if we look at public companies how is a
public company evaluated well one of the
evaluations is called the price earnings
ratio and right so you say a company is
worth this much per share because of its
earnings per share the earning ability
of a company’s what determines the value
of the stock determines the value of the
company when Apple is sailing it becomes
the most valuable company in the world
when Samsung comes out and cuts into
their sales and Apple sales level off
its earning ability levels off and the
stock begins to decline so one of the
things you need to do is see yourself as
a company and see yourself as a company
with one person and with one share of
stock now if you were a company and you
were evaluating yourself on the basis of
your earning ability or you wanted to
sell stock in your personal company to
someone else would you say that you
should invest in this stock yourself
because this is a growth stock this is
going up in value every single week and
every month this is developing new
skills and capabilities if it’s earning
this amount this Micra if my company me
is earning this much this year next year
earning 50% more because the critical
factor that determines the growth of
stock prices is anticipated increases in
earning bill so now right so see
yourself as a company and ask yourself
am i a growth stock what I’ve tell
myself to do to old people and children
but I saw myself to a pension fund it’s
been a really safe solid investment it’s
going up in value all the time now you
don’t go up in value accidentally you go
up in value deliberately in a
competitive market so how is it that
companies increase their value well
mostly they grease it two things one is
Rd research and development they’re
constantly developing new products and
services that compete well in our
marketplace so they can sell more of
them the companies that are most
successful are the ones they’re
constantly coming out with new and
better products and services and they’re
jumping over their competition well what
is rnd personally personally rng is
upgrading your skills developing the
once
you need at this time to move ahead and
then the next skill and becoming a
continual learner so you’re constantly
investing time and money in yourself in
getting better and better to increase
your earning ability so a good question
you always ask is what one skill would
help me to double my income faster than
any other skill and then you work on
that you know you can’t learn everything
so just pick one thing at a time we say
be a sniper you know would be you know
what the motto in sniper school is one
shot one kill one shot one kill that’s
how they teach snipers they have it on
television all the time and you need to
be the same thing one shot one kill
Warren Buffett was at a dinner party
with Bill Gates and Bill Gates senior
and they were talking together because
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are good
friends have been for a long time and
Bill Gates father very very successful
businessman
in Seattle they were at a dinner party
in the three of them were talking about
it away and somebody came up to them and
asked him a question and he said excuse
me gentlemen these are two of the five
richest men in the world both started
with nothing by the way started zero
Warren Warren Buffett started with
$2,000 that he earned by delivering
newspapers when he was 14 15 and 16 and
is now his company’s worth three hundred
and sixty billion dollars and his
companies made twenty four billion last
year not bad perfect
so anyway so they came up to me and they
said gentlemen excuse me for
interrupting you but we’ve just been
noticing you’re talking and we had a
question for you what would you say is
the most important skill for success and
they have all three turned to him and
said the same word simultaneously focus
focus is the most important requirement
for success with focus you can do
anything and without focus you can do
nothing focus is the key to success and
but all three said it simultaneously
without asking each other focus and it’s
really interesting because I began
teaching this concept back in the year
2000 I began it a coaching and mentoring
program that I called focal point focal
point coaching you know the focal point
is where if you hold a magnifying glass
in a certain way it will have a focal
point that burns and you can burn few
things well so I call it the focal point
and I’ve taught thousands of business
owners that have still all over the
world in multiple languages now they can
look at each part of their business and
focus on the one thing in each area that
they can do right now that will have the
greatest positive impact everything else
they do has a lesser impact or no impact
and your ability to select the one thing
that can have the greatest impact on
your life at any time and focus focus is
the key to your success that’s why I’m
so concerned about the I call it the
attraction of distraction
it is so disturbing because it
guarantees failure in life you actually
become addicted to distraction and you
can’t stop you’re just like a dope
addict you’ve got to have your
distraction and if you have if you if
you are addicted to distraction you
can’t focus and if you can’t focus you
haven’t got a chance against someone who
can and so therefore it’s like hitting
this a little bit hard but I want you to
think about it because most people slip
into this attraction of distraction and
the Bernina we’re not even aware of it
many of you are a little bit surprised
when I talk about it because you hadn’t
even really thought about it and you
really thought about how much time you
spend during the day
Henry etches about 80% and the rest of
the time by the end of the day you’re
too tired to do anything worthwhile to
do the really important things that have
big potential consequences so your
earning ability is your most important
quality and your earning ability means
developing on skill at a time that can
help you the most to get the most
important results that determine your
success and their happiness now here’s
the great payoff is they say that
happiness is the progressive realisation
of a worthy goal or ideal when you
actually feel yourself moving
progressively toward achieving something
that’s important to you you feel happy
and your brain releases endorphins now
endorphins are different from dopamine’s
but endorphins are nature’s happy drug
they make you happy
Dorfman’s make you more creative they
make you calmer
they make you more personable they make
you more focused and they just and they
give you more energy so people who have
high levels of endorphins are very
healthy they sleep well they’re very
personable they’re creative all the time
and you can actually develop a positive
addiction to endorphins and the way you
do that is you work on things that are
moving you toward your goals on a
regular basis and so every day you feel
this forward progress is forward
momentum human beings are designed so
that we’re only happy when we feel
effective when we feel that we are
accomplishing something when we feel
productive when we feel valuable there’s
the one of the challenges we have with
welfare in any country that has it but
especially in the u.s. is people can
very quickly get addicted to welfare but
by coming becoming addicted to welfare
and free money they become angry they
develop feelings of inferiority they
become alcoholic they all the joy in
life is gone when they’re not doing
something productive when they’re not
contributing the rule is that your self
esteem and self confidence are largely
determined by the degree to which you
feel you are make putting more in than
you’re getting back out it’s a very
simple concept is you feel that you’re
actually contributing more than you get
if you’re at a job and you feel that
you’re not contributing as much as
they’re paying you you feel really angry
it has it it seems to have a deep
negative effect on your personality but
when you feel that you’re doing a great
job that you’re really making a
difference or a contribution you feel
wonderful about yourself and the only
way that you can achieve that is by
having clear goals and then focus well
so I began to study management when I
got into business many years ago and
I’ve read 6,000 books I’ve studied an
average of three hours a day for 50
years hate to say it 50 years but about
100 bit about 150,000 hours I’ve read
every conceivable book I possibly could
and articles and I’m still reading and
learning great stuff some of the best
thinkers in the world are writing today
in books and articles and talking about
breakthroughs that some of the things we
just talked about now thinking skills
Thinking Fast and Slow short and
long-term thinking and so well over the
years I’ve accumulated what I call the
big seven and these are the seven roles
and goals or most important
responsibilities of leaders and they’re
the most important things in business
and so I want to just share the seven
with you and I was asked to give you a
thousand percent formula how to increase
your income by ten times I’ll give you
that as well plus finally the one
quality that is most important for
success which is just repeated in a
study of 500 of the fastest growing
companies in the world and they analyzed
the personality profiles of the heads of
these companies one of the companies
group 42,000 percent in the last three
years and it’s a company that produces
tablets for children to help them keep
on track with their homework and parents
are buying them with both hands and they
grow they grew 42,000 percent in three
years
that a good growth rate average company
grew five six seven eight hundred
percent in three years so the ones down
in the lower levels of this survey but
the top companies were going for
thousands of ten thousand twenty
thousand percent in a three year period
unbelievable anyway but they found the
quality that was most
possible for the success of the CEOs and
top people in each of these businesses
and I’ll give it to you in a second
don’t let me forget now keeping your
seats
so what I found was that there were
seven critical responsibilities of
leaders in businesses of any size and
these are like ingredients in a recipe
for a fine dish if you’re missing any
one of the ingredients the dish can fail
as a matter of fact if you miss any one
of the ingredients the business can fail
for at least can achieve at a far lower
level than its truly capable so let’s
begin number one is to set and achieve
business goals this is the most
important thing that you do as a leader
in your business and in your life is to
set and achieve business goals
everything is your ability to achieve
goals and so we have to start off with
my favorite word is clarity what exactly
are the business goals that you want to
achieve
and how do you measure them and what is
your deadline for achieving them and it
is amazing how many business people and
entrepreneurs avoid this question
because they’re afraid that they may not
achieve the goal to the degree to which
they can measure it and on that deadline
so they don’t even want to set the goal
at all the major reason I found when I
began studying human success 35 years
ago the major reason people don’t set
goals is they’re afraid they may fail
and they don’t like the feeling of
failure so they don’t set them at all
and so instead of setting very clear
goals and making plans to achieve them
they just work every day and they sort
of hope that everything will be fine
they just hope it will be fine what
