089. How 10X Really is Easier Than 2X

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Well, hello my friends. How are you? Hope you're having a great start to your day or whenever you're listening to this end to end of your day. I guess this is kind of towards the end of my day. Whatever time of day you're at, I hope it's fabulous. How about that? I am so excited about this episode today because it's been long. Incoming. I finally am recording a podcast about my new favoritist book. The book is 10x is easier than 2x how world class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less. And it's by dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy. So there you have it. This is my latest, most favorite book and I wanted to share it with you because it really has changed so much of the way I think about growing my company and how I want to teach you and teach my clients about growing their companies. And I think we as women a lot of times resist too much growth because of what we think it might mean for the rest of our lives, for our relationships. And so we put the brakes on our business or we just kind of, you know, have a jobby and make a little bit of money and have a little bit of fun. But the really, it doesn't have to be that way. And so I am going to totally blow your mind today. So buckle up, buttercup. And I, I have a very special announcement and I can't wait to share that with you as well. So let's dive in. So I've always been a rebel. I've seen myself like a rebel in business. I went to business school, I have an mba. I earned my mba. And so I learned kind of the traditional academic, quote, corporate way of doing business. And I always say that the years I've spent as an entrepreneur, I learned so much more than I ever did in school. And I think it's because I've always been a little bit of a rebel. And I tried to do things the way, you know, the corporate way maybe, and they just didn't work for me. So I would create and iterate and invent different ways of doing things that have worked for me. And so that's, and that's what makes me a great coach because that's what I help my clients do as well. I don't believe there's only one way to build a business. I believe that each of our businesses is a one in a million business. And because of who we are and our experiences and how we build things. And that is part of why our clients will love us. So I'm kind of getting off track there. But you'll see it's very aligned with this book because this book had me at hello. The first line of the introduction is, I quote, 10x is the opposite of what you've been told, unquote. And I read that line, I was like, I am in wait, whatever's the opposite is what I want to learn. So I basically just devoured this book because it only gets better from there. So reading this book completely changed my paradigm of growth and scaling and confirmed so many things for me and align deeply with what I have been thinking about business growth and the way I was. I feel like it's with my female brain have been thinking about growth and scaling and what I've been teaching my clients. And obviously this book was written by two men, so maybe it's not just the way women think, but I am open to all the ideas. Right. And so this message, I feel like is so critical and why I'm recording an entire podcast about this book is so critical for us to read and to absorb and then put into practice. And I've also. This is my special announcement. I've also decided to host a book club and I would love for you to join me. It'll be virtual and so wherever in the world you are, you can join me for my book club. It's something I've never done before, but I think it's highly, highly important for every single one of us women growing businesses as entrepreneurs to go through this book to hold each other accountable, to discuss and get clarity and apply these concepts to our specific businesses so that we too can achieve more by doing less, as the book title promises. And of course, knowing me, you know me, I have put my own spin on some of the concepts and thinking about them from my perspective as a wife and a mom with and a woman that I think will help us as women to assimilate and activate these concepts in the book to support our growth without burning out my friends. You don't have to burn out. Okay? So if you feel like you've been trying to do business the way that you were told and it's not working, or if you're like me, the way I learned in school and it's not working, then you belong here, okay? Listening to this podcast and then I hope, choosing to read this book and join us for the book club. So we'll talk more about the details of the book club later, but all the info is already on my website and social, so if you're interested and if you're on my email list, you will be invited there as well. But in the meantime, I want to walk you through the most important concepts of this book so that you can, whether you join us for the book club or not, can begin to see the power of thinking and acting or 10x versus 2x. Right? And so even if you don't decide to read the book, what you're going to learn here today is going to blow your mind and change your life, change the way you think about your business, your time, your calendar, all the things. And so let's dive in. So first I want to define 2x and 10x and we'll kind of be defining it and refining it as we go through this podcast. But first, 10x going 10x and thinking like someone that is going 10x with their