37: Surge: How to Spot and Ride Trend Waves

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit jennyblake Me podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am absolutely thrilled to have Mike Michalowicz here with us today. He is the entrepreneur behind three multimillion dollar companies and the author of Surge, which we're talking about today. Profit first, the Pumpkin Plan, and what Businessweek deemed the entrepreneur's cult classic, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Mike is a former small business columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the former makeover specialist on MSNBC Today. He travels the world as an entrepreneurial advocate. And we met at a Mexican restaurant, an author dinner, where we converged on chips and guacamole and sangria. Welcome, Mike.

Puerto Brazo, amiga.

Mucho gusto.

Mucho gusto. Yeah, that was. I was gonna call you my Margarita maiden because.

We did it on my podcast, too. I was trying to get you liquored up a little bit, not. Not in a way to take advantage of a situation. I was having so much fun with you. I wanted you to, like, want to hang longer, so I try to get you.

The feeling was mutual. It was such a blast. And being on your podcast was the most fun I've ever had as a guest. I'm jealous of all your sound effects. I got to get some of that going for the Pivot podcast.

And I got to give you some of the stats here. Your podcast is crushing it. Yeah, I'll pull it up while we're talking, and I'll just blurt it out.

That's awesome to hear. All right, everyone, we'll put that in the show notes for today's episode. Those are at Jenny.

Mike, while you're pulling that up, I want to read an excerpt from the intro to Surge, which is all about making your own luck. Mike says what most people may not realize is being in the right place at the right time isn't some arbitrary force in the universe. Luck isn't about fate or worth or karma or tiny green Irishman. Luck is about foresight paired with strategic action. Luck is about planning. Luck is about deliberately putting yourself in the right spot at the right time. Spot the next trend wave coming, position yourself in front of it, and you'll capture a surge of consumer demand for your product or service.

I think we look at these successful companies and we think that they're so smart. Whoever founded Uber, I actually don't know the person's name, but whoever found Uber is clearly so calculated, so smart, he or she figured out everything.

What I found is the reality is they were lucky, but they strategically improved the odds. They invested their time in giving it their best shot and putting themselves in the right spot. But there were certain elements that played in, like with Uber specifically, and there's actually a TED video about this. There was a time before 2008 that if I called you up and said, hey, would you mind giving a ride to someone you've never met before, picking up on some random street where you don't know where you're starting and you definitely don't know where you're going to end, would you be willing to drive that person around and be like, are you effing crazy? Like, that person could kill me. And after 2008, when the economy declined, the need to make money so many people were losing jobs and need to make money mitigated the risk of driving someone around that you don't know. And that timing allowed someone like Uber with this crazy idea to do exactly what we just talked about to come to fruition. But I think some people then hear the story and say, well, it's pure luck. I mean, it's pure luck. And that's not the case either. There is no magic bullet to timing the market. We can't get perfectly right, but we can improve the odds. What I did is I studied Uber all the way to these big businesses. I interviewed Brian Smith, the founder of ugg, all the way down to actually place out where you are in Manhattan, there's a bakery by a guy named Chef Dominic Ansel, and he is the founder of the Cronut. And I interviewed him and these businesses all kind of follow this process that I now call surge. But they intentionally made decision after decision that kept on putting them in the best position, giving them the best odds for success. And that's the key.

That's what I find so interesting, that we live in a very competitive global marketplace now. And what I found so interesting about the introduction of your book is you say you don't make the waves, you just get to ride them. And the key is to see them coming and then ride the wave. And you even say you can't have a killer ride on a ripple. So part of the skill that you're teaching is how to find the wave. But the idea is not that we create the wave.