successful people set and achieve goals
and they know what their goals are and
every person in the business knows what
their specific goals are which
contribute to achieving the goals of the
company and the number one word is
clarity be absolutely clear about your
goals your sales goals your income goals
your profitability goals your profit
margin goals your growth goals your
customer acquisition goals is be very
clear about your goals and then make
plans to achieve them which a plan is
merely a list of activities organized by
sequence what do you do first what do
you do second what do you do third and
then set deadlines when am I going to
achieve this goal
now don’t worry about
missing the deadline or failing at
achieving the goal failure is far more
common in business and success but every
single time you set a goal and a
schedule and a plan and you fail at it
you learn something valuable that helps
you to be more successful next time when
I in my earlier years I had some
military experience just leave it at
that and one of the things I learned was
how to shoot a mortar and I’ve always
used this as an analogy and we learned
about mortars both of how to shoot them
and what to do with somebody with
shooting mortars at you and here’s what
we found is that a mortar man a really
good mortar man is almost like a sniper
they’re very very accurate what they
would do is they would see a cluster of
enemy troops or a target and it would be
let’s say a thousand yards away and a
mortar tube as you know is at an angle
and you drop the mortar shell down and
as it hits the bottom it’s it’s shot off
and so it goes up and comes down and the
angle of the two determines that where
the mortar shell goes up or down
distance it flies and so on so anyway so
what they would do is they would
estimate that the target is about a
thousand yards away or say a thousand
meters and so they would adjust the
gauge as a gauge on the side to twelve
hundred meters and then they would shoot
boom and they watch to see where the
shell came down and then they would
adjust the mortar shell back to nine
hundred meters and they’d fire again
boom and adjust the seat to where it
came down and then they would use those
two points and adjust the mortar and
fired again and they could drop a mortar
down a chimney of a house they could
drop a mortar on a foxhole the third
shot the third mortar would be as
accurate on pinpoint accuracy like a
sniper so what we were taught is that if
somebody shoots at you with a mortar
mitt and it goes over your head you
think boy that guys are real dummy know
start moving start moving because the
second one’s going to come in in front
of you and the third one will be on your
head so you would literally when the
first one came in which was off target
would start moving and move fast because
they could go well look and within like
18 to 20 seconds they could pinpoint you
and drop the mortar on your head well
what does this mean in business in
business it means what we do is we set a
clear target and we set a goal in a
schedule and then we shoot and what
happens is we overshoot undershoot we
make mistakes and then what do you do
you adjust that’s all you just adjust
and you keep adjusting until finally you
get to the point where it works and so
don’t worry about making mistakes
there’s nothing wrong with because
everybody does it the main thing is to
learn from the mistake and adjust take
in information and adjust until you’re
much more accurate big companies have
used measures at very very tight
measures and they measure everything and
constantly adjust the measures until
they are producing products of superb
quality a hundred percent of the time
and they’re selling millions of their
product when the iPhone came out it was
dismissed by companies like blackberry
and Nokia as a toy nobody would ever buy
it it’s a toy it’s for kids to play with
and you know communicate with their
friends so of course those two companies
are now gone great tragedy not really
but the point is they experimented
dramatically we experimented hundreds of
times to get the phone and once they
release the phone it was virtually
perfect sold 50 million sets the first
year totally upended the entire world of
telephones put the major telephone
companies out of business
within five years unbelievable and then
they brought out the iPad within a year
of bringing out the iPad one of the
biggest bookstore chains in the world
went bankrupt because people who bought
iPads that immediately bought an average
of 11 books and they’re stopped going to
bookstores to download the book in a
matter of seconds at half price and they
stopped going to bookstores and the book
industry today which I’m very involved
in is in desperation because nobody’s
buying books and if they do buy books
because of the power of distraction they
don’t read them most people in this room
haven’t read a book from cover to cover
a long time you may have bought the
books you may even have them on your
iPad
or as ebooks you may have them at home
but you’ll read they serve like
decorations and you see we’ve read that
book yeah I got it at home that’s true
come on come on why you’re so distracted
at the end of the day you’re dumb you’ve
lost 10 IQ points and you’re exhausted
you can’t read books the weekend comes
you got to read them anyway so setting
it achieve business goal so what are
your goals and remember clarity is the
first word the absolutely clear about
your goals and make sure that each
person who works in your company is
clear about their goals as well and how
they will be measured the number that
you’ll attach to them and the schedule
or deadlines for achieving the goals and
then constantly make adjustments the
second key is is marketing and
innovation now if I were to ask you what
is the purpose of a business this is a
great question the answer is not to make
a profit the answer is to create and
keep a customer it’s to get a customer
and then hold on to the customer and a
profit is the result of doing that in a
cost-effective way so we say the purpose
of a business is to create customers
that’s why I said earlier is if you’re
concerned with your revenues and your
profitability create more customers how
do you create more customers you
innovate so marketing and innovation are
the heartbeat
come on kaboom kaboom kaboom of a
business marketing means you’re
constantly contacting new prospective
customers and innovation means you’re
constantly improving the process of not
only marketing but of your products and
services so here’s the second question
what is the measure of business success
what is the true measure single measure
of business success
the answer is customer satisfaction
customer satisfaction every person in
every major company that is successful
as a single focus is to focus on
marketing and improving their marketing
and their products simultaneously and
then they focus on customer satisfaction
the rule is this make customers happy
make customers happy by the way is
something that I love to teach to my
friends is do you want to be rich in
business well there’s a person out there
who will make you rich it’s like a genie
in
Cave and the person is your customer and
you know how your customer will make you
rich as you go to your customer and say
what can we do to make you happier than
our competitors what can we do to make
you happier next time and your customers
will tell you you’ll do more of this or
less of that or if you’ll start this or
stop that I’d be happier and then you
say okay we’ll do that and your customer
will be happier and they’ll buy from you
they’ll be more satisfied and to be much
happier and they will become loyal
customers so what I say is your
customers will make you rich if you have
the courage to go and ask them what can
we do to make you happy what can we do
to make you happier what can we do to
make you even happier and the way you
with the way you do customer research is
you don’t say how’s everything going
because if you say how is everything
going this is 22 years of research on
this by the way I know so much good
stuff but basically if you say how is it
going they’ll say fine if a person says
fine and so it makes no other comment
they’re already talking to your
competitor and planning to leave you if
they say fine and no had no other
comment you’ve lost that customer so
instead of saying how is everything
going you say how could we serve you
better in the future how could we serve
you better in the future and then they
will tell you and everything they tell
you is what they’re unhappy about today
with your purse with your services
here’s an interesting point every
company that is a big success today
started off as a failure they started
off with products and services that were
not particularly good and then they got
feedback from their customers and they
constantly improved them until they were
recognized as being excellent in their
market you don’t have you do not have to
be the best with your product or service
you just have to be in the top 10%
now here’s an aside with regard to
marketing and this is one of the
probably the most important work ever
done at Harvard 50 years of research on
marketing and competitive advantage and
the expression is unique added value
this comes from Michel Porter’s word
unique added value means that people buy
your product or service because they
perceive that you offer unique added
value now the word unique in any
language is a special word it’s a word
that cannot be qualified
that means it cannot be uniquor or more
unique or less unique or unique list
there you cannot qualify there’s unique
is one and only so the key to business
success is for you to offer unique added
value if you offer something that the
customer wants remember we talked about
value creation at what the customer
wants and needs and values and is
willing to pay for and that none no
other competitor can offer and I’ll give
you a very simple example one of the
richest men in the world is a man named
Tom Monaghan and he was a struggling
student and orphan working delivering
peaches for a pall small pizza
restaurant when he was 20 years old and
he was attending courses of the local
university in East Lansing Michigan and
whenever he delivered pizzas which he
did in the evenings it would take 60 to
90 minutes from the time the pizza was
ordered to the time they were able to
deliver it and whenever he delivered
pizzas instead of people especially
students being grateful they were angry
why does it take so long to get a pizza
and it kept asking him that and they
would throw tips at him and they would
just abuse it they weren’t appreciative
at all and so he came up with an insight
and the insight is that when people
order a pizza they’re already hungry
they don’t order a pizza thank him all
be hungry in an hour when it gets here
when they ordered the pizza they’re
already hungry and no you know what
you’re like when you’re hungry well
that’s how they are like it’s basically
it’s two or three of them and they
ordered the pizza and they’re all
sitting in there hungry and when the
person finally shows up they’re they’re
angry
so he said speed is more important than
quality and so he developed the concept
I could spend time teaching you but
basically deliver your pizza within 30
minutes or no charge and he put up signs
all over this University which had
22,000 students he bought a bankrupt
pizza restaurant sold his Volkswagen for
the initial funds got some his brother
and some other kids to work with him and
