My business-getting checklist that works right away

Good morning. Okay, we're continuing on Journal number eight, fall of 1997. And this is a very interesting page because I was just having this conversation about what I'm calling the optimal build order for rapidly growing your business. And most of the time, preparing to grow, preparing to, you know, let's set a high goal of 10x. The first thing that is the most helpful is to streamline and optimize your systems so that you have more time to devote to the new things. This is the time to be completely ruthless about cutting out the things that are counterproductive, the things that are not getting you in the direction that you want to go, and eliminating your personal involvement in any of the steps that don't require you.

So getting everything kind of streamlined and locking in the core things that you do so that you don't get bogged down in the details of stuff or in the things that anybody else could do. That's job number one. And often I find people, they want to rush right into growth. They want to rush right into doing all these new things without really creating the path. Remember, we've said time moves at the speed of reality. And the reality is that no matter how big your aspirations, you still only get 16 waking hours in a day. And that's the only allocation that you have for the day.

So streamlining, being ruthless, both in your personal life and in your business life, time is time. So creating that as allocated investable asset that you have is a very. Is a competitive advantage. Number two is to select a specific target market that you really want to work on one at a time and starting with the most profitable. A lot of times people think, I do a lot of work with real estate agents, and often they feel like they need to work their way up to luxury homes. And I tell them, listen, why don't we just start at the most valuable thing that you could do, whether is that oceanfront homes, oceanfront condos, lakefront homes, whatever it is, there's a real efficiency in doing the work that's going to have the highest yield for you.

So if you've got lots of ideas for, you know, working with different levels of people in your business, the most, you know, optimal thing that you could do is start with the ones that are the most valuable one at a time. Don't try and do and add too many things at once. Focus on the one thing that you can do better than anybody and point it in the direction of the most valuable people that you could help that. And you got to really set up rules and boundaries around it. Because the most, you know, focused and disciplined business units that you can set up are really where you're going to get all of the advantage going forward.

Number three is to start using what I was calling situational marketing to get more business from the business you're already doing. So we've talked about that here now as multipliers, setting up things that are orchestrating ways that you can turn one piece of business that you're doing right now into multiple pieces of business. And that's a very fast acting thing because you're already working with people right now. Just look around the environment. How could you take advantage of the opportunities that you have right now with the people that you're currently working with, Whether it's neighbors, whether it's friends or referrals from the people that you're already working with, whether it's doing additional things with the people that you're already working with.

Just open your eyes and look for where those opportunities are and start to integrate them because as you add new people, this is going to have the biggest impact for you. Then number four is reclaim the relationship that you had with your past clients. A lot of times people just, you know, do business with people and then it's over. And so one of the biggest opportunities that you have is to, you know, reclaim and think about your after unit, what we call it now, as a, the equity in your business, your opportunity to orchestrate referrals and to do more business with the people who already know you, like you and trust you.

That's where, you know, we're not putting new people into a leaky bucket. We're trying to shore things up and make sure that every new person that you bring into something is going to turn into even more. Because you're multiplying every opportunity that you get and you're building a lifetime asset with those people. So the best time to start is before you get too busy trying to convert new people. Let's build your system to reclaim those relationships first. So that's number five is to start and implement an after sales service program and begin nurturing lifetime relationships. Number six is to start using. This is funny to see me saying this in 1997, but is to start using automated technology to sift and sort through prospects.

That's where, you know, we were using recorded messages. That was the state of the art technology combined with a CRM where you could have your database of people and email. That was the technology that we were using. But you think now with a CRM and automated emails and videos and texting and AI. All of those things are huge opportunities right now. And then number seven is to start using direct response advertising to generate new prospects. That's where we now focus on pointing it at the new audience that you've identified as the best opportunity. Starting with one if you're doing a lakefront thing, let's get that set up, get the system in place that you can find them, that you can get in front of them, that you can compel them to raise their hand, you can educate and motivate them, and you can make an offer that they're going to see that there's no better option than to work with you.

I'm pretty excited. That was a pretty good thing to see, thinking that way in 1997, and it's all equally true today. So you can't go wrong with that checklist.