Yeah. And that's the big thing you have to be aware of. Think about the analogy I use is going into like a pool or something with a floaty and maybe with the little kids or something. You start jumping around with the floaty to make these waves in the pool. Well, do that in the ocean and you look just like an idiot out there. You can't make waves in the ocean. And when it comes to the business environment, we're talking about an ocean of opportunity. The waves are naturally moving. And what happens is in any segment or market niche, there is motion going on because a new innovation comes about, a new trend happens, something happens and it causes that downward pressure in one spot, causes upward pressure elsewhere, and a new wave comes, this segment, that group of people start moving in a certain direction. The idea here is most of us, most entrepreneurs look for what's already happening and then try to catch up to it. And that's like a surfer trying to paddle after a wave after it's already passed. Good luck. The key here is to paddle in front of the wave as the demand is imminent, meaning it's upon us and growing, but you're still in front of it. Start paddling aggressively in front of it. At a certain point, your efforts going to transition to where the wave, the consumer demand, actually starts you. And the funny thing about it is you don't have to have the perfect solution, the perfect product, the perfect service. We know this. When demand outstrips supply, demand becomes much more tolerant. Customers are willing to take something that's inferior. Eric Rees talks about this in the Lean Startup. The minimum viable product concept is you don't have to be perfect. You have to introduce something that a community wants but doesn't have yet, and they'll be very tolerant of it. It's only once the wave starts carrying you that then you need to make an effort to really improve your product offering or service offering so you're distinct in the market and customers can rave about you.

You talk about being on the lookout for swells in the distance and identifying those with the most potential. So let's get into brass tacks a little bit. How do we spot these swells in the distance? Effectively?

Yeah. So when I say in the distance, I mean the next set in the distance. So the analogy I use throughout the book is surfer. I've now interviewed quite a few and observed a lot of surfing. And one of the tenants of surfing is you go out into the ocean and you start looking for what's called imminent waves, waves that are upon you. And they usually come in sets. There's a few that come together, two or three, and then there'll be a break and then three or four more will come. They only look at the next set. So the imminent wave pattern comes upon you, is the next three. And you're looking for out of those three or four waves, is there one that is showing that has the most potential? It has a good peak to it, meaning that there's a rideable spot, is it starting to break? Where that means will form a pocket which is the most energetic part, if you will, of the wave that has the most energy to push you forward. It's this evaluation of waves is very important. And you have to, as you see the waves approaching you, determine which one you think is the best ride. But then you also have to commit to one. And you know there's surfers out there. The nickname is Bobs. Bobs are the folks that go out in the ocean and they sit on their surfboard bobbing up and down wave after wave and never picking one to ride. They're among the worst surfers because they never give it a shot. The best surfers will look at the imminent set, determine which one looks like the best to ride, and then make a commitment to go for it. They don't bob for long. They. They pick the best of what they're seeing that's imminently upon them and they go for it. And the key too is when they commit to a. They fully commit. They start paddling aggressively in front of it. They unify with the waves direction, not always come straight perpendicular to the beach. Some of them can run on angles or even sometimes parallel. They will match the pattern or the direction the wave is going, try to match the speed as best as they can. And then once the wave is actually upon them and starting to push them, that's when they move from exerting energy to capturing energy. The energy of the wave. Oh, and by the way, your ranking, you have 1058 downloads in the first four. In comparison, the number two player in the last two months. I'm sorry, the number one player, your number two was Bob Berg with 1,130 in four days.

Well, I'm very honored. Let's get some margaritas and celebrate. Actually in a Cronut, because I've never had a Cronut before and I live in Soho. I'm blocks away.

Okay, next time I'm in the city, I am taking you out for a Cronut.

Go stand in line for a Cronut.

Yep. Perfect. Okay.

I'm curious to know, was there ever a time that you felt you missed a set, a big set, Looking back, that sparked some of what's in the book?

Yeah. Oh, my God. I've missed tons of sets. I never looked for them. I was the guy paddling from behind the wave. So when I saw. So my first company was in technology integration, computer networks, I saw that there was an opportunity in computer networks, so I started doing that. But I was always behind the wave. The one technical transition that happened during that period, Novell, if you're even familiar with that brand, was a very popular brand in early networking. And Microsoft was an innovator and came in with Ms. Networking or Microsoft Networking. Nt was a server. I saw it, and I decided to disregard it because I already knew what was happening with Novell, and I was going to commit to that. Well, very quickly, over a few years, Microsoft dominated the space, and now I had to try to play catch up to meet or even compete with competitors that were so much more advanced and skilled with this new software. The thing is, the clients know the answer. So as I serve my clients, if I just paid attention to their needs, truly, and the pressure they're feeling and how they were making a shift, it would have been very obvious I should have made a transition earlier on. And I've put my business in a much better position not playing catch up. So the goal is, once you're up in your niche, in your category, identify where are they moving? No market stays static. They always move to something new or better that removes pain or addresses a goal they want to achieve. We've got to be very observant of what the client's doing to pay attention to and be careful not to get stuck in our kind of our ways.