they reduced their number of pieces to
eight pizzas that they could pre prepare
of medium size that’s all so it’s all
you could order was a medium sized pizza
one of these eight times and they
pre-prepared the peaches so when the
order came in they put it
Evon 12 minutes cut it up in 15 minutes
after the order came in the pizza was
handed to the delivery boy and they
delivered it within a five-mile or five
kilometer radius that was the beginning
of what is called Domino’s Pizza
familiar with Domino’s Pizza there’s
more than 8,000 Domino’s Pizza worldwide
Tom Monaghan long time ago sold his
interest in Domino’s for 1.8 billion
dollars for richest men in the world
because he came up with one simple
unique added value the pizza may not be
great pizza pre-prepared sometimes pre
frozen but it’s fast and no other pizza
company from that day to this in the
world has ever tried to offer pizza
delivery in 30 minutes
and so with Domino’s became one of the
richest men in the world with one unique
added value now sometimes the unique
added value is yourself is you are a
special person with special talents you
have a great personality your very
customer sensitive you have lots of
experience in this area so you can
really do a wonderful job for your
customer so sometimes it’s just
something as simple as you at being the
unique added value that no other company
in the world has but you’ve got to have
one and the rule is if you don’t have
one you must develop it you must figure
out what do you have to have that then
people say why do they buy from you they
buy from you because you offer this and
no other competitor can offer this
really important so the third question
is what is the mark of customer
satisfaction what’s the measure of
customer satisfaction repeat business
repeat business is the mark of customer
satisfaction and the most the highest
level of customer satisfaction is
customer recommendations and referrals
to new customers the most successful
companies have to take such good care of
their their customers that their
customers buy from them and buy again
and again and bring their friends and so
your job this is your focus in building
your ideal business what do we have to
do to first of all create customers
unique added value what do we have to do
to please our customers to make them
really happy so that they come back and
what do we have to do to get our
customers to buy from us again in our in
our to
MBA by the way we go into depth in every
single one of these and it literally
transforms a business transforms the
whole thinking of everybody in the
business and every customer content so
so the first of the seven keys number
one is set and achieve business goals
the second is to market and innovate and
intimate innovating means finding faster
better cheaper ways to make customers
happy number three is to solve problems
and make decisions now I sometimes joke
and I say I have looked and I’ve
memorized the job descriptions of
everyone in this room before I came I
have a list of all of your names and
your job descriptions I know what
everybody here does for a living and
everybody of course is very skeptical
and I’ll say I’ll tell you what it is is
that your job description you man you
are problem solver and you sir you’re a
problem solver and you are chief problem
solver your assistant problem solver and
you’re you know junior problem solver
but all we do all day long is solve
problems and make decisions if there
were not problems to be solved and
decisions to be made our work would be
automated and is automated so that
therefore you’re gonna solve problems
and here’s what I discovered because
I’ve done courses on problem-solving and
decision-making for IBM all over the
country is that your ability to solve
problems and make decisions is really
the critical ability for success
advancement and high income when you
look at people who start off in their
first job with no earning ability with a
large company and 20 years later than
the president of that company first of
all they climbed up the ladder of
success that they developed the ability
to solve problems at their level and
what Henry Kissinger said was the only
thing you get for solving problems is
bigger problems to solve but bigger
problems come with more responsibility
more authority Factory is losing money
they send you out there to save the
factory save the jobs of 5,000 people
and you go in and you say what are the
problems that we’re having in this
Factory it’s keeping down our
productivity or affecting our quality
and so on and they send out the best
problem solvers all my life I’ve met
people who have started at the bottom
and who are now top executives in major
international corporations and they say
the reason
here was because they developed an
ability to solve the problems at their
level so I could talk about this all day
and I do I just give you one thought and
this is so simple it’s embarrassing
because how do you become a great
problem solver and the answer is you
focus on the solution rather than the
problem
you think intensely about solutions all
the time now what is it that average
people the bottom 80% of people think
about when a problem arises the answer
is who did it and who’s the blame they
are focused on the past
and the problem what’s the problem and
who’s to blame what is it the top people
do and say you cannot change a past
event this problem has occurred so now
it is a reality so the only question now
is what do we do about it how do we
solve what is our next action and so
when you constantly think in terms of
solutions you become more and more
valuable and the more you think in terms
of solutions to any problem in your life
the more you’ve come up with solutions
the more creative you become you become
smarter and brighter and when you are
solving problems and discussing
different choices and alternatives you
become more positive you become more
powerful you become more influential
because and eventually people say we’ve
got a problem take it to him take it to
her because they’re really good at
solving problems and your mind is in
problem-solving mode all the time it’s
like it’s clicked on and running or it
isn’t
all the time and so you start throwing
problems in the top of your hopper and
solutions are coming out all the time
because you think about solutions not
blank
when you think about blame it shuts down
your brain when you think about blame
who’s to blame for the problem it shuts
down your creativity it makes you net
negative it makes you angry and it makes
you a negative influence on others but
when you think about solutions you
become the most important person in the
room so think about solutions now here’s
a great exercise ask yourself what is
the biggest problem that I’m facing in
my life today
now what is it that most people do is
they can identify the problem you all
know what it is usually the biggest
problem in your life comes with hair on
top but we all know what the biggest
problem is sometimes it’s a business
problem and so on so then the next
question
what’s the solution what are all the
possible solutions and here’s what they
found is the more solutions you can
think of we could do this I can do that
I could do this into that the more
likely it is you come up with a great
solution and so just thinking in terms
of solutions I have the problem but
what’s the great challenge with most
people is their passive they have the
problem and they accept it oh I’ve got
this problem it’s like standing in the
rain not here Forsberg or standing in
the Sun and complaining about the
weather and the fact is that fact that
proactive people like yourself they say
this is a problem it’s an obstacle it’s
causing the unhappiness or frustration
if I go I’m going to solve this problem
and they just kind of think how can we
do it and they ask other people and they
read and they research I remember a
wonderful wonderful story this man took
his little girl six seven years old
through a doctor she was sickly and he
and his wife took the doctor and the
doctor could not figure out what was
wrong with her he took from Doctor to
doctor to doctor and finally took her to
your doctor and the doctor did a special
set of tests and came up and said I’m
sorry to tell you but she’s got a fatal
illness a terminal illness she’s got
this special disease that very very few
people have one in a million and there’s
no cure and so she’s going to die within
six to nine months so you should make
her as comfortable as possible
well these parents were really
passionately concerned about their
little girl and so he went on the
internet this is just a few years ago
and he started doing research on this
illness he found that there were other
people all over the world who had this
illness had it in their family but as he
found he found that there was a
professor at the University of Western
Australia be in Australia who had
researched this for 10-15 years and
found a diagnosis and the professor’s
name was Lorenzo and he come up with an
oil that you could take or he could put
on the skin that would actually
eventually solve this illness and so
they made a movie with Nick Nolte called
Lorenzo’s oil cinnamon movie and it was
all about this story about this father
would not give up finding a solution
he’d looked all over the world and he
finally found
someone who had found the cure saved his
daughter’s life the best doctors in the
United States had told him to go home
and make her comfortable because she’s
going to die and there’s nothing you
could do but no damn way for this guy he
just went at it like it like it I could
Bulldog until he found a solution I love
that story because that’s the story of
the people here in this room is when you
have a problem you say well I’m not
going to be passive about this problem
sales are down profits are down
competition is tremendous regulations
are changing and so on I’m going to find
a solution I will find a solution and I
worked with some of the most successful
people in the world some of the richest
people in the world and they all have
that attitude is that problem is just
something to be solved it’s an obstacle
or something to go over or under or
around is they just expect that life is
going to be full of obstacles and
difficulties and by gum they will find a
solution so solving problems and making
decisions is one of the seven most
important things you do number four is
it is to set priorities and determine
key tasks this in all the time
management work that I’ve done and all
the books I’ve written and millions of
people I’ve influenced all of time
management comes down to your ability to
choose priorities to select one thing
and do that only that one thing until
it’s complete and so setting priorities
and there’s a whole series of techniques
that you can do but my favorite question
of all in time management is to ask
every minute of every hour what is the
most valuable use of my time right now
what is the most valuable use of my time
right now when you start work in the
morning if your entire income and all
your hopes and dreams for yourself and
your family and your future are
determined by the revenues that you
generate by your income and the most
valuable use of your time is to create
value and generate revenues and don’t do
anything but that don’t do anything that
is a secondary use of your time because
whatever you do repeatedly over and over
again become
I have it and pretty soon you develop
the habit of doing small unimportant
things and then you can’t break the
habit it traps you every time you go to
