SUCCESS STRATEGIES. Entrepreneurial. 4Definitive Guides To 10x Growth STRATEGIC COACH COLLECTION. The8 Of A. Transformations 10x.

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1 TM & The Strategic Coach Inc. All rights reserved. STRATEGIC COACH COLLECTION Entrepreneurial SUCCESS STRATEGIES 4Definitive Guides To 10x Growth Transformations 10x The8 Of A Entrepreneur

2 Hello! Thank you for downloading our Strategic Coach Starter Kit, a comprehensive collection of resources that will tell you all about the Strategic Coach Program and how it can change your life in exciting new ways! What is Strategic Coach? We re an entrepreneurial coaching company that offers a program specifically designed for highly successful, ambitious entrepreneurs like you, where you can grow your success exponentially while simplifying your life. It s a unique community made up of entrepreneurs from different industries around the world. What everyone in the Strategic Coach Program has in common is a desire to create the best possible business and life they can so they ve turned to us to provide them with the thinking tools to clarify their goals and the proven, practical strategies to make those goals a reality. This package will introduce you to a few key Strategic Coach concepts, which we hope will give you a picture of a much bigger future, one in which you enjoy all the freedom, rewards, and exponential growth of the most successful entrepreneurs. Here s what you re about to learn: 1. 5 Things You Need To Know To Build Your Self-Managing Company 2. The 8 Transformations Of A 10x Entrepreneur 3. The Strategic Coach Approach to Overcoming Commoditization 4. The Strategic Coach Approach to Leadership vs. Management If you like what you read, get in touch! We d love to help you achieve everything you want in business and in life.

3 CONTENTS 1. 5 Things You Need To Know To Build Your Self-Managing Company 2. The 8 Transformations Of A 10x Entrepreneur 3. The Strategic Coach Approach to Overcoming Commoditization 4. The Strategic Coach Approach to Leadership vs. Management PAGE

4 Entrepreneurial SUCCESS STRATEGIES 15 Things You Need To Know To Build Your Self-Managing Company.

5 5 Things You Need To Know to build your Self-Managing Company. Imagine a scenario where you get to do just what you like in your business and it grows and prospers, even in your absence. You provide the evolving vision, and your team makes it real, often in ways you couldn t have imagined. In fact, many of the results and positive by-products they achieve amaze you. We re not talking passive income streams here, but a thriving company where you get to just focus on the part of the game of business that s fun for you the part that allows you to achieve your biggest business and personal goals and yet frees you from the task of management, which, let s face it, is not what any entrepreneur starts a business for. The Self-Managing Company is a company that manages itself to growth. In Self-Managing Companies, not only does the company grow when the entrepreneur is not there, it actually grows more, the more freed up the entrepreneur becomes. Freed up from what, you might ask? From everything you find energy-draining, distracting, frustrating, and tedious, and even those things you do exceedingly well that you re not really passionate about. 7

6 And, more importantly, freed up to do all the things you d rather be doing with that time and energy, whether that s focusing more on your spouse and kids, making a bigger impact in the world in the ways that matter to you, or finding and capturing your next really big business opportunity, and the one after that. For example, at Strategic Coach we ve helped many entrepreneurs achieve 10x growth in their businesses over the past 24 years, some several times over. Building a largely Self-Managing Company was a means to that growth in almost every case. (And having a 10x vision and 10x goals actually makes it easier to build a Self-Managing Company, which we ll get to later.) When you re not totally occupied with what s going on in your present company, you have a lot more time and energy to focus on building a future company that s 10x bigger or better. And you can do it without sacrificing an exeptional quality of life. By making their companies more self-managing, entrepreneurs in the Strategic Coach Program have been able to free themselves up to take year-long trips around the world with their families, write books, summit multiple world-class peaks, help thousands of people in less-fortunate circumstances, spend life-transforming time focused on their kids, and transform entire industries, all while their businesses continued to grow and thrive. This kind of entrepreneurial freedom, where your business becomes the vehicle for the achievement of all your life s goals, is what we re talking about. It s freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose: having the freedom to work only when you want, make as much money as you want, work with whomever you want, and create the kind of world you want. In our experience, most entrepreneurs who achieve this give up any thoughts of retirement. In fact, the notion becomes meaningless since they can create all the free time they want, and they get to stay in the game and evolve it so it s continually more fascinating and motivating. 8 If this sounds like a pretty great life, that s because it is. Every day, we have the pleasure of hearing from very switched on and satisfied entrepreneurs who attest to that.