business is simpler. Focusing on less, not more. Okay, 10x is doing less, not doing more. And the 2x mindset, in contrast, says if I want to double the size of my business or 2x my revenue, double my revenue, I have to do twice as much. Now, how many of us have thought that I'm raising my hand because I have, I have thought, okay, you know, I'm making, I don't know, 50 grand or whatever, I want to double this sucker, I'm just going to do twice the work, right? And then I'll get you 100 grand. Right? We've all done that. And that's the way many of us think. And I believe that's why many of us as women resist growing our businesses, because we're not willing to double the amount of time our business takes of our lives. We are so much more holistic and we desire having that or that balancing going on and having relationships, having families, having fun, having full lives. We desire balancing. And so the 10x way of doing business will give you that. So you could have attend a business that is having the impact the income and the, I don't know, basically the impact and the income 10 times of what you have now with less effort. Isn't that amazing? So this is how it happens. So you've probably heard of the 8020 rule, right? It's called the Pareto Principle. It's an economic and statistical concept which I love talking about because as an MBA student My favorite subjects were economics and statistics and marketing. Of course, my, my concentration was in marketing, but I love also the economics and statistics. So we learn a lot about this 8020 rule, which you probably have heard. But basically it means that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes. So there's an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. Okay, Put simply in business terms, this means that 20% of your focus is coming from 80% of your best and most desired results. That's a quote from the book. I'm going to Repeat that quote. 20% of your focus is coming from 80% of your best and most desired results. Okay? So conversely, 80% of your action is producing only 20% or less of your best results. Right? So what this means is that quote, I'm quoting the book now, you're investing lots of time and energy into stuff that's literally holding you back greatly, period, end quote. That's pretty harsh, right? But it's so true. So it's like we are focused on, we're focusing 80% of our action on things that don't matter, right? That are only creating like 20% of our results. And then the things that are producing the most amount of results for us, we're only spending a small amount of time on. So how do you know what's your 80 and what's your 20? And this translates to our time. And when we're thinking 8020, I'm thinking about our time, our energy, our focus, our investments, our money. Right? So how you know what's your 80 and what's your 21st, you have to establish your goal. Like you have to know where you're headed in order to be able to look at your business and see what's your 80 and what's your 20, right? You have to know like your shorter term goal, maybe it's your goal for this year, your revenue goal for the year. And then you also have to know your ultimate aim. Like what is your big, biggest, hairiest, most audacious goal? What is the big goal? So then you score and measure your business against those two things. Your all your actions and your focus and your clients and all of that, then it becomes very clear what is your 80 and what is your 20. So without knowing what your current goal is, and then your biggest aim, your ultimate aim is without these, you can't measure what's getting you there and what's not. Right? So then once you know those things and you can look at your business in these, these eight, this 8020 rule from that through that lens, then you understand that going for 10x requires letting go of the 80% of crap that you're focused on. That's only creating 20% of your results and going all in on the 20% that is your highest and greatest impact. And then what do you do with the other 80%? You delegate it, you automate it, or you just delete it. I mean, when I read this, like, the first thing I thought of was email, right? I'm like, how much time do I spend on email? Like, that could definitely be my 80% as far as time, right? And so it's having that awareness. Once you have that awareness, it will. I mean, you can see how much that can totally change the way you think about your calendar, where you're spending your time, what you're doing with your money, right? So we are going to work on what this is for you specifically in your business, inside the book club. We're going to study it and then we're going to study your business. And I want you to come out of this experience. This book club experience is just over a month throughout the month of September. For all the Tuesdays in September we're meeting. You're going to read the entire book. You're going to have a clear understanding of what's going on in your business. What's your 80, what's your 20, and what you're going to do with the 80 that you don't need to be focused on. So you can focus on that 20 and make that 20 blow that up to 80%. Right? So that's really the whole principle of the book. So it's super important to understand. And I'm going to quote here, this is super important quote, 10x is qualitative, meaning this is me adding this quality and value focused, right? 