work is so you like the ball on the
string you just come home and you start
doing little irrelevant things soon the
whole day is gone and you haven’t
achieved anything so the key is to set
priorities and focus on your most
important priority focus focus the fifth
characteristic of leaders is the ability
to concentrate and focus on the most
important thing you can do and to stay
with it until it’s 100% complete now in
life what are we paid for we’re paid for
results but results mean task completion
so all of success in business is
completing tasks its complete the task
finish the task get the task 100% done
the difference between winners and
losers is they all work hard but losers
the bottom 80% don’t complete their
tasks is they work on the task and the
task goes on and they get distracted or
they procrastinate or the task takes
much too long to complete but what you
and I are evaluated on is task
completion it’s finishing the job
getting the damn job completed now when
I was introduced they said I’ve written
45 books I’m happy to say that
statistics about a year old I’ve written
65 books is that too quick for you
it’s about five years old I write four
books here this year I published eight
books and most professional writers and
I don’t consider myself to be a writer
you don’t see that anywhere in my
biography and I’ve written books but I
don’t say like I just write books
because I have great ideas practical
ideas that I think people can use to be
more effective so I came up with the
idea and I like it in Google because
I’ve done so many thousands of hours of
research I can write almost every book
starting with a clean sheet of paper I
can write a 300 page book without
reference to notes on it 65 different
subjects and they’re loaded as you know
with content they’re just loaded with
great ideas hundreds of great ideas on a
particular subject anyway people say
well how can you write so many books a
professional writer writes one book
every two or three years and the answer
is because I finish I’ve set it as a
goal I make a plan I start work and I
finish the book
I complete a damn book do you know how
many writers or would-be writers are out
there who have books in their minds or
books on paper and they never write the
book my good friend but I traveled with
when I was when I was 20 years old we
talked about writing books at that time
and he worked on his book until the age
of 60 he worked for more than 35 years
on his book and he never completed it he
just kept worried meanwhile I’ve read
four books a year um and they’ve sold
millions and millions of copies in
almost every major language not because
I’m any great genius it’s because I
start and I finished and the most
incredible thing about task completion
is that whenever you complete a task it
gives you a burst of endorphin it makes
you happy it makes you feel powerful and
it energizes you it makes you feel
strong so what they have found is that
any completed task is a source of
self-esteem and self-confidence it makes
you feel like a winner so if you have a
series of tasks to do let’s say you have
10 tasks and this is the least important
and this is the most important that
bigger the task that you complete the
greater the feeling of personal power
and self-esteem you have
the more you feel like a winner and so
if you can develop the habit of starting
and completing tasks you feel fabulous
about yourself all the time your
self-confidence goes through the roof
because you know you know you could do
anything that you put your mind to
because you’ve proven it to yourself
it’s not that you hope you can complete
important tasks you’ve done it and you
do it regularly nothing will move your
head faster than developing a reputation
for starting and completing important
tasks they interviewed several hundred
CEOs of major corporations at a
convention in New York a few years ago
and they asked them what would most help
a person in your company a younger
person to move ahead rapidly to get paid
more and promoted faster in your company
85% of them had the same answer the
ability to choose the most important
task and then to get the tasks done
quickly and well and that has been
corroborated by a thousand surveys is
the most valuable people in my company
are people who set priorities and work
on really important things with big
potential consequences for my company
and then they do them quickly and well
quickly and well they do the job fast
and they do it well and get it back to
me I learned this when I was a young
person it transformed my life as from
then on I just literally was like a
fanatic every job my boss gave me I did
it quickly and well with being well I’d
stay up all night I would work weekends
I would work hours to complete tasks and
well well in advance of when they were
required and it was the most incredible
effect of my career all you do is get a
reputation for doing things quickly and
well and what happens is you set up the
law of attraction more and more and
bigger and bigger and more important
tasks are attracted into your life that
you do quickly and what number number
six is to be a role model and this is
one of the most important qualities of
leadership when Tom Peters wrote his
book in search of excellence he said
this is perhaps the most important of
all is to be the kind of person that
other people admire is to set high
standards for yourself and then always
live up to those standards if you want
people in your company
to dress well dress well yourself if you
want them to be punctual be punctual for
every meeting if you want them to do
their work quickly and well do your work
quickly and well if you want them to
treat each other nicely treat everybody
nicely in other words you at the top set
the tone for everybody below you
everybody in the company looks at the
boss and does what the boss is doing and
the boss sets the tone at set and
determines the morale of the
organization so one of my favorite
questions does that pass on to you is
this is what kind of a company would my
company be if everybody in it was just
like me what kind of a company would
your company be if everybody in it did
exactly what you did all day every day
would it be a better would it be a
better company or what or would there is
a room for improvement and and and and
the fact is this room for improvement
and if you’re honest with yourself you
say well I could be a bit more punctual
or a bit better prepared for meetings or
I could focus on revenue generation
tasks or I could be nicer to people or
listen I mean there’s a once you ask
this question you set really high
standards for yourself and you always
look for ways to be a better boss and
you’ll find the very best companies have
the best bosses the best leaders and
they’re the leaders that everybody
admires and looks up to and respects
because of the way they work and the way
they treat other people so keep setting
high standards for yourself and they say
the superior Burrage person compares
themself with others and the superior
person compares himself with what they
are capable of being with their actual
their true potential
number seven key is to perform and get
results coming back to our old friend
results in the final analysis all your
hopes and dreams and all your income all
your future and the size of the house
you live in the car you drive and the
vacations you take will be determined by
the results that you get and your job is
to dedicate your working life to getting
more and more and better and better
results and so perform and get results
and as I reverse going right back to a
Drucker said the leader asked what
results are expected of me and of all
those results what are the most
important results and then what you do
is you pick the
important result of all and then you
focus and concentrate on that one result
and you work day and night and you work
with total dedication to accomplish that
one result until you make a habit of
starting and completing and achieving
your most important results and that
will do more to help you in your
business in terms of financial and
personal results that anything else you
can do but it will also do more to
affect you psychologically and
emotionally it will raise your
self-esteem and self-confidence they say
confidence comes from accomplishing
confidence doesn’t come from attending
motivational seminars confidence comes
from actually doing good work and seeing
that you’ve done good work and having
people say that’s good work
wow do you feel good about that and
you’re internally motivated and driven
to do it again and to repeat the process
because you’re getting positive
responses whenever you do good work and
whenever you complete your task now two
more things I have to finish for you
those are the seven the number one
quality for success in business
according to the study of the presidents
of the fortune 500 of the Inc 500
fastest growing companies in America is
unbridled optimism these people are so
positive they should be arrested and
held in padded cells they are so
positive about the future of their
business and no matter what happens they
just overwhelm every difficulty it does
never it never occurs to them that they
will not be successful it will just be
successful in a different way now how do
you become an optimist well optimism is
like physics is like mental fitness just
like if you want to be physically fit
you workout physically with your body if
you want to be mentally fit you exercise
your mind so there’s four things that
you can do for the rest of your life
to be a really positive person number
one is to think and talk about your
goals and how to achieve them is when
you’re thinking and talking about your
most important goals both business and
personal and you’re thinking of the
actions that you can take to achieve
those goals and you’re actually taking
those steps your sense of optimism goes
up dramatically
number two is to look for the good in
every situation one of the facts is that
you’re going to have nothing but
problems and difficulties and obstacles
all your life that goes with the nature
of being in business the only question
is how do you respond to them and the
answer is always look for something good
this by the way is a discovery made in
interviewing thousands of the most
successful people is they make it a
habit whenever something goes wrong they
say well that’s good and then find out
something good about it and there’s
always something good no matter how bad
the situation is
there’s always something good that comes
from it the third way to become an
optimist is to seek the valuable lesson
in every setback or difficulty this is
the most important perhaps of all is
that you can focus on the problem and
the loss or you can focus on the lesson
and what you can learn to be better next
time and whichever one you focus on
determines whether you’re positive or
negative if you are thinking about your
goals you’re always positive if you’re
looking for the good you’re always
positive if you’re looking into your
biggest problem today for the lessons
you can learn from that problem
you’ll always be positive and the fourth
key to optimism is to continue to learn
and grow continue to learn new things
that can help you to achieve your most
important goals and then of course take
action but you’ll find that leaders are
learner’s they’re constantly learning
new things and whenever you learn
something new that can help you it makes
you happy it makes you positive it
releases endorphins in your brain
you
you