7 But here s the catch: Only a certain subset of entrepreneurs have what it takes to pull this off in the near-term and an even smaller number within that subset ever manage to actually do it. (We ll get into the reasons why shortly.) The upside is that many more entrepreneurs could experience the freedom that a Self-Managing Company provides if they re willing to build the foundation. All it takes is a combination of attitudes and experience that are within any willing entrepreneur s grasp. At Strategic Coach, we ve had a unique opportunity to observe and identify what factors put entrepreneurs in a position to successfully build Self-Managing Companies. Twenty-five years of working closely with more than 16,500 top entrepreneurs from over 60 industries has given us a pretty clear picture of how those who succeed differ from those who fail or who are too daunted to try. The first observation is that building a Self-Managing Company is a gradual process one where every bit of progress has significant rewards. What it means to actually achieve this may differ from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, but increasing freedom, income, and quality of life simultaneously are the basic objectives. Most of the entrepreneurs we speak to agree that even small gains in freedom can cause major improvements in their enjoyment of life, the growth of their businesses, their peace of mind, and their mental and physical health. At 40 percent more freed up, an entrepreneur s life may appear completely transformed from where it was when they started. And, generally, it gets easier and more fun as they go along, mostly because changing habits at the beginning is the hardest part. That said, there s a short list of qualities that we ve found every entrepreneur must have to successfully embark on this journey of building a Self-Managing Company. Here they are in the form of questions, so you can quiz yourself: Are you an achievement entrepreneur? There are three types of entrepreneurs. The first is someone who s replaced working for someone else with working for themselves. Basically, this person hasn t created a business; they ve created a job. The difference between this job and other jobs is that it s harder to get fired, but the hours are terrible. The main object is survival, so we call this a Survival entrepreneur. The vast majority of people who fall under the broad category of entrepreneur are self-employed survival entrepreneurs. It goes without saying that if you re not amassing the resources to be able to hire, you don t have a company, and if you don t have a company, you can t have a Self-Managing Company. 9

8 3 Types Of Entrepreneurs Survival Lifestyle Achievement Job Status Growth The second type of entrepreneur had a particular lifestyle in mind growing up. This involved making a certain amount of money, having a certain kind of house in the right part of town, belonging to the right clubs, rubbing elbows with the right kind of people in their town, and putting their kids in the right kind of schools. They may grow a business to achieve this, but once their income and success hit that level, then it becomes about maintenance. They don t really want to go any further. We call these Lifestyle entrepreneurs. There s nothing wrong with being a lifestyle entrepreneur, and many people are quite content in this kind of scenario. But it doesn t lay the best foundation for creating a Self-Managing Company. The reason is that if your goals only go as far as your own lifestyle, you re not likely to attract or harness the passions of people who will go above and beyond to make your business grow. (More on this when we get to the next question on vision.) For the third kind of entrepreneur, the main goal in their life is growth. When they reach one level, they have a compelling need to say, Okay. Let s go to the next level. And the reason they do this is that it s fun. For them, entrepreneurship is a game, and their current success level is just the foundation for the next set of achievements. We call this an Achievement entrepreneur. Achievement entrepreneurs are in the best position to create Self-Managing Companies. Their past achievements and the fact that they re always striving for more mean the pie is always getting bigger in these companies, which is a big attraction for growth-minded team members who want to play the game with them. Their biggest challenge tends to be the complexity that grows with success, and a Self-Managing Company becomes an attractive solution to regain simplicity, so building one is well worth the effort. On a continuum from Survival to Achievement, with Lifestyle sitting somewhere in the middle, how do you rate your entrepreneurial ambitions? Survival Lifestyle Achievement Are you experienced enough? You might think it would be easier to build a Self-Managing Company from the ground up, but in our experience, having a solid financial foundation and skill in growing a company to a certain level of success, as well as great clientele and a strong marketplace reputation, is vital. Without a solid base of resources, relationships, market knowledge, and a proven, functioning business model, there s just too much to do and figure out and not enough cash coming in to get traction. After a minimum of about three years, as long as the business is generating a healthy six-figure income for the entrepreneur, most successful businesses have enough momentum (and predictable cash flow) that the entrepreneur 10

