else could you have achieved with the resources, money, effort and energy you invested in trying out that service, product or biz-opp - just because it’s free?

When you ruthlessly measure your wasted opportunity in terms of dollars and cents - or anything else you treasure and consider precious - you’ll see that everything that’s ‘FREE’ has a significant (even if not immediately apparent) cost attached to it.

And remember - if FREE is your only consideration to trying out something, you’ve got a sorry life ahead. Just on the Web today, there are over 10 MILLION free ebooks you can download instantly and read. It’ll take you many lifetimes to get it done… that’s an extended analogy of ‘OPPORTUNITY COST’ for you.

So the next time you’re tempted to do something just because you hear folks saying: “Hey, it’s FREE”…

STOP and THINK.

What else are you giving up?

What else could you be doing?

What else is could you gain?

Be smart. Be focussed. Be analytical.

And make wise decisions - with your time, your talent, your resources.

I deeply understand ARROGANCE.

Being a doctor, especially a heart surgeon, helps. 

Most (if not all) doctors, and certainly all heart surgeons, believe they are fantastic, extra-ordinary, exceptional people.  The confidence (that always borders on, and often crosses the line into, arrogance) is a necessary part of being in the specialty.

Think about it for a moment.  If a surgeon were to begin an operation without a certain level of confidence, s/he might simply get paralyzed by the enormity of the challenge, the potential risks of a complication, the dangers of the procedure involved.

The solution:  Develop a deep inner confidence that shrugs off such doubts and allows skillful performance of a complex operation.

In my work on the Web, I play in some niche markets that are equally hyper-competitive, like the entrepreneurial home business, infopreneur and Internet marketing niches.

Players in these niches have internalized the useful life message I first heard from best-selling author Dave Pelzer - “Never let them see you bleed!”

So my peers (or ‘competitors’) pretend and preen, living the mantra of ‘fake it till you make it’, until they either reach a level when it becomes real - or they quit.

And to an extent that’s fine - but there’s a stranger thing that happens along the way…

They Stop Making Mistakes!

Or, to be more precise, they stop ADMITTING to the mistakes they make.

Why?

Because it won’t fit their image of near-perfect immaculate creations.  And that’s scary, even dangerous in certain situations (like a ‘over-confident’ surgeon indulging in a procedure s/he is not competent to carry out, even if confident enough to try).

And after getting in over their heads into deep water, these masters of self-deception and posturing still gamely struggle on.  Again, that’s fine - giving up on anything when the going gets tough is not a great solution, but what’s sad is they miss a valuable LEARNING experience.

By pretending to be perfect, flawless, incapable of making a mistake, they are really shooting themselves in the foot.

You see, there really is no benefit in making the claim:

“I NEVER make mistakes”

At best, it brands you a fool in the minds and eyes of people watching and listening to you.  At worst, it makes you loathed and disliked by more ‘real’ people who like relating to other ‘real’ people instead of mindless caricatures and ego-images.

Everyone makes mistakes.  No doubt about it.  What matters is how one deals with them - how quickly, how effectively, how smartly.  That defines you, your level of growth and wisdom, your maturity and suitability for huge success.

Everyone bleeds.  Don’t question that, we all hurt and suffer from time to time.  Do THAT in private, you don’t need to show the world how hard you worked, struggled or fought to get where you did.  That’s what Dave meant by “Don’t let them see you BLEED!”

Your competition scans your business for weakness like a bloodhound scents blood.  Don’t let them find your chinks and soft spots.  But at the same time, don’t posture and pretend to be what you aren’t… infallible.

That’s just downright stupid.

Made a mistake?  Admit it.  Apologize.  Or at least, take quick remedial action.

The way Steve Jobs handled his (potentially) catastrophic iPhone price cut is a case in point.  After slashing the price on Apple’s blockbuster mega-hit product by $200 just months after release, he risked antagonizing a core fan base.

A mistake.  Maybe a calculated one, but still a mistake.

Steve didn’t posture and spin things in a flim-flam, smoke-and-mirrors fashion.  He just got right to the point and gave all buyers a $100 credit - at an Apple store.

Masterful damage control.  A brilliant way to handle a mistake.  And he didn’t even apologize!