public company evaluated well one of the
evaluations is called the price earnings
ratio and right so you say a company is
worth this much per share because of its
earnings per share the earning ability
of a company’s what determines the value
of the stock determines the value of the
company when Apple is sailing it becomes
the most valuable company in the world
when Samsung comes out and cuts into
their sales and Apple sales level off
its earning ability levels off and the
stock begins to decline so one of the
things you need to do is see yourself as
a company and see yourself as a company
with one person and with one share of
stock now if you were a company and you
were evaluating yourself on the basis of
your earning ability or you wanted to
sell stock in your personal company to
someone else would you say that you
should invest in this stock yourself
because this is a growth stock this is
going up in value every single week and
every month this is developing new
skills and capabilities if it’s earning
this amount this Micra if my company me
is earning this much this year next year
earning 50% more because the critical
factor that determines the growth of
stock prices is anticipated increases in
earning bill so now right so see
yourself as a company and ask yourself
am i a growth stock what I’ve tell
myself to do to old people and children
but I saw myself to a pension fund it’s
been a really safe solid investment it’s
going up in value all the time now you
don’t go up in value accidentally you go
up in value deliberately in a
competitive market so how is it that
companies increase their value well
mostly they grease it two things one is
Rd research and development they’re
constantly developing new products and
services that compete well in our
marketplace so they can sell more of
them the companies that are most
successful are the ones they’re
constantly coming out with new and
better products and services and they’re
jumping over their competition well what
is rnd personally personally rng is
upgrading your skills developing the
once
you need at this time to move ahead and
then the next skill and becoming a
continual learner so you’re constantly
investing time and money in yourself in
getting better and better to increase
your earning ability so a good question
you always ask is what one skill would
help me to double my income faster than
any other skill and then you work on
that you know you can’t learn everything
so just pick one thing at a time we say
be a sniper you know would be you know
what the motto in sniper school is one
shot one kill one shot one kill that’s
how they teach snipers they have it on
television all the time and you need to
be the same thing one shot one kill
Warren Buffett was at a dinner party
with Bill Gates and Bill Gates senior
and they were talking together because
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are good
friends have been for a long time and
Bill Gates father very very successful
businessman
in Seattle they were at a dinner party
in the three of them were talking about
it away and somebody came up to them and
asked him a question and he said excuse
me gentlemen these are two of the five
richest men in the world both started
with nothing by the way started zero
Warren Warren Buffett started with
$2,000 that he earned by delivering
newspapers when he was 14 15 and 16 and
is now his company’s worth three hundred
and sixty billion dollars and his
companies made twenty four billion last
year not bad perfect
so anyway so they came up to me and they
said gentlemen excuse me for
interrupting you but we’ve just been
noticing you’re talking and we had a
question for you what would you say is
the most important skill for success and
they have all three turned to him and
said the same word simultaneously focus
focus is the most important requirement
for success with focus you can do
anything and without focus you can do
nothing focus is the key to success and
but all three said it simultaneously
without asking each other focus and it’s
really interesting because I began
teaching this concept back in the year
2000 I began it a coaching and mentoring
program that I called focal point focal
point coaching you know the focal point
is where if you hold a magnifying glass
in a certain way it will have a focal
point that burns and you can burn few
things well so I call it the focal point
and I’ve taught thousands of business
owners that have still all over the
world in multiple languages now they can
look at each part of their business and
focus on the one thing in each area that
they can do right now that will have the
greatest positive impact everything else
they do has a lesser impact or no impact
and your ability to select the one thing
that can have the greatest impact on
your life at any time and focus focus is
the key to your success that’s why I’m
so concerned about the I call it the
attraction of distraction
it is so disturbing because it
guarantees failure in life you actually
become addicted to distraction and you
can’t stop you’re just like a dope
addict you’ve got to have your
distraction and if you have if you if
you are addicted to distraction you
can’t focus and if you can’t focus you
haven’t got a chance against someone who
can and so therefore it’s like hitting
this a little bit hard but I want you to
think about it because most people slip
into this attraction of distraction and
the Bernina we’re not even aware of it
many of you are a little bit surprised
when I talk about it because you hadn’t
even really thought about it and you
really thought about how much time you
spend during the day
Henry etches about 80% and the rest of
the time by the end of the day you’re
too tired to do anything worthwhile to
do the really important things that have
big potential consequences so your
earning ability is your most important
quality and your earning ability means
developing on skill at a time that can
help you the most to get the most
important results that determine your
success and their happiness now here’s
the great payoff is they say that
happiness is the progressive realisation
of a worthy goal or ideal when you
actually feel yourself moving
progressively toward achieving something
that’s important to you you feel happy
and your brain releases endorphins now
endorphins are different from dopamine’s
but endorphins are nature’s happy drug
they make you happy
Dorfman’s make you more creative they
make you calmer
they make you more personable they make
you more focused and they just and they
give you more energy so people who have
high levels of endorphins are very
healthy they sleep well they’re very
personable they’re creative all the time
and you can actually develop a positive
addiction to endorphins and the way you
do that is you work on things that are
moving you toward your goals on a
regular basis and so every day you feel
this forward progress is forward
momentum human beings are designed so
that we’re only happy when we feel
effective when we feel that we are
accomplishing something when we feel
productive when we feel valuable there’s
the one of the challenges we have with
welfare in any country that has it but
especially in the u.s. is people can
very quickly get addicted to welfare but
by coming becoming addicted to welfare
and free money they become angry they
develop feelings of inferiority they
become alcoholic they all the joy in
life is gone when they’re not doing
something productive when they’re not
contributing the rule is that your self
esteem and self confidence are largely
determined by the degree to which you
feel you are make putting more in than
you’re getting back out it’s a very
simple concept is you feel that you’re
actually contributing more than you get
if you’re at a job and you feel that
you’re not contributing as much as
they’re paying you you feel really angry
it has it it seems to have a deep
negative effect on your personality but
when you feel that you’re doing a great
job that you’re really making a
difference or a contribution you feel
wonderful about yourself and the only
way that you can achieve that is by
having clear goals and then focus well
so I began to study management when I
got into business many years ago and
I’ve read 6,000 books I’ve studied an
average of three hours a day for 50
years hate to say it 50 years but about
100 bit about 150,000 hours I’ve read
every conceivable book I possibly could
and articles and I’m still reading and
learning great stuff some of the best
thinkers in the world are writing today
in books and articles and talking about
breakthroughs that some of the things we
just talked about now thinking skills
Thinking Fast and Slow short and
long-term thinking and so well over the
years I’ve accumulated what I call the
big seven and these are the seven roles
and goals or most important
responsibilities of leaders and they’re
the most important things in business
and so I want to just share the seven
with you and I was asked to give you a
thousand percent formula how to increase
your income by ten times I’ll give you
that as well plus finally the one
quality that is most important for
success which is just repeated in a
study of 500 of the fastest growing
companies in the world and they analyzed
the personality profiles of the heads of
these companies one of the companies
group 42,000 percent in the last three
years and it’s a company that produces
tablets for children to help them keep
on track with their homework and parents
are buying them with both hands and they
grow they grew 42,000 percent in three
years
that a good growth rate average company
grew five six seven eight hundred
percent in three years so the ones down
in the lower levels of this survey but
the top companies were going for
thousands of ten thousand twenty
thousand percent in a three year period
unbelievable anyway but they found the
quality that was most
possible for the success of the CEOs and
top people in each of these businesses
and I’ll give it to you in a second
don’t let me forget now keeping your
seats
so what I found was that there were
seven critical responsibilities of
leaders in businesses of any size and
these are like ingredients in a recipe
for a fine dish if you’re missing any
one of the ingredients the dish can fail
as a matter of fact if you miss any one
of the ingredients the business can fail
for at least can achieve at a far lower
level than its truly capable so let’s
begin number one is to set and achieve
business goals this is the most
important thing that you do as a leader
in your business and in your life is to
set and achieve business goals
everything is your ability to achieve
goals and so we have to start off with
my favorite word is clarity what exactly
are the business goals that you want to
achieve
and how do you measure them and what is
your deadline for achieving them and it
is amazing how many business people and
entrepreneurs avoid this question
because they’re afraid that they may not
achieve the goal to the degree to which
they can measure it and on that deadline
so they don’t even want to set the goal
at all the major reason I found when I
began studying human success 35 years
ago the major reason people don’t set
goals is they’re afraid they may fail
and they don’t like the feeling of
failure so they don’t set them at all
and so instead of setting very clear
goals and making plans to achieve them
they just work every day and they sort
of hope that everything will be fine
they just hope it will be fine what
successful people set and achieve goals