9 can begin thinking about moving toward a more Self-Managing Company. They know what the business is and that their basic survival needs are going to be covered, and it s time to free themselves up to start spending more time doing only what they re best at to grow it. The ones who build a Self-Managing Company are those who see everything they ve done up till now as Stage 1 in their entrepreneurial career and, with that as a foundation, are ready to move on to Stage 2 where much more becomes possible. What stage are you at right now? Start-up/<3 yrs. Veteran/Stage 2-ready Is your vision big enough? In a Self-Managing Company, by definition, you have others doing a lot of the work and organizing, motivating, and scoring themselves toward increasingly better performance. How do you get people to do this on their own? Nothing succeeds in galvanizing effort like a really big, really clear vision. We re talking about the kind of vision that s much bigger than you that others can passionately get behind because it s aligned in some way with their own personal and professional goals. And to create this, you have to be passionate and clear yourself. You are the leader, after all. In the Self-Managing Company, leadership, not management, is the entrepreneur s focus and role. The object is to inspire and direct and provide clarity when necessary. With a big, compelling vision, you unify your team in the belief that you re creating a bigger future together so they can confidently focus on making sure the present business is running well and headed in the right direction. Think of it like laying down track for a train. As long as the engineers are confident the track will be there and it s going to the right place, they can do everything they need to to keep the train running with very little input on your part. At Coach, we can help entrepreneurs clarify their vision and communicate it better, but the big part has to come from them. Only you know what you re passionate about. A Self-Managing Company thrives on big, ambitious goals 11

10 that inspire others. We suggest thinking 10x even if it s only in a small area or single project at first to get yourself firmly into that realm. And, just to be clear, we re not talking altruism here. This is about creating real value, the likes of which has never been seen before by your audience, either because it s totally innovative or just patently superior to what else exists in that space. In other words, you re passionate about being a hero to a specific target market by providing more direction, confidence, or capability in some area than they can find elsewhere. In return, they will reward you with things like money, referrals, trust, loyalty, a great reputation, and opportunities to further multiply your capabilities. This is a game worth winning for all the players, and your Self-Managing Company will be made up of people who enjoy the game you lay out for them. So, how s your vision? Foggy/Ho-hum Clear/Game-changing Are you willing to focus on your strengths and delegate the rest? When it comes to building a Self-Managing Company, rugged individualists need not apply. A Self-Managing Company implies letting others, to some extent, run the show (though you get to say what the show is and keep innovating to make it better). This can be terrifying for some entrepreneurs so scary, in fact, that they d rather stay stuck at a certain level of growth and sacrifice personal freedom to stay in control of things that, if they could only step back and see it, are not the most productive use of their time. You may be understandably reluctant to delegate if you feel that your support team or the level of teamwork in your company is not equal to your big goals and opportunities. However, consider the alternative: feeling overwhelmed by too much opportunity, or pressured by too many demands on your time and attention to the point where you no longer have the strategic clarity or the time or energy to create the life or the business you want. Not fun. And yet too many entrepreneurs get stuck in this situation. It s a fact of business that success breeds complexity and that, without increasing teamwork and delegation, most of this will tend to fall on the shoulders of the entrepreneur. It s the ability to counteract this tendency that makes the Self-Managing Company so appealing. 12 And it starts with the ability and willingness to free yourself up increasingly to do what creates the biggest results in your business by letting others take what s not this off your hands.

11 What s left will be what we call your Unique Ability. This is where your skill and passion intersect and create maximum value for the marketplace. It s where you have a superior skill and a neverending capacity for growth and improvement that eventually take you into genius territory. Working in your Unique Ability gives you energy rather than draining it. Think of those moments when you really feel in the zone, or things that others thank you for that seem like nothing, because you make something exceptional seem so easy. That s Unique Ability in action. Unique Ability fuels the growth of a Self-Managing Company. Identify and focus on your own and delegate everything else, preferably to others who have a Unique Ability in those areas. When everyone is doing something they re passionate about and great at, and you have the clear vision we talked about above as a road map so people can see where their skills and contributions fit into the bigger picture, the need for management in the traditional top-down sense falls away. In our experience, if you insist on managing everything, you will always need to manage everything because your team will never get more capable or more confident. In a Unique Ability Team scenario, the team gets stronger and smarter by doing, and learning, and doing better, driven by each team member s passion for excellence and personal growth, which brings us to the next question. But first, take a moment to score yourself honestly. How willing are you to delegate everything except those things that energize you and create the biggest results for your business? Does the prospect of doing this excite you or frighten you (with moderate apprehension somewhere in the middle)? Yikes! Excited! Are you committed to never-ending learning and growth? If you answered yes to question one, the answer to this question is almost certainly yes, to a certain extent. Achievement entrepreneurs like to learn and grow. The successful ones often have multiple coaches and mastermind groups they learn from. They may be avid readers too. They re clearly willing to invest in themselves and in trying new things, and more than anything, they re into learning by doing. In fact, a good deal of their success has come by trial and error with the attitude that failure is the pathway to success. Obstacles to a goal are merely the raw material that point you toward the strategies necessary to achieve it. So why are we adding this to the list of qualities? Because the ones who go the extra mile to create Self-Managing Companies are committed not just to their own never-ending learning and growth, but to their team s as well, and 13

