Trizle

1. John's employee, Chrissy, programs on the side.
2. Originally, John hired her to do tech support.
3. Her creative abilities to help the company rock goes ignored.

Instead of telling tapping her hidden abilities, he confines her to her hired role:

• tech support
• answer customer calls
• install software

Blah-blah-blah-blah.

In the meantime, when Chrissy gets home, she:

1. dabbles with her phpBB message board script that she has installed on her web server
2. incorporates plug-ins that help her little community become more lively
3. builds and strengthens relationships with her community members

What's wrong?

Chrissy has the capability to set up an open-source technical-support ticketing system for John's company, which would've made the company about 20-40% more efficient in handling tech support.

Chrissy also could have:

• enhanced the company's website to convert more leads
• install a lead management system to handle those leads
• connect the website with the tech support system so employees and customers anywhere can log into the system and submit their support requests
• establish a foundation to start automating the company

BLING SAVED.

Empowering Your Company

Yes, defined roles lets a company perform necessary tasks; without clearly marked roles, you'd have a chaotic organization with no accountability.

• BUT, confining team members withing strict boundaries produces inept organizations that suck away hidden potential.

Efficient companies know better; they set aside time for staff to 'lead/experiment/invent'; that is, 'do whatever you can to help the company succeed' time.

3M and Google, for instance, gives staff 15% and 20% free time, respectively.

Yes, Chrissy and her software prowess might not translate to everyone in your company; but, anyone and everyone can play a vital role in helping your company succeed to the max; for instance:

• a gamer can design an organization that directly combines productivity with fun (e.g., through a points system)
• a super frugal dude can start setting up systems to find better deals (or a manual to bargain with suppliers)
• a techie can find the latest-and-greatest gadgets and websites to make your company more efficient
• a 4.0 grad can come up with super efficient learning kits to boost the skills of your entire team
• a crazy-organized person can enhance your employee manual to make your knowledge system easily transferable

How do you tap your company's hidden potential?

Try this:

1. Set aside free time for staff to tap their creative abilities. (Experiment with a digestible percentage, then grow into it.)
2. Give weekly rewards to the best initiatives/experiments/inventions/etc to encourage productivity -- and boosting morale.
3. Support them in every way possible with resources, tips, books, conferences, etc.

You'll see good stuff happening.

The greatest motivator goes beyond financial rewards; people, inherently, covet meaningful work.

It's in our blood.

Free time.

You have these tasks on your plate to start your business:

1. "I gotta do PR!"
2. "I gotta do marketing!"
3. "I gotta launch my website!"
4. "I gotta write my sales materials!"
5. "I gotta set up my CRM system!"

You want to save money, so you do everything yourself despite your lack of experience in any of the above to-dos:

• Doing PR takes you 5 weeks.
• Doing marketing takes you 5 weeks.
• Launching your website takes you 5 weeks.
• Writing your sales materials takes you 5 weeks.
• Setting up your CRM system takes you 5 weeks.

Your 6 months are pretty much gone.

Now, imagine you hiring folks with at least 10 years of experience in each of the categories above.

You + Team of Experts

1. Schmo, the PR expert, could've done what you did in 5 days.
2. Frozilla, marketing guru, could've done what you did in 5 days.
3. Bishizzle, the marketing maven, could've done what you did in 5 days.
4. Qwerteezy, the sales master, could've done what you did in 5 days.
5. Bobeezy, the CRM pro, couldve done what you did in 5 days.

You're thinking: "Hey! Instead of 25 weeks, I just condensed the to 25 days! Woohoo!"

OH NO YOU JUST WAIT RIGHT THERE

You didn't just condense everything into 25 days; because each expert can act independently (give or take a few days), you can condense everything into 5 days.

So get this:

1. You just went from 6 months.
2. ...to 5 days.
3. ...simply because you relied on great people.

Good companies know that great people get things done exponentially quicker, conserving freakish more time, and saving ridiculous more money.

How Can You Afford It?

You = in the open market (a full-time job):

1. Calculate how much each hour costs you (e.g., a $70K job pays $35/hr).
2. Now, multiply it by X hours (how long it takes you to do whatever it is that you want).
3. You get the dollar amount you spend on doing those tasks.

(Then add your fixed bills -- e.g. rent, utility, cell phone, gas, car, etc.)

For instance, 5 weeks of you doing PR + fixed expenses = $10,000.

• A PR expert who can do it for much less -- and in 5 days? Deal of a lifetime.

Unless you're Superstar-to-the-max, every hour that you spend trying to do something that you've never done costs you more money than it does by simply relying super experienced folks who get things done quickly.

Great people build great businesses.

Organize.