Yeah, well. And you say that these waves don't last forever, which we know from looking at the ocean, but that you say in the book, will waves eventually crash onto the rocks? Yes, all waves crash onto the rocks or fizzle out as they roll onto the beach. When you ride a wave, it will crash against the shore at some point. I guarantee it. That's like. It's hard to hear, but I know you're right. And so.

How do you recommend that people spot the crash when it's approaching and get off in time or pivot to a different wave in time?

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, surfers do this. They call it dumping. So you can dump a wave anytime you can get on a wave and just feel it's not a good fit. For you and dump out immediately. Or you can get a ride and then you cut off of it. Sometimes it's very rare, but sometimes you'll see someone will actually ride a wave all the way into the beach and then walk off their board on the beach.

You know when a wave is dumping in the business space, when there is a decline in the overall market.

So the example is the taxicab wave is washing out now, right? There's less, less and less taxicabs out there as Uber comes in and it's crushing them. So you know that a wave is washing out when.

The mass market starts to decline. The key though is that's not the time to jump on the wave. It's at the very early stage. So we want to ride waves from when this market is on its incline, it's just starting, it's imminently upon us, and then ride it to the mass wave and then you can dump that wave and go right back out and ride the next thing. I'll give you an example, just picking on Uber for a little bit. Uber, that wave is not washing out, but it is building as approaching the peak. I don't know the peaks going to happen in two months, two years or two decades. I suspect sooner rather than later. But to jump on the Uber wave, there's still opportunity there, but it's degradating. I know one company that was watching Uber and said, wow, look at all these people that are driving Uber cars and don't realize that they're now actually an independent contractor, they're actually an entrepreneur. They need to track their tax reserves properly. This company called Hurdler jumped on this and is now doing automated tax compliance for Uber drivers. So there's all these ripples still coming off, but that's only going to play out as long as there's this sharing economy going on. My argument is the next wave that's imminently upon us is like the electric car.

Some indicators of an imminent wave, something that's potentially surfable, is that there is early adopters that are seeing that concept through to the point where people are sometimes attacking them for their decisions, but they're fighting through it. The electric car is like the electric car 10 years ago was caught a golf cart. Just to put in perspective now, the electric car, it could be a Tesla. And I'm sure the first person that bought a Tesla in your area, just like in my neighborhood, was attacked for buying such a risky car. The thing could explode. You get battery acid all over the place. It's a death trap. And they had the fortitude to stick through it then we're seeing the upsurge now. Now what's happening is Tesla announces 400,000 orders, the most preorders ever in US history for automobiles. Now there's an imminent wave of punish. This is the time to hop on all the spinouts that are going to come out of the electric car. One example I like to talk about is that electric cars spend a lot of energy on heating and cooling the interior cabin. Someone could, why not? You make new materials for the car that reduces that requirement. Maybe some kind of build something into the windshield that keeps heat in when you want it in and keeps the cool in when you want to keep that in. Maybe new interior materials that actually can use sunlight to heat and cool the car better. There's a lot of opportunities there. But what about fueling stations? As opposed to just the one or two fueling stations at, like a quick check? Why not replacing gas stations with chargers? You know, there's a lot of opportunity that's coming out of it. Now's the time to look at it. The one last thing I want to share about that is if you look too far out, you get trapped, too. The incoming set of waves right now is the electric car, but the autonomous car, that's still out there. Yes, Google's investing ridiculous amounts of money into it. Yes, there's some autonomous cars in testing, but do you know someone in your neighborhood that's driving one? Have you been picked up by an autonomous car yet and driven around? No, we don't know how that's going to play out yet. And to start paddling in front of that wave is premature. We're probably going to use up our energy before anything comes. And we don't even know if it's a good rideable wave yet. So look at what's immin. Ride it. And then when you see the market start a decline, that's typically the best time to dump.