and they know what their goals are and
every person in the business knows what
their specific goals are which
contribute to achieving the goals of the
company and the number one word is
clarity be absolutely clear about your
goals your sales goals your income goals
your profitability goals your profit
margin goals your growth goals your
customer acquisition goals is be very
clear about your goals and then make
plans to achieve them which a plan is
merely a list of activities organized by
sequence what do you do first what do
you do second what do you do third and
then set deadlines when am I going to
achieve this goal
now don’t worry about
missing the deadline or failing at
achieving the goal failure is far more
common in business and success but every
single time you set a goal and a
schedule and a plan and you fail at it
you learn something valuable that helps
you to be more successful next time when
I in my earlier years I had some
military experience just leave it at
that and one of the things I learned was
how to shoot a mortar and I’ve always
used this as an analogy and we learned
about mortars both of how to shoot them
and what to do with somebody with
shooting mortars at you and here’s what
we found is that a mortar man a really
good mortar man is almost like a sniper
they’re very very accurate what they
would do is they would see a cluster of
enemy troops or a target and it would be
let’s say a thousand yards away and a
mortar tube as you know is at an angle
and you drop the mortar shell down and
as it hits the bottom it’s it’s shot off
and so it goes up and comes down and the
angle of the two determines that where
the mortar shell goes up or down
distance it flies and so on so anyway so
what they would do is they would
estimate that the target is about a
thousand yards away or say a thousand
meters and so they would adjust the
gauge as a gauge on the side to twelve
hundred meters and then they would shoot
boom and they watch to see where the
shell came down and then they would
adjust the mortar shell back to nine
hundred meters and they’d fire again
boom and adjust the seat to where it
came down and then they would use those
two points and adjust the mortar and
fired again and they could drop a mortar
down a chimney of a house they could
drop a mortar on a foxhole the third
shot the third mortar would be as
accurate on pinpoint accuracy like a
sniper so what we were taught is that if
somebody shoots at you with a mortar
mitt and it goes over your head you
think boy that guys are real dummy know
start moving start moving because the
second one’s going to come in in front
of you and the third one will be on your
head so you would literally when the
first one came in which was off target
would start moving and move fast because
they could go well look and within like
18 to 20 seconds they could pinpoint you
and drop the mortar on your head well
what does this mean in business in
business it means what we do is we set a
clear target and we set a goal in a
schedule and then we shoot and what
happens is we overshoot undershoot we
make mistakes and then what do you do
you adjust that’s all you just adjust
and you keep adjusting until finally you
get to the point where it works and so
don’t worry about making mistakes
there’s nothing wrong with because
everybody does it the main thing is to
learn from the mistake and adjust take
in information and adjust until you’re
much more accurate big companies have
used measures at very very tight
measures and they measure everything and
constantly adjust the measures until
they are producing products of superb
quality a hundred percent of the time
and they’re selling millions of their
product when the iPhone came out it was
dismissed by companies like blackberry
and Nokia as a toy nobody would ever buy
it it’s a toy it’s for kids to play with
and you know communicate with their
friends so of course those two companies
are now gone great tragedy not really
but the point is they experimented
dramatically we experimented hundreds of
times to get the phone and once they
release the phone it was virtually
perfect sold 50 million sets the first
year totally upended the entire world of
telephones put the major telephone
companies out of business
within five years unbelievable and then
they brought out the iPad within a year
of bringing out the iPad one of the
biggest bookstore chains in the world
went bankrupt because people who bought
iPads that immediately bought an average
of 11 books and they’re stopped going to
bookstores to download the book in a
matter of seconds at half price and they
stopped going to bookstores and the book
industry today which I’m very involved
in is in desperation because nobody’s
buying books and if they do buy books
because of the power of distraction they
don’t read them most people in this room
haven’t read a book from cover to cover
a long time you may have bought the
books you may even have them on your
iPad
or as ebooks you may have them at home
but you’ll read they serve like
decorations and you see we’ve read that
book yeah I got it at home that’s true
come on come on why you’re so distracted
at the end of the day you’re dumb you’ve
lost 10 IQ points and you’re exhausted
you can’t read books the weekend comes
you got to read them anyway so setting
it achieve business goal so what are
your goals and remember clarity is the
first word the absolutely clear about
your goals and make sure that each
person who works in your company is
clear about their goals as well and how
they will be measured the number that
you’ll attach to them and the schedule
or deadlines for achieving the goals and
then constantly make adjustments the
second key is is marketing and
innovation now if I were to ask you what
is the purpose of a business this is a
great question the answer is not to make
a profit the answer is to create and
keep a customer it’s to get a customer
and then hold on to the customer and a
profit is the result of doing that in a
cost-effective way so we say the purpose
of a business is to create customers
that’s why I said earlier is if you’re
concerned with your revenues and your
profitability create more customers how
do you create more customers you
innovate so marketing and innovation are
the heartbeat
come on kaboom kaboom kaboom of a
business marketing means you’re
constantly contacting new prospective
customers and innovation means you’re
constantly improving the process of not
only marketing but of your products and
services so here’s the second question
what is the measure of business success
what is the true measure single measure
of business success
the answer is customer satisfaction
customer satisfaction every person in
every major company that is successful
as a single focus is to focus on
marketing and improving their marketing
and their products simultaneously and
then they focus on customer satisfaction
the rule is this make customers happy
make customers happy by the way is
something that I love to teach to my
friends is do you want to be rich in
business well there’s a person out there
who will make you rich it’s like a genie
in
Cave and the person is your customer and
you know how your customer will make you
rich as you go to your customer and say
what can we do to make you happier than
our competitors what can we do to make
you happier next time and your customers
will tell you you’ll do more of this or
less of that or if you’ll start this or
stop that I’d be happier and then you
say okay we’ll do that and your customer
will be happier and they’ll buy from you
they’ll be more satisfied and to be much
happier and they will become loyal
customers so what I say is your
customers will make you rich if you have
the courage to go and ask them what can
we do to make you happy what can we do
to make you happier what can we do to
make you even happier and the way you
with the way you do customer research is
you don’t say how’s everything going
because if you say how is everything
going this is 22 years of research on
this by the way I know so much good
stuff but basically if you say how is it
going they’ll say fine if a person says
fine and so it makes no other comment
they’re already talking to your
competitor and planning to leave you if
they say fine and no had no other
comment you’ve lost that customer so
instead of saying how is everything
going you say how could we serve you
better in the future how could we serve
you better in the future and then they
will tell you and everything they tell
you is what they’re unhappy about today
with your purse with your services
here’s an interesting point every
company that is a big success today
started off as a failure they started
off with products and services that were
not particularly good and then they got
feedback from their customers and they
constantly improved them until they were
recognized as being excellent in their
market you don’t have you do not have to
be the best with your product or service
you just have to be in the top 10%
now here’s an aside with regard to
marketing and this is one of the
probably the most important work ever
done at Harvard 50 years of research on
marketing and competitive advantage and
the expression is unique added value
this comes from Michel Porter’s word
unique added value means that people buy
your product or service because they
perceive that you offer unique added
value now the word unique in any
language is a special word it’s a word
that cannot be qualified
that means it cannot be uniquor or more
unique or less unique or unique list
there you cannot qualify there’s unique
is one and only so the key to business
success is for you to offer unique added
value if you offer something that the
customer wants remember we talked about
value creation at what the customer
wants and needs and values and is
willing to pay for and that none no
other competitor can offer and I’ll give
you a very simple example one of the
richest men in the world is a man named
Tom Monaghan and he was a struggling
student and orphan working delivering
peaches for a pall small pizza
restaurant when he was 20 years old and
he was attending courses of the local
university in East Lansing Michigan and
whenever he delivered pizzas which he
did in the evenings it would take 60 to
90 minutes from the time the pizza was
ordered to the time they were able to
deliver it and whenever he delivered
pizzas instead of people especially
students being grateful they were angry
why does it take so long to get a pizza
and it kept asking him that and they
would throw tips at him and they would
just abuse it they weren’t appreciative
at all and so he came up with an insight
and the insight is that when people
order a pizza they’re already hungry
they don’t order a pizza thank him all
be hungry in an hour when it gets here
when they ordered the pizza they’re
already hungry and no you know what
you’re like when you’re hungry well
that’s how they are like it’s basically
it’s two or three of them and they
ordered the pizza and they’re all
sitting in there hungry and when the
person finally shows up they’re they’re
angry
so he said speed is more important than
quality and so he developed the concept
I could spend time teaching you but
basically deliver your pizza within 30
minutes or no charge and he put up signs
all over this University which had
22,000 students he bought a bankrupt
pizza restaurant sold his Volkswagen for
the initial funds got some his brother
and some other kids to work with him and
they reduced their number of pieces to