On the flip side, there are obvious, glaring mistakes made by hundreds of entrepreneurs every day.  Some are so apparent, even novices can see them.  Yet you see people who should know better claiming they did not goof up.

“I NEVER Make Mistakes”

Wake up, folks.  Even your mother won’t believe THAT one!

Over the years, I have been asked this question many times. It always evoked strong feelings - especially of defensiveness.

Until recently.

To my pleasant surprise, I discovered this week that I’m able to answer this question WITHOUT dismay, disappointment or disingenuity - because of an evolution of my goals, dreams and plans.

As a keen student of psychology, I’ve been aware for long that whenever a question, comment or accusation makes you feel deeply disturbed, uncomfortable or gets you into ‘defensive mode’, it’s because you know in your heart that it touches a nerve, exposes a weakness, hits too close to the truth.

You may quibble and argue, obfuscate and reiterate, posture and pretend - but you know you aren’t fooling yourself… not really!

So it was, when people I know well and who care about my work and purpose, asked me the question:

“Why are you setting such modest goals? With your talent, skill and experience, you could succeed in a much bigger way? ARE YOU TOO SCARED?”

In hindsight, looking back on how my answer to the question has evolved over years, I learned a valuable lesson - one you might find helpful too.

A decade before…

10 years back, I had a dream. It was vague, unfocussed, uncertain. It was to help children born with congenital heart disease who came from poor families to find a way to afford treatment.

I didn’t know if it had a chance of ever coming true. Yet, I started working to make it happen.

Because of the lack of conviction, the absence of any proof of concept, the paucity of evidence of my capability to make this work, I dreamed SMALL.

Yet tried to convince myself that’s all I could afford to do.

And then five years later…

5 years later, with some early success to boost my confidence, the dream became more ‘believable’ - and so I started setting goals. They were big goals, maybe even overly ambitious - but more critically dangerous, they were not well planned or organized.

I wanted to help ‘many children’ and ‘raise a lot of money’ to make it possible ‘very quickly’ - all by myself.

Spurred by my initial success, and fuelled by a growing experience with working online and a steadily increasing exposure in the marketplace I was involved in, the results of my efforts grew - but again, under-performed my ‘goals’, because those goals were unclear.

Coming to today…

More recently, the goals became clear, specific, organized. That came from rethinking everything I was doing. Working out a sequential, incrementally improving plan, with interim targets and processes that build on each other.

I now have a more definite target - X operations per year, funded within a clear time frame. I have identified other approaches that will synergize with the primary goal, speed its accomplishment, and make it scalable so the impact grows over time.

From this clarity in goal setting and blueprinting my plans to reach each target, one surprising thing emerged - I did NOT need as much money, and did NOT need to do some things I had planned to in the earlier phases of my development.

Best of all, I now understood that my ‘plan’ does NOT need to be as ‘big’, ‘ambitious’, or ‘fast’ as others I had been obsessing over (and feeling frustrated at not being able to match).

Someone else may want to gain thousands of customers, make hundreds of sales, and bank millions of dollars.

My plan, in its present iteration, can happen at the pace I’m setting - and still achieve the desired end result within the target time frame… and scale higher when I hit these targets!

And surprise, surprise… if the plan speeds up and gathers momentum faster than I foresee, it may help reach my ultimate goals faster - but not a lot faster!

That’s the REAL reason the question no longer makes me anxious.

When someone asks me now:

“Are You Too SCARED To Dream BIG?”

I can confidently answer -

“No, I’ve just realized it is NOT necessary to dream bigger than I am doing right now.”

Is this a dead-end?

Absolutely not. Once I hit the current targets, the growth to a higher level is already built-in to the plan. And my ‘big dream’ target is so ambitious, I’m even afraid to mention it to anyone, in public (or even in private) - yet my current plan has even this target factored into the future!

How does this rambling post help YOU?

For your own business or life, ask yourself the same hard questions.

Do you really need to dream bigger than you are?

Or is the perceived ’smallness’ of your dreams more a function of someone else’s expectations of you, rather than the need for bigger dreams to achieve your goals?

The answer you’ll arrive at may surprise you.

At the very least, it will comfort you.