Sometimes when waves are imminent, it can be hard to distinguish, which one should I ride? I mean, the examples you've given are awesome. And they're pretty big. They're macro big ideas. What about for entrepreneurs who run smaller businesses or even someone just looking to bolster their skills? One thing that comes up a lot with people I talk to is I have all these ideas. Which one should I pursue? So if they're looking at a variety of sets, how do they know which one to ride?

Yes, great question. And the reason I use the big macro things is because we all know the story behind Them. Ironically, it's in the micro niches where the best rideable waves are because there's very few people trying to hog that wave. You may be the only person trying to ride that wave which gives you the most opportunity to carve it up. And how you do it is you first must put pick the market. I can't tell you, Jenny, how many people have come to me right now since I'm releasing Surge saying, hey, what's the next big trend? Well, there's millions of them. I just shared the electric car. But that's not even the trend as much as all the derivative trends like heating and cooling and energizing and so forth. So the step one for anyone's listening in is identify the niche that you're pursuing. I'll give you a real simple example. For me, I own a business now. All we do is cater to accountants and bookkeepers. That's the niche. And there's a special group of those. It's the ones who are looking to move from their current transactional kind of services to a more consultative model. So very specific group. What we decided is, well, what we realized is that software is getting so sophisticated like QuickBooks and all the different accounting systems that's actually replacing the traditional data entry and manipulation that accountants and bookkeepers do. And there's a group now trying to become more concentrated, almost like a business coach around money. And the problem is they don't know how to do it. So we start pally in front of it, start an organization now that caters to accountants and bookkeepers exclusively and gives them almost a done for you set of tools they can use now to be consultative around the data that the computers are spitting out. So anyone that wants to start riding waves, first identify a very specific niche. And I'll give you a shortcut to get there. If you have existing clients, look at your existing clients and look at who your favorite, best paying client is. That might be a niche. I don't know if it is and there's no guarantee until you start testing it out. But it's a good guesstimation because if a client, if you like doing business with that client and they pay you well, chances are there's other folks out there like them. Birds of a feather flock together after all. And you have a shortcut into the community because you're already working with one of the clients there. Once you identify that niche, the category you're going to service, then start investigating the history of that niche, the challenges they're facing now, what the early Adopters, the cool kids are doing, like the ones that own the Teslas. What are the cool kids in the bookkeeping and accounting community? For me, what are they doing? And then see if I can paddle in front of that with a unique service or product that will service everyone else. That's moving the same way.

Yeah. Talking to people is a big part of your strategy, which is that none of us are in an echo chamber. And you say that the best thing people can do is one, talk to their customers, particularly their best customers, and two, talk to other people who have ridden that wave before that you're trying to ride or that are on it right now.

On it right now. Yeah. So you got to realize that once you go to a community, there is a lot of people on that community, but there are different waves. And what I mean is serving accountants and bookkeepers, just going back to my business, there's a lot of people that provide services for that community. And products accounting software is one of them.

There's website designers that specifically cater to accountants and bookkeepers. Well, as I start meeting and interviewing these people, they all see the shift in the market and they all share how they're addressing it. Websites are being redesigned to say, hey, we get your books, make your books accurate. To we take your accurate books and tell you what to do with it. Like, you know, that alone gave me a good sense of if that transition is happening in the website design arena, what could be happening in the arena I'm serving. So once you identify the niche, identify the influencers, the vendors and all those folks and start interviewing them. And one last tip. If you ever hear the word traditional, like, this is traditionally how bookkeeping is done, this is traditionally how cars were made. The second you start hearing traditional, that's almost in all cases an indicator of something that's fading out as washing out and that will be replaced.

Very interesting. There's a lot of people in the entrepreneurial sphere who talk about failure, and we have failure porn now that I think you and I haven't talked about on your show.

Yeah.

What about success? One of the things you say in the book is what would happen to your business if you found the shoulder of your wave and suddenly experienced cronut level success? Would you be able to meet that demand? And I don't see people talking about that as much of how do you scale and quickly if you're about to really hit that big crash?