eight pizzas that they could pre prepare
of medium size that’s all so it’s all
you could order was a medium sized pizza
one of these eight times and they
pre-prepared the peaches so when the
order came in they put it
Evon 12 minutes cut it up in 15 minutes
after the order came in the pizza was
handed to the delivery boy and they
delivered it within a five-mile or five
kilometer radius that was the beginning
of what is called Domino’s Pizza
familiar with Domino’s Pizza there’s
more than 8,000 Domino’s Pizza worldwide
Tom Monaghan long time ago sold his
interest in Domino’s for 1.8 billion
dollars for richest men in the world
because he came up with one simple
unique added value the pizza may not be
great pizza pre-prepared sometimes pre
frozen but it’s fast and no other pizza
company from that day to this in the
world has ever tried to offer pizza
delivery in 30 minutes
and so with Domino’s became one of the
richest men in the world with one unique
added value now sometimes the unique
added value is yourself is you are a
special person with special talents you
have a great personality your very
customer sensitive you have lots of
experience in this area so you can
really do a wonderful job for your
customer so sometimes it’s just
something as simple as you at being the
unique added value that no other company
in the world has but you’ve got to have
one and the rule is if you don’t have
one you must develop it you must figure
out what do you have to have that then
people say why do they buy from you they
buy from you because you offer this and
no other competitor can offer this
really important so the third question
is what is the mark of customer
satisfaction what’s the measure of
customer satisfaction repeat business
repeat business is the mark of customer
satisfaction and the most the highest
level of customer satisfaction is
customer recommendations and referrals
to new customers the most successful
companies have to take such good care of
their their customers that their
customers buy from them and buy again
and again and bring their friends and so
your job this is your focus in building
your ideal business what do we have to
do to first of all create customers
unique added value what do we have to do
to please our customers to make them
really happy so that they come back and
what do we have to do to get our
customers to buy from us again in our in
our to
MBA by the way we go into depth in every
single one of these and it literally
transforms a business transforms the
whole thinking of everybody in the
business and every customer content so
so the first of the seven keys number
one is set and achieve business goals
the second is to market and innovate and
intimate innovating means finding faster
better cheaper ways to make customers
happy number three is to solve problems
and make decisions now I sometimes joke
and I say I have looked and I’ve
memorized the job descriptions of
everyone in this room before I came I
have a list of all of your names and
your job descriptions I know what
everybody here does for a living and
everybody of course is very skeptical
and I’ll say I’ll tell you what it is is
that your job description you man you
are problem solver and you sir you’re a
problem solver and you are chief problem
solver your assistant problem solver and
you’re you know junior problem solver
but all we do all day long is solve
problems and make decisions if there
were not problems to be solved and
decisions to be made our work would be
automated and is automated so that
therefore you’re gonna solve problems
and here’s what I discovered because
I’ve done courses on problem-solving and
decision-making for IBM all over the
country is that your ability to solve
problems and make decisions is really
the critical ability for success
advancement and high income when you
look at people who start off in their
first job with no earning ability with a
large company and 20 years later than
the president of that company first of
all they climbed up the ladder of
success that they developed the ability
to solve problems at their level and
what Henry Kissinger said was the only
thing you get for solving problems is
bigger problems to solve but bigger
problems come with more responsibility
more authority Factory is losing money
they send you out there to save the
factory save the jobs of 5,000 people
and you go in and you say what are the
problems that we’re having in this
Factory it’s keeping down our
productivity or affecting our quality
and so on and they send out the best
problem solvers all my life I’ve met
people who have started at the bottom
and who are now top executives in major
international corporations and they say
the reason
here was because they developed an
ability to solve the problems at their
level so I could talk about this all day
and I do I just give you one thought and
this is so simple it’s embarrassing
because how do you become a great
problem solver and the answer is you
focus on the solution rather than the
problem
you think intensely about solutions all
the time now what is it that average
people the bottom 80% of people think
about when a problem arises the answer
is who did it and who’s the blame they
are focused on the past
and the problem what’s the problem and
who’s to blame what is it the top people
do and say you cannot change a past
event this problem has occurred so now
it is a reality so the only question now
is what do we do about it how do we
solve what is our next action and so
when you constantly think in terms of
solutions you become more and more
valuable and the more you think in terms
of solutions to any problem in your life
the more you’ve come up with solutions
the more creative you become you become
smarter and brighter and when you are
solving problems and discussing
different choices and alternatives you
become more positive you become more
powerful you become more influential
because and eventually people say we’ve
got a problem take it to him take it to
her because they’re really good at
solving problems and your mind is in
problem-solving mode all the time it’s
like it’s clicked on and running or it
isn’t
all the time and so you start throwing
problems in the top of your hopper and
solutions are coming out all the time
because you think about solutions not
blank
when you think about blame it shuts down
your brain when you think about blame
who’s to blame for the problem it shuts
down your creativity it makes you net
negative it makes you angry and it makes
you a negative influence on others but
when you think about solutions you
become the most important person in the
room so think about solutions now here’s
a great exercise ask yourself what is
the biggest problem that I’m facing in
my life today
now what is it that most people do is
they can identify the problem you all
know what it is usually the biggest
problem in your life comes with hair on
top but we all know what the biggest
problem is sometimes it’s a business
problem and so on so then the next
question
what’s the solution what are all the
possible solutions and here’s what they
found is the more solutions you can
think of we could do this I can do that
I could do this into that the more
likely it is you come up with a great
solution and so just thinking in terms
of solutions I have the problem but
what’s the great challenge with most
people is their passive they have the
problem and they accept it oh I’ve got
this problem it’s like standing in the
rain not here Forsberg or standing in
the Sun and complaining about the
weather and the fact is that fact that
proactive people like yourself they say
this is a problem it’s an obstacle it’s
causing the unhappiness or frustration
if I go I’m going to solve this problem
and they just kind of think how can we
do it and they ask other people and they
read and they research I remember a
wonderful wonderful story this man took
his little girl six seven years old
through a doctor she was sickly and he
and his wife took the doctor and the
doctor could not figure out what was
wrong with her he took from Doctor to
doctor to doctor and finally took her to
your doctor and the doctor did a special
set of tests and came up and said I’m
sorry to tell you but she’s got a fatal
illness a terminal illness she’s got
this special disease that very very few
people have one in a million and there’s
no cure and so she’s going to die within
six to nine months so you should make
her as comfortable as possible
well these parents were really
passionately concerned about their
little girl and so he went on the
internet this is just a few years ago
and he started doing research on this
illness he found that there were other
people all over the world who had this
illness had it in their family but as he
found he found that there was a
professor at the University of Western
Australia be in Australia who had
researched this for 10-15 years and
found a diagnosis and the professor’s
name was Lorenzo and he come up with an
oil that you could take or he could put
on the skin that would actually
eventually solve this illness and so
they made a movie with Nick Nolte called
Lorenzo’s oil cinnamon movie and it was
all about this story about this father
would not give up finding a solution
he’d looked all over the world and he
finally found
someone who had found the cure saved his
daughter’s life the best doctors in the
United States had told him to go home
and make her comfortable because she’s
going to die and there’s nothing you
could do but no damn way for this guy he
just went at it like it like it I could
Bulldog until he found a solution I love
that story because that’s the story of
the people here in this room is when you
have a problem you say well I’m not
going to be passive about this problem
sales are down profits are down
competition is tremendous regulations
are changing and so on I’m going to find
a solution I will find a solution and I
worked with some of the most successful
people in the world some of the richest
people in the world and they all have
that attitude is that problem is just
something to be solved it’s an obstacle
or something to go over or under or
around is they just expect that life is
going to be full of obstacles and
difficulties and by gum they will find a
solution so solving problems and making
decisions is one of the seven most
important things you do number four is
it is to set priorities and determine
key tasks this in all the time
management work that I’ve done and all
the books I’ve written and millions of
people I’ve influenced all of time
management comes down to your ability to
choose priorities to select one thing
and do that only that one thing until
it’s complete and so setting priorities
and there’s a whole series of techniques
that you can do but my favorite question
of all in time management is to ask
every minute of every hour what is the
most valuable use of my time right now
what is the most valuable use of my time
right now when you start work in the
morning if your entire income and all
your hopes and dreams for yourself and
your family and your future are
determined by the revenues that you
generate by your income and the most
valuable use of your time is to create
value and generate revenues and don’t do
anything but that don’t do anything that
is a secondary use of your time because
whatever you do repeatedly over and over
again become
I have it and pretty soon you develop
the habit of doing small unimportant
things and then you can’t break the
habit it traps you every time you go to
work is so you like the ball on the