12 that s a real test. Are you willing to let your team make mistakes and fail in order to learn like you did? Do you trust them enough to make progress, not perfection a mantra, meaning that they are free to make mistakes as long as they learn and do better next time? You may be seeing why a solid financial foundation and a great clientele are necessary. There has to be room for learning. To be fair, many of the entrepreneurs we ve seen build Self-Managing Companies did not feel totally comfortable with this at the beginning. But they were open enough to the idea and bought into it enough in principle to at least experiment with it, and with results came increased confidence. In some cases, it took some time to get there, and it usually started by taking a bit of free time completely cut off from the office, and then some more, and then a LOT more. In the process, their teams learned to deal with whatever came up without them. From this, all the other obstacles to self-management within the team became evident and fixable. The sign of success? When your team is glad to see you go so they can really get some work done. And when you can truly disengage and feel confident that the business is likely to be in better shape when you come back because they ve got it under control and you trust their judgment. Not that you re dispensable. They still want you to provide them with the big picture and leadership, and do what you do best to drive the business forward. It s just that they know you ll do better when you re rested and rejuvenated, and if you re not getting distracted by micromanaging or things that are not your Unique Ability. In this sense, the Self-Managing Company is a feat of teamwork between you and your team one that pays off in multiples of opportunity, freedom, and increased income. The best news is, building it may be easier than you think. Infusing your team with entrepreneurial energy means you no longer have to shoulder all the weight of innovation and driving growth. Every bit of progress makes your life simpler and your results bigger, which in turn sets you up to take advantage of even greater opportunities. Don t worry at this point if you don t know how to do it yet. The question is, given that this is one of the magic keys to getting your company to be truly self-managing, how committed are you willing to be to supporting never-ending learning and growth as a central value for everyone in your organization? No way Totally committed

13 How do you score? The higher your scores on each of these five questions, the easier you ll find it to build a Self-Managing Company, starting right now. If you scored 9 or above on all five questions, perhaps you ve already begun to build some selfmanaging aspects into your business, and if you haven t, you re well-primed to make progress quickly, especially with the right direction and tools. Lower on some than others? No worries. As we said in the beginning, these are all attitudes and qualities any willing entrepreneur can cultivate. If it s just experience you re lacking (low score in #2), it may just not be time yet, but in the meantime you can keep strengthening the other attitudes as you build your business. In any of the other four areas, it s really up to your desire to improve. Now that you know what it takes, you can start the process of making your company more self-managing, knowing that as your scores increase, it will just get easier. Unless one or more of the five seems like an absolute deal-killer in the sense that you know you ll never want to score higher than a 2 or 3, a Self-Managing Company is within your reach. The main point is that strengthening these five dimensions in ways that raise your scores will put you in a better position to make progress toward the Self-Managing Company quickly, which means more freedom sooner. What comes next? So how do you actually build a Self-Managing Company once you ve laid the foundation? The Strategic Coach Program helps experienced Achievement entrepreneurs build Self-Managing Companies by: Increasingly freeing them up from everything that s not their Unique Ability. Building and strengthening an entrepreneurial attitude within their team. Helping them develop a 10x vision and goals that clarify decisions, bring great people on board, and inspire and motivate team members to contribute the best of their talents and energy. Providing simple, practical structures to help team members be more selfmanaging so the entrepreneur can focus on leadership, innovation, and fully making use of marketing, technology, genius networks, and exponentials to grow the business. 15