Yeah. So this is the surprising part. So most folks listening into this, I assume are in a survival mode. And I Don't mean that negatively, but that is the definition of most businesses, the vast majority of businesses. My estimates, and I've heard this through the SBA, about 83% of businesses are surviving, check by check. And what that means is they're constantly just taking on the next client, the next project. They're being pushed around by the currents of the ocean, and they're not trying to capture the energy. If we make this shift in the few things we were talking about, and there's more right about in surge, but if we make this shift and the wave starts carrying us, it's a fascinating thing. There becomes a moment when and the marketing is taking care of itself. You're so uniquely in front of the imminent demand that people that are seeking you out seek you out aggressively. Word of mouth lights on fire. Because you're one of the few providers that has the unique solution that they need. And what's weird about it is the marketing, which most of us do now every day, it's like, how do I sell? Should I run Facebook ads today? What should I do? I need more business that instantly goes away. So it's a very awkward sensation when the effort isn't trying to generate leads and prospects is when they're flocking to you. But then the flip side says, can you deliver?

Baking a dozen cookies for one person or a couple people is easy. Bake 5,000 cookies. And even though the recipe may feel the same, it's a radically different game. So we have to be prepared. Once the wave starts carrying us, all of our attention must shift to the scalability component component, to doing the right thing for the client, repeatedly, consistently. It's a whole different game. What I found is not everyone's structured for that. Not everyone's even desirous of it. What I believe is allow the right size business to find you. One of the beauties is you can say no. You can get to a certain size where you say no, and you can become more and more selective. The work you do, you can narrow down as you're up on the wave carrying you, so you can kind of throttle your growth. And whoever said bigger is better, what a jackass.

That's not necessarily true. Better is better. In this case, do what's right for you. So let the right size find you. And if you feel the waves pushing you along too quickly, narrow down your niche or narrow down your offering and it'll throttle it down a little bit.

I think that's so important, and it speaks to the ideal, the idea of a lifestyle business which doesn't have to mean, like, go work on a beach from Southeast Asia sipping coconuts. But it really means to me, what kind of business do you want to run and create that suits your desired lifestyle? Not everybody wants to have 100 employees. I know I don't. But I still would like to grow and scale. So I love what you just said about throttling it and creating. Let the business size inform you as well. Like, it's a kind of a collaborative process with the business.

One of my favorite interviews for Serge was with Chef Ansel, Chef Dominic Ansel and the Cronut founder. What was fascinating was he was put on the wave. He put himself on the wave. He was constantly experimenting with different desserts. He still does today. And when he found the Cronut, discovered the Cronut, it was within days that the word got out. An article broke, I think, in the New York Times, and the place has been saturated with people ever since now. Now he was approached to sell the concept and franchise it. Have Cronuts everywhere in the world to grow from one bakery to hundreds. He had investment bankers and stuff that were approaching him and wanted this. He made the decision that's not who he is and that wouldn't satisfy his life. It's a shame that so many of us, just by the nature of the media, that entrepreneurs read the magazines and so forth, think that having the next Facebook is the epitome of success. And that's a shame, because it really is not.

Size doesn't matter. After all, happiness does. What continues to satisfy your soul. I'm most impressed by that interview with Chef Ansel because he declined the opportunity to scale because he wanted to pursue the opportunity to stay within his passion. And he said, no, I'm going to stay one bakery and I'm going to continue to invent new desserts. This isn't the one and done club. I'm doing thousands of iterations. And he continues to keep with new products. Now, he's not stupid. He's still riding the Cronut wave. He still makes them, but he still makes only a limited quantity. You still have to get there at 6am in the morning and wait in line if you want to get a Cronut. So he's throttled it, as we're talking about earlier, by reducing the availability so he's not forced to scale and grow. And he's, as a result, very successful and very happy.

I loved that story. I'm curious, have you ever or when in your business, have you had a time where the surge happened for you. I don't know if it was when you were doing your business makeover TV show, but where you felt like, oh my gosh, the demand is almost more than I can handle. And I'm just curious to know how you dealt with that.