1. Imagine a $300 bike.
2. It sits permanently in your garage.
3. It now sells for $225 a year later.

The depreciating factor of the bike hits you hard; yet, that's not the bad part.

The crazy outrageous thing that's really rocking you is the opportunity costs of keeping your bike permanently in your garage.

Instead of seeing the value of what you own decrease constantly, you could've sold the bike and invest the $$$ into things that appreciate in value (e.g., your business).

Take this example

For instance, say you sell the bike at the $300 price tag:

1. You invest the $300 profits into Profitable Business Product A.
2. You know that Profitable Item D gives you an ROE of 25% (the annual return), which gets you $375.
3. You profit $75 from the investment for the first year.

So holding onto the needless bike costs you $150 in the first year.

Now, take that $375 you now have from your investment, and increase it by its annual ROE of 25% (as the bike depreciates 25% a year):

• 2nd year: $469 (bike: $169)
• 3rd year: $586 (bike: $126)
• 4th year: $732 (bike: $94)
• 5th year: $915 (bike: $71)
• 6th year: $1144 (bike: $53)
• 7th year: $1430 (bike: $40)
• 8th year: $1788 (bike: $30)
• 9th year: $2235 (bike: $23)
• 10th year: $2793 (bike: $17)

BAM.

If you had sold the bike ten years ago, you'd be up near $3000 -- which will continue to compound with your profitable investments, instead of holding onto the bike which lowers your equity in the bike to $17.

Here's the crazier thing:

• 11th year: $3491 (bike: $13)
• 12th year: $4364 (bike: $10)
• 13th year: $5455 (bike: $7)
• 14th year: $6818 (bike: $5)
• 15th year: $8523 (bike: $4)

...and it gets crazier every subsequent year as the thing compounds and compounds like Mr. Super-Fattie-In-Cheeto-Factory.

That's just a $300 bike; multiply the effect by X.

You and your bad-self probably have several things worth several thousands/millions/billions that suck out the value of your equity each and every day.

Hoarding onto things that decrease in value destroys your long-term earning potential, and keeps you on the never-ending treadmill of working constantly to maintain a stagnant lifestyle (i.e., wealth = flatlined, even with: you = working).

The Steps:

1. List depreciating assets that you don't need.
2. Sell them ASAP.
3. Invest profits into your most profitable items.

Things that grow.

1. Johnny plans to finish 5 big things this week.
2. The week ends with him only completing 1 big thing.

Sound familiar?

Peeps overestimate how much time they have to complete the things they want to complete; so, their plans suffer, with them not being as productive as they want to be.

It goes like this:

1. "I want to complete all these things!"
2. "Let's start on the first item!"
3. "Let's continue to work on the first item!"
4. "I'm still struggling through this first item!"
5. "There's so much more to do wity the first item!"

You can spend an infinite amount of time on a task, and you'll always find more things to improve; going down that route however drains your productivity as you leave your other tasks untouched.

Here's a sweet way to be more productive.

Focus on Big Pictures, Daily

• Complete 1 big picture, everyday.
• No sleep until you complete 1 big item.

You force yourself to focus on the most important items for the day, instead of worrying about the little details that matters exponentially less.

That keeps you focused on the big picture -- the thing that's 80% most important to your overall progress  -- and not straining yourself over the little details that you couldn't possibly perfect even if you gave yourself a ridiculous amount of time to work on them.

For instance, take Bob.

Bob has plans to launch his new product. So everyday, he chooses one big item that he wants completed:

• Monday. I've chosen our suppliers.
• Tuesday. I've completed our marketing materials.
• Wednesday. I've launched our website.
• Thursday. I've tested our product with beta testers.
• Friday. I've sent out first batch of marketing letters.

He gives himself the rest of the time after he completes the big pictures to focus on the little details; for instance, after he completes his website launch on Wednesday, he works on a few more marketing tasks he that he had in mind.

Continually completing one big picture item everyday gets you moving toward defeating your projects efficiently.

You'll see a ridiculous boost to your productivity.

Complete big pictures every day for the rest of X.

Imagine 5-year-old Cinderella. Cinderella hates basketball, but you have to make her better or you die. What in the whole wide world do you do?

OH NO!

You start thinking about some management concepts you read in some business book you read.

1. So, you try motivating her: "Hey Cinderella! You can do it!"
2. You try bribing her with gifts: "I'll give you cookies if you practice!"
3. You try putting fear into her: "I'm going to tell on YOU!"

But, Cinderella doesn't budge; she still finds basketball boring.

You're about to die. What do you do?

The Trick

Make it a game, then keep score.