14 Entrepreneurial SUCCESS STRATEGIES 2 The 8 Transformations Of A 10x Entrepreneur

15 The8 Transformations Of A 10x Entrepreneur 19

16 Remember when your personal and professional success was 10x less than it is today? Now here you are, where it s normal to have what would have seemed impossible then. If you want to do it again grow your success 10x while enjoying greater simplicity and freedom the 8 transformations in this guide are the path to getting there. They re based on the process we use in the Strategic Coach Program, which we ve evolved over 25 years of working closely with more than 16,500 entrepreneurs from over 60 different industries. Read through them and picture yourself in the shoes of a 10x entrepreneur someone who can multiply anything in life by 10x confidently, enjoyably, and predictably. 1 2 Transform all your current activities into Unique Ability Teamwork with you in the center. Transform the management of your company into a single, fast, easy, simple system. Imagine a circle. This represents everything you do that takes up all of your time. Inside this is a smaller circle of things you do when you re at your very best or what we call your Unique Ability. Now imagine taking that smaller circle and expanding it so you get to do much more of what you do best, while everything else you currently spend time and energy on is taken care of by others who are good at and enjoy those things. This is Unique Ability Teamwork, and it s absolutely critical for growing your results exponentially without growing the complexity of your life and business. Your Unique Ability Team will play a big role in your growing ability to accomplish so much more within the same circle of available time. When things are taken care of by the right people, you re freed up to grow the business much faster and have time for all the other things you enjoy and that make your life complete. Here s another exercise: Imagine that everyone in your company just knows what to do. They re clear about how to help the company reach its goals, and they re also highly motivated and passionate about getting those results. In fact, they re often happier when you re out of the office, because they can just get on with the business of growing the company without spending too much time reporting to you. You, in turn, trust them to make the right decisions and give you only the feedback you need to create the vision and direction for the future to keep them on track. Beneath this idyllic reality is a system of communication and problem-solving structures and tools processes everyone knows how to use that quickly and effectively get everyone on board and moving forward, no matter the challenge. This is what Unique Teamwork can look like in the service of a 10x growth mindset and the clear communication of really big goals with big payoffs. 20

17 3 Transform your time management into continually increasing productivity and profitability. matching your expertise with the areas where they most need new direction, confidence, and capability. Once you ve identified what you re passionate about, the audience you want to be a hero to, and where your greatest growth opportunities lie, you ll know exactly which opportunities to zero in on and where you can do some strategic pruning. One of the very first things you learn in Strategic Coach is how to think about time in a completely different way that lets you be more focused, present, creative, and energized. Your time is the one finite resource you have as an entrepreneur. Get control of it, and you can use it as a tool to produce all the results you want in every area of your life. You ll have time for everything whether you re creating the biggest results for your business, planning or developing new capabilities, spending enjoyable time with your family, or getting relaxed and rejuvenated away from work. Plus, you ll have the luxury of capturing opportunities to grow and enjoy life, knowing that, all the while, your business is prospering more. 4 Transform your money-making into a process that multiplies your biggest and best clientele. Once you zero in on what you love to do and do best your Unique Ability the question becomes, Who rewards me best for doing this? Your best clientele are willing to pay for bigger, better solutions. To create these, you need to focus on and simplify your money-making activities so you re not distracted from opportunities by a team or systems that aren t up to the task, and you re not overwhelmed by too many opportunities. 5Transform your lifestyle with a higher quantity and quality of Free Days. Perhaps you re already really good at taking free time, but if you re one of the many entrepreneurs who hasn t taken a real work-free day in years and we re talking about free from all work-related thinking and activities there are huge advantages to be gained by taking real time off, scary as it may sound. As much as you may love your business, you ll love it, and your life, even more when you get to take some time away from it to explore other things that offer different kinds of rewards. This could mean climbing mountains, or spending more time with your family. (This is the part of the Program where kids thank us for giving them their mom or dad back.) And while you re away, your team gets a chance to shine in your absence, developing new confidence and strengths that enable them to multiply the business on their own. You ll be a better parent, a better leader, and simply a nicer person to be around when you have guiltand-stress-free time off not to mention that you'll actually make more money. Wasn t being free to spend your time as you wanted part of why you became an entrepreneur in the first place? A very satisfying way to do this is to create and package a dream solution for your dream market, 21