Yeah, so the first experience, I'm now having two experiences with surge. So my first experience, I didn't know how to handle it and my ego got the best of me. With my second company, we were in computer crime investigation and this was just unintentional. Right place, right time, with no discipline, no calculation. I started the forensics business and the Enron trial broke six months later. And we got part of the Enron trial, my company, from brand new startup. Within the first year, I think we're almost $2 million in revenue and didn't do anything. It was totally bootstrapped but had no preparation for the third year into it. We were on a run for 7 million and the company got acquired by Fortune 500. And I didn't.

I thought shamefully, clearly there are only reasons happens because I'm such a genius. I didn't think about right place, right time. I thought it was just great, Mike. And my ego got the best of me and it caused the calamity that I well deserved and actually kind of woke my eyes to the concept of surge and other things where how I'm experiencing it now. Now again with.

The bookkeepers and accountants. I started a business called Profit First Professionals where we're teaching accountants and bookkeepers how to be advisors on profitability. And we got on the wave very quickly. We started the business and we got on the wave fast because we went in a much more calculated understanding pick a separate niche to go into a category. We are seen in the market as the number one authority in this category. Now don't get it wrong, don't take me wrong. We're still struggling at times and still making mistakes and still having to learn as we go. But the market's much more tolerant of us because we're the first in and we're in front of the wave the next four or five years. The transition from accountants to bookkeepers and bookkeepers to becoming consultative as opposed to just administrators is going to start to skyrocket. This wave is so imminent. So just starting because right now you still, everyone listening to the show probably has an account they work with or a bookkeeper. You still need them or if you don't have them, you're doing it yourself. Five years out from now, software is going to Be so sophisticated that you don't need any of that stuff, but you may want someone to advise you on how to become more profitable. So we're on the wave, we can feel it pushing us, but we're still struggling in the day to day, and I think that's normal. This isn't like the panacea to perfection. You're not going to pick your wave and, oh, my God is this car. You still gotta find how to stand out and get your balance and carve around. And someone else may be trying to get in that wave too, and she may be a better surfer and cut you off. So it's not a panacea, but it definitely improves the odds of having the success you want. As you define it, what surprised you.

Most writing Surge from the time you started to the time you finished?

I think this is the first. All right, so it's totally not the concept of surge, it's just the writing, the book process. This is the shortest book I've ever written. Written. And what surprised me was as I wrote a short book, I was like, it's not going to feel as meaty when you buy it. There's not going to be as much in there. But it's all that's necessary. It's not overkill. I'm not putting in fluff. It's all people want. But I'm like, this might be a mistake. And the first reader that got it released about two months ago in Audible and then in Kindle. Now, the print and the official release isn't happening until June 20, but the first reader comes back and says, thank God you wrote a concise book. I was able to absorb this quickly. And I'm already applying the stuff that was not hot. And now I'm getting that feedback consistently saying, I like that it's short and actionable, as opposed to long and fluffy.

On the subject of actionable, if you could give listeners two or three pieces of homework to take from this call, what would you say they go out and do if they haven't read the book? Well, obviously, number one is go buy the book. Yeah.

Go buy the book. Yeah. It's worth it.

I have to say buy profit first, because Mike gave me that at our Guacamole dinner. And it totally changed things for me. I set up four, which is kind of the minimum, to start four different bank accounts where I would pay myself first. As Mike talks about, I would split out into a special tax account. So I wasn't surprised during tax time. It was just great. I ninja Fied my banking. Thanks for that book.

Yeah, Profit First, I think I plan to write in my lifetime, maybe 20 books, I really do. So Surge is my fourth. But I think Profit First, I already feel is going to be the most important work I've ever done because of the impact it's having. So thank you for sharing that in regards to Surge, the steps to take. Yeah, by all means, pick up the book. I think for me, more than conferences, more than webinars, even podcasts, the books. Think about Jenny, how much time you put into Pivot. That's a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience and years of writing and working on it, all consolidated and condensed down to a Cliff Notes of all your knowledge. Like, to me, that's for 30 bucks. That is the most incredible value of all time. So I'm a big fan of buying books. If you decide not to, I totally get it, too. Here's the steps to take. You got to separate out your niche, meaning you've got to pick a very narrow category. The only way to spot waves is when you pick the COVID you're going to go surfing in. The ocean's too big to say, huh? There's a way 50 miles outlast, you can see. No.