10x is qualitative, not quantitative. Quantitative means more. So it's about different and better, not more. The more different and better you are for a highly specific type of person, the more asymmetric the upside in everything you do, unquote. So basically what that's saying is that 10x is focused on creating quality, not quantity. It's about focusing on being different and better, not just being more. And the more that you do that, the more upside you're going to create for yourself. And the you will experience that 10x, that exponential growth, right? So that is how you can make 10x without doing 10x. Because it has nothing to do with the doing. It's more about the being, the quality, the value. Right. And so in this book, he, he, they tell stories of businesses just like yours and mine that have done this. Right? And I know it works in my business and with my clients and it can work for you too. I know that to be true 100%. So that's why this is so exciting. So when you shed the, and I'm quoting when you shed the quote, more is more 2x thinking, you will begin to see your business completely differently. You'll see your best fit client, your offers, your operations, the way you handle money differently. So I want to just offer that this is a process of transformation, right? It's not a light switch. Although now you're probably having some light bulb moments. I hope so. But this is a process of iteration and we're going to kick this off and start this for you together in the book club. So, and I think I am so fired up about this because I really think this is why less than 2% of women owned businesses make over a million dollars. Because the vast majority of us don't know this concept, don't understand this concept. Which is why I'm super, super compelled to teach it to you and go all the way through this book with you and help you to begin implementing in your business. Because I think once you hear this and once you learn this, you can't unlearn it, you can't unhear it, you will be changed and you will want to run your business, your calendar, your non work time differently. It will be focused around quality and value and not quantity. Right? So I think my biggest aha from this book was that if I choose to focus on the highest value, most desired places in my business with my time and do the same in my personal life, choose to focus on the high and the highest value most desired places in my personal life, what would I be saying yes to and what would I be saying no to? So you can do that exercise. I would highly recommend that as your homework from this episode. We don't usually do homework around here, but I think this is super important. If you focused, if you chose to focus on the highest value, most desired places in your business, with your clients, with your time, what would you say yes to and what would you say no to? And also if you chose to focus on the highest value, most desired places in your personal life, in your relationships, who and what would you be saying yes to and what would you be saying no to? So if you take nothing else from this podcast, take that and I believe I know it will change everything for you and Your business. Right. So that really is like the core mind shift, the core shift in thinking paradigm shift that these authors offer in this book. And then for the remainder of the book, they talk about how to go, how to actually implement this and how to go 10x by focusing on that 20% where you have the most wealth, the most joy, and the most abundance. How does that sound? Not bad, eh? Let's go for it. So speaking of wealth, I love their discussion in this book about the difference between money and wealth. I know in our culture, in our society, we think we kind of use those to two words interchangeably, but wealth really is something that someone else wants. And it doesn't have to be money. It can be money, but wealth is something someone else wants. Whether it's money or time. You could be time wealthy, right? Freedom. You could have wealth of freedom. Knowledge, you could have a wealth of knowledge. So it doesn't necessarily equate to money, although money can be part of it. So the 10x mindset is thinking about creating wealth and creating wealth where you want to create it. Because we all have heard of or know people that maybe have lots of money but are not wealthy, right? They're not wealthy in terms of happiness or they're not wealthy in terms of freedom. But then we also know people that are maybe don't have a lot of money, but have a wealth of love, have a wealth of generosity, right? So but we also have the option to be people that have a lot of wealth of service and knowledge and generosity and also money. So I love that distinction. And what I like to say is that when you help others get what they most want, basically share your wealth of experience and knowledge and value, you will create everything you want. And in the book they say, and in most cases, money follows wealth. But wealth really is the highest value for a 10x er for that 10x mindset, we're always thinking about wealth, wealth of quality of relationships, wealth of quality of our service or product that we offer, right? 