18 6Transform all your marketing and selling into a unique solution with no competition. When you re the only one offering water in a desert, you don t have to do a lot of marketing and selling to move your product. The need for marketing and selling is inversely proportional to how desirable and essential your product is. When your product is essential, people look for you rather than you having to look for them. When it helps them get something they deeply desire, you re out of the world of price competition and into a realm of unique value creation. Imagine you have an intimate knowledge of your clients and prospects what keeps them up at night, what they re most excited about, and what they ve got going for them that they d like to put to even better use. Then combine this understanding with what you know and do best, creating dream solutions that your clients love and your competition can t even understand, much less copy. This is the true essence of entrepreneurship, and it takes you outside the bounds of what others in your industry are thinking and doing. Eventually, you learn how to package and distribute your unique value so that your ideas are out there selling you 24/7, rather than you having to sell them. 7Transform your support team so that everyone is alert, curious, responsive, and resourceful. your vision and goals will contribute exponentially more than batteries not included people, who might be bright and talented but aren t fully engaged. Set these four qualities as your standard, and you ll notice a change in energy around your business as everyone starts to enjoy collaborating and even just coming into work a whole lot more. 8 Greatly extend your healthy lifetime and your active, creative, and productive career. Imagine yourself at retirement age, whatever that means for you. Now, imagine you re at a peak in terms of your health, relationships, and business success, engaged in activities that constantly fascinate and motivate you. You love what you re doing and the life it provides you. So why would you stop? When you develop the ability to multiply anything you want by 10x and doing it is increasingly fun and rewarding, you ll discover enough goals to keep you loving your entrepreneurial life for decades. The Strategic Coach Program: A total support system for entrepreneurs dedicated to 10x growth. Just by reading these 8 transformations, you've gained a new context for thinking about your business and your future. But any good plan only becomes a reality when you have the practical structure and tools to make it happen in your daily life. This is what the Strategic Coach Program provides: a complete, proven support system to help you make the 8 transformations you ve just read about. When you re trying to grow exponentially, there s really no room for dead weight. Alert, curious, responsive, and resourceful people who have a talent for their role and are aligned with 22

19 Entrepreneurial SUCCESS STRATEGIES 3The Strategic Coach Approach to Overcoming Commoditization

20 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Overcoming Commoditization Package the process Name the process charging for added value SELL Package the process Name the process Price the process and stages charging for added value SELL Price the process and stages Constantly improve Constantly improve Package the process me the process Price the process and stages added value improve 25

21 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Overcoming Commoditization Entrepreneurs, regardless of the size or nature of their businesses, are being caught in what we call The Commoditization Trap. Probably the best description of this trap comes from a book published in 1999 called The Lexus And The Olive Tree by Thomas L. Friedman: A commodity is any good, service or process that can be produced by any number of firms, and the only distinguishing feature between these firms is who can do it cheapest. Having your product or service turned into a commodity is no fun because it means your profit margins will become razor thin, you will have dozens of competitors, and all you can do every day is make that product or service cheaper and sell more of it than the next guy, or die. The forces of commoditization are presenting businesses with a tough decision: Either make your living in the global commodity economy based on volume selling and razor-thin margins or transform your business so that it s part of the global experience economy where you can raise your prices as you increase the quality of the unique experience you offer. Producing a unique experience through constantly increasing value creation. Unique experiences don t just happen. You can t create them simply by improving the quality of your products and services. The movement into the experience economy requires transforming your entire approach with prospects, clients, and customers. It requires that you focus everything you do on value creation. commodity language to describe it to your clientele. In order for it to be properly presented, you need to package it in a unique fashion. You need to fundamentally change your attitude about what you re doing as an entrepreneur. From this point forward, you ll be selling commodities only to implement various parts of what we call your Unique Process. The Unique Process the step-bystep way in which you create value will be the central organizing structure of your innovation, marketing, research, and development The Unique Process This is what makes you different in the marketplace, but it has been devalued until now because you used 26

