What is your personal product?

While working late one night at my first job after college, I struck up a conversation with the owner about success in business. I asked him if there were any key lessons he could team me about how to become a huge success. He told me wryly, in a way that only a very wealthy and successful person could articulate, that business came down to 3 simple rules. He said, “First, never run out of money. Second, have a big dream and finally, find the best people who believe in your dream.” I thought initially that he was being humorous. Then after reflecting on these thoughts for some time, I realized his brilliance. Master these 3 concepts and you’ll have success in business.

Simply never running out of money should seem obvious to anyone who ventures out in business. Amazingly enough, most businesses fail to budget properly for items such as travel, entertainment, inventory, advertizing and slow times. Then, when the winds of change blow, they find themselves like the three little pigs staring at their business built of twigs flat on the ground.

Having a dream seems simple enough. After all, isn’t it a dream to be independent that was the catalyst for starting your business in the first place? Unfortunately, the desire to be rid of a boss is not a dream; it is a wish, more akin to a whim. A dream is something that dictates the action of a person. Much like programming language to a computer, a dream is the code that makes a person carry out difficult tasks when others would give up. A dream is the very essence, central to one’s core personality. In other words, you can fake out those around you telling them you want one thing, but you can’t lie to yourself psyche- your subconscious or the residence of your dream.

To be truly successful, we need to concretely etch out dreams in our consciousness. Make your dream so vivid, that when awaken from a deep sleep at 2 am and asked, “What is your dream,?” you can answer quickly and succinctly.

Think of your business as a mathematical equation. Finding the people who believe in your dream is a last variable in solving the equation to a successful business.
1 x 1 will always result in a product of 1. Therefore, if you don’t budget your finances, concretely solidify your dream and lead your business as the highest factor in the equation, you will never have a large product.

Based John Maxwell’s concept of attraction he calls, “The Law of Attraction,” one cannot attract individuals of greater factor then they exhibit. Loosely put, if you are a 5 on a scale of 1 -10, with 10 being the highest factor, you will never attract a 6 or greater until you raise your personal factor. No matter how hard you work, all of your effort will be multiplied by a factor less than your own.

What is your product? Is it a 1? Is it a 3 or a 7? What is the result obtained by multiplying your effort and leadership by 2 or more people in your business? To find your product, evaluate the following factors:

1. Money-
Do you budget for your business? Do you have a budget written out? How much can you expect to spend quarterly on travel, on advertisement of your success through the clothes you wear, the watch you don, and the car you drive? Who will you spend money on for dinners and lunches as entertainment? People understand that success leaves clues.

Give yourself a 1 if you don’t have a budget.
Give yourself a 1 if you haven’t met your personal quota for individual sales.
Give yourself a 2 if you have set aside $200 per month.
Give yourself a 5 if you have set aside $500 per month.
Give yourself a 7 if you have set aside $1000 per month.
Give yourself a 10 if you have set aside $2000 per month AND have met your personal sales quota.

2. Your dream-
Is your dream concrete? Do you have it written in a place where you can go to it daily and show it for people to read themselves? Are you consistently telling people your dream? Does your closest friend or spouse know your dream well enough to repeat it? Have you pursued your dream for 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?

Give yourself a 1 if you don’t have a written dream.
Give yourself a 2 if you have a written dream.
Give yourself a 3 if you have a written dream, AND your closest friend or spouse can recite your dream.
Give yourself a 5 if your dream is written, your friend knows it and you’ve pursued it for more than 2 years. (If you’ve pursued your dream for less than a year, default yourself a 1).
Give yourself a 7 if your dream is written, your friend can recite it and you’ve pursued it for 5 years.
Give yourself a 10 if your dream is written, your friend can recite it, and you’ve pursued it for 10 or more years.

3. People-

Finding the people who believe in your dream is a matter of consistently and aggressively sharing your dream. How often are you sharing with others that you have a dream, that one day…

Give yourself a 1 if you have told 20 or less people in the last year about your dream.
Give yourself a 2 if you’ve told 40 or less people.
Give yourself a 3 if you’ve told 60 or less people.
Give yourself a 4 if you’ve told 80 or less people.
Give yourself a 5 if you’ve told 100 or less people.
Give yourself a 6 for 200 people.
“ “ a 7 for 300…
an 8 for 500…
a 9 for 800…
a 10 for 1000 or more (note that averages about 3 per day).

You should have noticed that the product of your cusses in business is greatly multiplied more by your individual effort of sharing your dream than by any other factor.

Tally each of the 3 scores you get in the categories. Then, take an average of the scores. This is your personal factor. For example:

Money- 1
Dream-3
People-1
1 + 3 + 1 = 5. 5/ 3 = 1.6

Consider that if your personal factor is a 1.6, then everyone in your team is at most a 1.6. Therefore, the greatest product you could have working together is 2.56. If you want to increase your success in business, simply increase your personal factor. By raising your personal factor to a 5 or 6 at minimum you effort of working with even the lowest person that is attracted to your business will multiply.

Once you raise your personal factor, you will find the mathematics of a 10 working with even a 2 a greater product than a 1 working with a 1.