string you just come home and you start
doing little irrelevant things soon the
whole day is gone and you haven’t
achieved anything so the key is to set
priorities and focus on your most
important priority focus focus the fifth
characteristic of leaders is the ability
to concentrate and focus on the most
important thing you can do and to stay
with it until it’s 100% complete now in
life what are we paid for we’re paid for
results but results mean task completion
so all of success in business is
completing tasks its complete the task
finish the task get the task 100% done
the difference between winners and
losers is they all work hard but losers
the bottom 80% don’t complete their
tasks is they work on the task and the
task goes on and they get distracted or
they procrastinate or the task takes
much too long to complete but what you
and I are evaluated on is task
completion it’s finishing the job
getting the damn job completed now when
I was introduced they said I’ve written
45 books I’m happy to say that
statistics about a year old I’ve written
65 books is that too quick for you
it’s about five years old I write four
books here this year I published eight
books and most professional writers and
I don’t consider myself to be a writer
you don’t see that anywhere in my
biography and I’ve written books but I
don’t say like I just write books
because I have great ideas practical
ideas that I think people can use to be
more effective so I came up with the
idea and I like it in Google because
I’ve done so many thousands of hours of
research I can write almost every book
starting with a clean sheet of paper I
can write a 300 page book without
reference to notes on it 65 different
subjects and they’re loaded as you know
with content they’re just loaded with
great ideas hundreds of great ideas on a
particular subject anyway people say
well how can you write so many books a
professional writer writes one book
every two or three years and the answer
is because I finish I’ve set it as a
goal I make a plan I start work and I
finish the book
I complete a damn book do you know how
many writers or would-be writers are out
there who have books in their minds or
books on paper and they never write the
book my good friend but I traveled with
when I was when I was 20 years old we
talked about writing books at that time
and he worked on his book until the age
of 60 he worked for more than 35 years
on his book and he never completed it he
just kept worried meanwhile I’ve read
four books a year um and they’ve sold
millions and millions of copies in
almost every major language not because
I’m any great genius it’s because I
start and I finished and the most
incredible thing about task completion
is that whenever you complete a task it
gives you a burst of endorphin it makes
you happy it makes you feel powerful and
it energizes you it makes you feel
strong so what they have found is that
any completed task is a source of
self-esteem and self-confidence it makes
you feel like a winner so if you have a
series of tasks to do let’s say you have
10 tasks and this is the least important
and this is the most important that
bigger the task that you complete the
greater the feeling of personal power
and self-esteem you have
the more you feel like a winner and so
if you can develop the habit of starting
and completing tasks you feel fabulous
about yourself all the time your
self-confidence goes through the roof
because you know you know you could do
anything that you put your mind to
because you’ve proven it to yourself
it’s not that you hope you can complete
important tasks you’ve done it and you
do it regularly nothing will move your
head faster than developing a reputation
for starting and completing important
tasks they interviewed several hundred
CEOs of major corporations at a
convention in New York a few years ago
and they asked them what would most help
a person in your company a younger
person to move ahead rapidly to get paid
more and promoted faster in your company
85% of them had the same answer the
ability to choose the most important
task and then to get the tasks done
quickly and well and that has been
corroborated by a thousand surveys is
the most valuable people in my company
are people who set priorities and work
on really important things with big
potential consequences for my company
and then they do them quickly and well
quickly and well they do the job fast
and they do it well and get it back to
me I learned this when I was a young
person it transformed my life as from
then on I just literally was like a
fanatic every job my boss gave me I did
it quickly and well with being well I’d
stay up all night I would work weekends
I would work hours to complete tasks and
well well in advance of when they were
required and it was the most incredible
effect of my career all you do is get a
reputation for doing things quickly and
well and what happens is you set up the
law of attraction more and more and
bigger and bigger and more important
tasks are attracted into your life that
you do quickly and what number number
six is to be a role model and this is
one of the most important qualities of
leadership when Tom Peters wrote his
book in search of excellence he said
this is perhaps the most important of
all is to be the kind of person that
other people admire is to set high
standards for yourself and then always
live up to those standards if you want
people in your company
to dress well dress well yourself if you
want them to be punctual be punctual for
every meeting if you want them to do
their work quickly and well do your work
quickly and well if you want them to
treat each other nicely treat everybody
nicely in other words you at the top set
the tone for everybody below you
everybody in the company looks at the
boss and does what the boss is doing and
the boss sets the tone at set and
determines the morale of the
organization so one of my favorite
questions does that pass on to you is
this is what kind of a company would my
company be if everybody in it was just
like me what kind of a company would
your company be if everybody in it did
exactly what you did all day every day
would it be a better would it be a
better company or what or would there is
a room for improvement and and and and
the fact is this room for improvement
and if you’re honest with yourself you
say well I could be a bit more punctual
or a bit better prepared for meetings or
I could focus on revenue generation
tasks or I could be nicer to people or
listen I mean there’s a once you ask
this question you set really high
standards for yourself and you always
look for ways to be a better boss and
you’ll find the very best companies have
the best bosses the best leaders and
they’re the leaders that everybody
admires and looks up to and respects
because of the way they work and the way
they treat other people so keep setting
high standards for yourself and they say
the superior Burrage person compares
themself with others and the superior
person compares himself with what they
are capable of being with their actual
their true potential
number seven key is to perform and get
results coming back to our old friend
results in the final analysis all your
hopes and dreams and all your income all
your future and the size of the house
you live in the car you drive and the
vacations you take will be determined by
the results that you get and your job is
to dedicate your working life to getting
more and more and better and better
results and so perform and get results
and as I reverse going right back to a
Drucker said the leader asked what
results are expected of me and of all
those results what are the most
important results and then what you do
is you pick the
important result of all and then you
focus and concentrate on that one result
and you work day and night and you work
with total dedication to accomplish that
one result until you make a habit of
starting and completing and achieving
your most important results and that
will do more to help you in your
business in terms of financial and
personal results that anything else you
can do but it will also do more to
affect you psychologically and
emotionally it will raise your
self-esteem and self-confidence they say
confidence comes from accomplishing
confidence doesn’t come from attending
motivational seminars confidence comes
from actually doing good work and seeing
that you’ve done good work and having
people say that’s good work
wow do you feel good about that and
you’re internally motivated and driven
to do it again and to repeat the process
because you’re getting positive
responses whenever you do good work and
whenever you complete your task now two
more things I have to finish for you
those are the seven the number one
quality for success in business
according to the study of the presidents
of the fortune 500 of the Inc 500
fastest growing companies in America is
unbridled optimism these people are so
positive they should be arrested and
held in padded cells they are so
positive about the future of their
business and no matter what happens they
just overwhelm every difficulty it does
never it never occurs to them that they
will not be successful it will just be
successful in a different way now how do
you become an optimist well optimism is
like physics is like mental fitness just
like if you want to be physically fit
you workout physically with your body if
you want to be mentally fit you exercise
your mind so there’s four things that
you can do for the rest of your life
to be a really positive person number
one is to think and talk about your
goals and how to achieve them is when
you’re thinking and talking about your
most important goals both business and
personal and you’re thinking of the
actions that you can take to achieve
those goals and you’re actually taking
those steps your sense of optimism goes
up dramatically
number two is to look for the good in
every situation one of the facts is that
you’re going to have nothing but
problems and difficulties and obstacles
all your life that goes with the nature
of being in business the only question
is how do you respond to them and the
answer is always look for something good
this by the way is a discovery made in
interviewing thousands of the most
successful people is they make it a
habit whenever something goes wrong they
say well that’s good and then find out
something good about it and there’s
always something good no matter how bad
the situation is
there’s always something good that comes
from it the third way to become an
optimist is to seek the valuable lesson
in every setback or difficulty this is
the most important perhaps of all is
that you can focus on the problem and
the loss or you can focus on the lesson
and what you can learn to be better next
time and whichever one you focus on
determines whether you’re positive or
negative if you are thinking about your
goals you’re always positive if you’re
looking for the good you’re always
positive if you’re looking into your
biggest problem today for the lessons
you can learn from that problem
you’ll always be positive and the fourth
key to optimism is to continue to learn
and grow continue to learn new things
that can help you to achieve your most
important goals and then of course take
action but you’ll find that leaders are
learner’s they’re constantly learning
new things and whenever you learn
something new that can help you it makes
you happy it makes you positive it
releases endorphins in your brain
you
you
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