22 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Overcoming Commoditization Seven steps to packaging your unique value. 1. Start charging for added value. Stop giving away your value for free to help sell commodities. Charge for all of it as early in the process as possible. 2. Name the stages of your value process. Go through the entire process that now leads to the commodity sale. Identify every contact point with your clients and customers where you deliver value. Write down each of these deliverables as a separate item and draw a circle, box, or arrow around it. Then, connect all of them as a process. These are the stages of your Unique Process. Give each stage a unique name. 3. Name the process itself. Once you have the names of all the stages, ask yourself this question: What is the central benefit that the entire process provides? Consider the most important dangers it eliminates, the most important opportunities it captures, and the most important strengths it reinforces. From this thinking, a name will emerge. 4. Price the process and stages. Take a look at each of the deliverable stages in your process. Ask yourself, If this single stage of value creation were my only business in the marketplace, how much would I charge clients and customers to go through it? Establish two prices: a starting price and a target price you d like to charge after success has increased your confidence. Price each of the stages in this fashion. Then, add them all up to find the overall price for someone to go through your entire process. 5. Package the process. Packaging is a continual journey. You will always be finding new ways to make your process more distinctive. But to start, there is only one package you need: a one-page diagram, in color, that clearly shows someone your complete process and the name of each stage. You could produce limited copies for an initial trial phase in the marketplace. 6. Sell the process. Now, go out and start selling. Our experience tells us that, out of the first ten attempts, you will get between three and five sales. The first cheque you receive will totally transform your entrepreneurial consciousness, confidence, and capability. 7. Constantly improve. After your first trial phase, modify your process to make it better. Increase your pricing as soon as possible. Keep doing this, adding new support packaging, for the rest of your career. As you experience success in charging for your process, you will find new areas of value creation that can be added and charged for. Obstacles to charging for your wisdom. Once you ve outlined and packaged your process, your commodity-trained mind will come up with all sorts of reasons why charging for it is impossible: It just isn t done this way. My competitors don t do it, so why should I? If I start charging, I ll lose all the competitive advantages I have. Clients and prospects will think this is crazy. Everybody knows that prospects are interested in one thing and one thing only: the lowest possible price for the commodity. My industry doesn t allow me to charge for my value. My wisdom and creativity aren t really worth all 27

23 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Overcoming Commoditization that much. I don t know how to get started. Here s the real obstacle. The fact is that the way you talk about your wisdom and creativity makes it sound like a commodity. So, in order to begin overcoming all these other obstacles, you have to change the very language you use to describe what you do. Escaping from the trap. Using a metaphor from nature, the global economy is moving from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. In this economic metamorphosis, everything is being commoditized in order to free up resources for the next stage. The more that consumers can save on commodities, the more they can spend on unique experiences. What people are looking for are unique entrepreneurial processes that enable them to eliminate their most important dangers, capture their best opportunities, and maximize their greatest strengths. The entrepreneurs who can innovate these processes will experience constant success and increasing profitability. Those who continue to make and sell commodities can expect increasing difficulties of every kind. It s about their future and your wisdom. Packaging and charging for value enables clients and customers to have a bigger and better future not as you define that future, but as they do; not based on selling your products and services, but rather on transforming their dangers, opportunities, and strengths. To bring about this transformation, you have to give your clientele direct access to all of your entrepreneurial wisdom and do it in a uniquely packaged fashion that always differentiates you from everyone else in the marketplace. Having a predictable entrepreneurial future in an unpredictable world. We always tell Strategic Coach entrepreneurs, You might as well live a great life, because you re going to put in the time anyway. A great life for entrepreneurs means one where they can deal with the future on their terms, achieving greater creativity, profitability, and satisfaction, and having clients who provide not only increasing amounts of money, but also longrange commitment and partnership. NEXT STEPS: 1. Identify and document what you re already doing to create value for your clients. Share this with your clients and team. 2. Look at each point of contact with your clients and see what you could do to further strengthen and package the experience you provide. 3. Read our Knowledge Products, Industry Transformers and The Dan Sullivan Question by Dan Sullivan, available in our online store at strategiccoach.com/store 28

24 Entrepreneurial SUCCESS STRATEGIES 4The Strategic Coach Approach to Leadership vs. Management

25 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Leadership vs. Management Management UNIQUE TALENT Innovation Management UNIQUE TALENT Innovation Management UNIQUE TALENT Innovation nagement Quality improvement Quality improvement LENT PROCESS leadership Quality improvement PROCESS leadership PROCESS leadership Quality improvement PROCESS adership 31