• "Cinderella, I'm going to time you for 1-minute to see how many shots you can make."
• When that's done, "Cinderella, I'm going to time you for another minute to see how many shots you can make."
• Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

A more motivated Cinderella starts trying to beat her high scores every time. Quickly:

• You get her more engaged.
• You increase her confidence.
• You make her internally motivated to amplify her skills.

Games addict peeps because peeps try to beat their high scores every time they play.

What Makes Anything Fun

You can design the crappiest-of-the-crappiest game on the crappiest world; but, that-don't-matter.

Introduce a high scoreboard; then BAM: the game automatically becomes FUN.

You can work on the crappiest-of-the-crappiest-of-the-crappiest tasks in the whole wide world; but, as soon as you keep track of a high scores list, you instantly make your tasks for you/your-team super-duper-fun.

Fun = Work + Scoreboard

For instance:

1. "How many sales calls can you make in 1 hour?"
2. "How many customer tasks can you complete in 10 minutes?"
3. "How many minutes can you deploy a client's application?"
4. "How fast can you deliver a customer order?"
5. "How fast can you develop X?"
6. CHOOSE YOUR OWN HERE ---> ___________. YAY! YAY!

Then install a scoreboard tracking high scores somewhere prominently in your office; you/your-team starts striving to beat the scores each and every time you play.

FUN.

The Steps:

1. Define tasks that you do repeatedly.
2. Make a 'High Scores List' for those tasks.
3. Play!

You start becoming more engaged, more productive, and having a 9870958709458794056 times more fun.

Scoreboard.

"Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing."

- Warren Buffett

How do you grow your customer base virally? Find ways to make the following true.

The number of referrals from your average customer > 1

BAM.

> 1

1. You're thinking about doing X.
2. But X will decrease your revenue.
3. Do you do it?

For instance, take Amazon.

The Amazon + Competing Marketplace

If you take a look at practically any Amazon product, you'll notice competing sellers selling the same item for often cheaper prices than Amazon's.

• "Stoooooooopid decision!" they said.
• "BEZOS! What the the mother muffin?" the investors yelled.
• "Incompetence at its finest!" the media screamed.

Here was Amazon, the bestselling retail site on the web, giving an avenue for its competitors to undercut its prices.

WHAAAAAAAAAAT?

Did Amazon make a good decision? The company made one of its finest decisions.

By first putting customer interests first:

1. It kept the bargain hunters shopping through its website.
2. It prevented upstart competitors (like Half.com) to chip away at its customer base.
3. It laid a foundation for a long-term growth through a wider audience base.

Now, instead of Bishikitikakikaku checking Amazon's reviews of Harry Potter, and then leaving its website to shop for a cheaper competitor, Amazon kept Bishikitikakikaku on its website -- purchasing the product at his desired price and giving Amazon a nice chunk in commission fees.

BAM.

Take Google

Google's biggest competitors were disguising ads within their results when Google started.

• WHAT THE IN THE MOTHER HECK WE ALL SCREAMED

We all wanted better search results; searching for X should display the best results for X our awesomeness all said.

Google focused first on its customers' interests:

1. 'We will display the best search results.'
2. 'We will not disguise ads.'
3. 'We will not do evil.'

BAM. What happened?

Everyone flocked to them like wild bunnies chasing ostriches in the zoo while drinking some Hennessy in the woods.

• "OmGZ! oMGz! cHeCk oUT ThiZ gReaT wEbsiTe! iT's caLLeD Google.com! OMGZ!" we remember our friends saying.

Google won the big monstrous battle of the search wars by delivering the absolute best search results for its customers.

Don't Let Your Competitors Take Your Customers

Someone else will snatch your customers if if you lose focus on your customers' best interests.

• You keep and win customers by continually focusing and delivering what's the absolute best for them -- even if it's a short-term loss.
• A larger audience base create even more opportunities for your bad self to find ways to monetize that audience for the long-term.

When you do something that put your customers' interests first, tell those short-term financial nincompoops: "Hey, the increased equity value of our business actually obliterates any short-term revenue we could've gain. BAM SON!"

Then ride off into the sunset with an ostrich from the diner.

Crown The Customer.

"History shows that great companies can be built in almost any economic environment. In fact, recessions can be a plus because they sharply reduce the number of competitors pursuing the same idea."

-a high profile venture capitalist on reddit

The free market system creates incentives to provide as much value to your customers as possible; for instance, when you let get-rich-quick folks who provide no value to society -- and exploit others for their gain -- prosper financially, you get a broken and unsustainable system that will ultimately topple.

Fortunately, the most advanced economic systems know better, with the others moving in the same direction.

Providing immense customer value, therefore, is the sole way to building a solid and thriving company for the long-term in a free-market economy.