Pick your niche, or there's some big kahuna in the industry. Surfing a wave that looks fun, that looks successful, and I'm going to go try and be that guy. I think that's a mistake a lot of people make, too, myself included.

Such mistakes. Such a mistake. Pick your niche. Pick a group that excites you, something you're intrigued by or interested in. Accounting and bookkeeping in the traditional sense, not so interesting. But the ability to drive profitably in businesses and help businesses really excites me. And these are the people that are armed to do it. So that's the niche I picked. But surgeons also an acronym. S is separate. U stands for unify. So step two is you've got to deliver a product or service that matches their imminent need. R stands for rally cry. So tip number three is, what is the purpose behind what you're doing? When we work with bookkeepers and accountants, we tell them the reason we're doing this is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. It's the ultimate filter. The accountants and bookkeepers that get it join us and it's a wild success. The ones who don't get it, don't get it and don't join us. It's a great marketing filter. And then I'll give you two more tips. So separate Unify and rally. Constantly be gathering as you pick your niche. G stands for gathering knowledge. Constantly be evaluating how the micro shifts are going on. What you come up with originally may not be the solution. You may need to tweak it. Inevitably, you'll have to. So do that. And then E stands for expand. It's only the final stage and E is at the end. Too many businesses try to do more things for more people, starting with day one. And that's the biggest mistake you have to master. Separate, unify, rally, cry and gather about your niche before you expand it out. That's the action.

Amazing. There's one thing we didn't talk about. I just want to sneak in, which is this idea of not you even say in the book. The moment you're trying to outdo your competition, you're screwed. Like competition focus. So can you speak to that one.

Quick Earlier I said better is better, but in this category, better is not better. When you look at your competition, trying to outdo your competition is a fool's folly. The reason behind this is the consumer. The customer cannot distinguish better. Jenny, if someone calls your office and you answer in one ring, because I answer in two rings, you are better than me. But the consumer's not going to see that what they notice is different. Don't try to be better than the competition. Try to be different than the competition. If we're walking down, say we're sitting on the side of a highway, we see cars blazing by, they start to blend together. But the second a giraffe comes walking down the highway like, whoa, what the hell is that? And we're going to be paying attention. A faster, better car won't get noticed, but a giraffe will. Our aspirations, our business should be serve the market differently. Approach them in a way they haven't been approached before. Now you're that giraffe that stands out. Or conversely, if we're in a zoo with all these giraffes and you're the car that comes racing through, you'll get noticed. You'll get noticed. Pursue different, not better, better.

I love it. What a great note to end on, Mike. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

It's my website. It's the mecca of everything. I got free chapters for my books. My best 10 articles on Wall Street Journal, the most popular ones. You can get them free Download. Go to mikemicalitz.com I know that's the most long name on the planet, so I'll give you two shortcuts. My nickname in grade school is Mike Motorbike. So you can go to mikemotorbike.com that'll get you there. Or you can go to Google. Google's been very friendly to me. Type in mic and then spacebar. Mick. M I, C. Mike. Mick. And then when the longest, most polish name in the world appears, that's me. Click on it.

Yeah, I have to say we're friends and I still misspell your name.

I still misspell it, so it's not easy.

Yeah, because I want to add the E in my calauts. Like to say Michael, but it's not there. Also, I'll put all these links to Michael's books and the podcast we did for for his podcast. We'll put that all in the show notes at Jennyblake Me podcast and the book. I didn't say the subtitle earlier, but I love it. So I want to give it some love right now, which is surge time, the marketplace. Ride the wave of consumer demand and become your industry's big kahuna. Congrats, Mike, on an awesome book, and thanks again for being on the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. To learn more and get in touch, visit jennyblake Me, where I blog about systems at the intersection of mind, body, and business. Or find me on Twitter ennyblake. And remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.