26 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Leadership vs. Management Successful entrepreneurs are leaders. They have a vision of a bigger future that will benefit those around them their team, their clients, their family, their community, and in some cases, the world. This always involves new ideas, and new and creative ways of solving problems for people. In all these areas of a leader s life, they provide direction which in turn gives others clarity, confidence, and greater capabilities. In a fast-changing, commodity-based world, a strong leader who can help those around them be more clear, confident, and capable is of immeasurable value. Let s look at five distinctions that will help you to see more clearly your role as a leader in your company. In control vs. in charge. First, let s draw the distinction between in control and in charge. Being in control means running and controlling an established system. Being in charge means charging up your team with your vision and getting them excited. With the world changing rapidly, someone needs to be looking out for the overall company and anticipating what s needed next for future success. In Control Management Process Quality Improvement Process Manager In Charge Leadership Unique Talent Innovation Project Manager 32

27 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Leadership vs. Management Well-managed companies take all the activities in the company and turn them into documented processes. Management vs. leadership. Being in charge is about directing and providing leadership, while being in control is about management. The leader s job is to look beyond the horizon to make sure that what the company is doing stays relevant to the outside world, while the managers control the existing systems. It s very hard for someone to be equally good at both managing and leading they re two very different functions. Process vs. unique talent. Well-managed companies take all the activities in the company and turn them into documented processes. These either show the company s value creation process or are geared to the work flow, how the clients are supported, and so on. These processes help sell and also ensure that the company is getting things done in the most sensible, effective, and efficient way using the unique talents of the people involved. For the most part, people who are good managers are skilled at converting things into processes. They can see all the moving parts and how they fit together. Leaders, on the other hand, are really good at seeing individual areas of Unique Ability that will expand the company. In the digital age, some of these abilities aren t inside your company. Leaders are always looking for abilities, both internal and external, that will multiply and expand the organization. Quality improvement vs. innovation. The fourth distinction is that the primary objective of the manager is constant quality improvement. If there are glitches in the system, the manger fixes them. The primary goal of the leader, on the other hand, is innovation. The leader is always asking, What do customers want to buy next? What will they pay more for? What improves our position in the marketplace? The manager s job is to then take over the innovations (new capabilities, products, and experiences) once they start to become profitable. It s like a relay, with the leader focused on the broad result and the manager figuring out the means. A lot of leaders fall short because they never give the team a clear picture of what the results look like. As the leader, your job is to set up the framework consistently communicating to everyone what the game is, how to win, and what it looks like when the game is won. Then others can adjust their efforts, skills, abilities, and resources to that vision. Team members know how to win inside their processes, but it s hard for them to expand their processes if they don t see the bigger game being played. Process manager vs. project manager. The fifth distinction is the difference between a process manager and a project manager. What s missing in most entrepreneurial organizations is a connection between the leaders and the managers. There s an intervening person needed, and that person is a project manager. First, let s look at process managers. The greatest love of a process manager is 33

28 THE STRATEGIC COACH APPROACH to Leadership vs. Management managing processes that already exist and constantly improving them. The greatest love of a project manager is doing something new. Again, these are two different kinds of people. Here s a quick way of understanding the difference between these two in action. Have you ever gone back to your office really excited about a new idea and shared it with a team member, but found they weren t quite as excited as you were? If so, you were probably talking to a process manager. Process managers already have a list of current processes that are tied to making money, and their list is more important than anything you re going to come up with. As a result, the new idea goes to the bottom of their list. You ve brought them a new idea, but it doesn t mean money to them yet. A project manager is different. When you bring them a new idea, it s immediately exciting to them, and they love the idea of implementing it. Right away, they want to be your partner in fleshing it out to see if it ll work. The process manager will take the idea and say, Well, I m already doing all this other stuff, so where does it fit in? The project manager will fit it in. Their responses are neither right nor wrong. The key lies in distinguishing the right person to share new ideas with and how your organization is going to buy into your new idea. Focus on being in charge. Now that you have these five distinctions, you can get really clear on your role as the leader in your company. The role you play is invaluable you re in charge of innovating new ideas and solutions and of setting the context for the future growth of the organization. Get the right process and project managers in place, let them manage the processes within your company, and you ll be freed up to use your Unique Ability to provide direction, confidence, and capabilities to your clientele and to your organization. NEXT STEPS: 1. Share these five distinctions with your team. 2. Define what is and what isn t your role as the leader in charge. 3. Identify your project and process managers, and outline the unique talents needed to help your company grow. 34

29 What entrepreneurial breakthroughs can you expect when you join the Program? Call us to find out! or Toll Free From The UK:

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