10x ers are always thinking how they can create more wealth or value to offer the world. And when the value you offer is qualitatively better and different, more money, more wealth and money is created. And I love they say in the book that I didn't find this quote, I gotta look it up again. But I believe they said even if you're just. And there's scientific research behind this, if you're just 10 or 20% different, it can greatly increase your value, your wealth and your income. You don't have to be. Because I guess I always thought like, yeah, I have to be like a hundred percent unique, a hundred percent different than all the, all the other businesses like mine. Right? But what the research has shown is that you need to just be 10% different to have a 10x business. How about that? That blows my mind too. Woo. Okay, so 10x is about creating transformational relationships over transactional relationships, right? It's about that quality over quantity. And this starts with having a transformational relationship with yourself and understanding and embracing your unique ability. And I'm putting that in quotes, they call it your unique ability. So uncovering your unique ability requires tuning into the activities, the environments that you like and that energize you and understanding what doesn't and then owning up to that, like really embracing that. Owning it, owning it as who you are and then amplifying it. And I think that's where the magic is, is owning it, accepting yourself for who you are and all of your brilliance and then just amplifying that, just like offering all that wealth of uniqueness to the world. Then as you do that, you'll continue to hone your uniqueness, making yourself in your work irresistibly attractive to your best fit clients. And so I know that may sound a little hard to grasp maybe, or not as concrete, but this is something we're going to work on in the book club, right? Like really focusing in on your unique ability, what that means, who you are, and then how you can own that and offer it to the world, amplify it, and thereby make you irresistibly attractive to your best fit clients. I really love doing that work with my clients and I want to do that work with you too. So the scariest. Oh, this is a quote. I love this quote. This is from the book. The scariest and most exciting thing you'll ever do is be your truest self, holding nothing back and with no apology. This is how you develop mastery in your unique ability, unquote. So part of becoming your truest self is first of all appreciating how far you've come. For the authors for this, I should say, the authors talk about how you can, how you measure your success. And they're kind of famous for this concept. So is it that you measure yourself about against what could be maybe an idea? We all do that, right? That's what they call focusing on the gap. So measuring your success on how far you have not come yet, right where you're supposed to be like, I do this. Like, I thought I was going to be here, I should be further along. Da, da, da, da, da. Right? The ideal that's somewhere out there. So conversely, focusing on gratitude for how far you've come, acknowledging the growth and measuring your success on the gain and how far you've come, what you have gained, how you've grown, what you've achieved, that is measuring yourself on the gain. Right? So some people, and we, we all do this. So I can't say some people, I, we sometimes, I should say sometimes we measure ourselves on the gap, like how far we haven't come yet, and really what we want to be focused on and measuring ourselves on the gain, focusing on gratitude for how far we've come, acknowledging the growth and measuring ourselves on the gain, what we have gained, how we've grown, what we have achieved, they're both true. But it's all a matter of perception and living in the gap. We've all done it, it feels awful and is not going to create more wealth, more joy or more success. So my friends, I recommend, don't hang out there, just get away from there as quick as possible. Right? So practice having awareness for that place, that gap mentality and just leave there quickly. Right? And you can change your location, you can get out of that gap as fast as you can change your mind. Seriously, it's just about switching the thoughts into thinking how far I haven't come into thinking how far I have come. Right. Living in the miracle of the gain of how far you've come and what you have created will result in more joy, more happiness, positive emotions, which the science says leads to better creative thinking, better decision making and more productivity. Greater productivity, Right. So what's interesting is for me, at least, my brain is like, well, yeah, but the gap is true, right? Yes. And the gain is true. They're both true, right? They both can be true. But we can decide to live in the gain because it feels better and because it's going to help us get what we want. And living in the game creates dopamine and confidence and more success, which I love. And that can become an endless cycle, right? It become, can become an endless cycle of dopamine and confidence and more success and dopamine and confidence and more success. Right. Wouldn't that feel great to be in that place more often? And really all it takes is just that, gratitude, focusing on the gain and making that more of the habit of our thinking patterns than focusing on the gap. Okay, so for the rest of the book, basically, the authors I know we've kind of getting long here in this podcast and for the rest of the book, the authors basically get down to the brass tax of taking control of your calendar, your time, how to build a self sustaining company. They offer strategies that we can use for any stage of business, no matter what stage of business that you're in right now. And so we'll definitely go into detail and study those things together in the book club as well. As I want to, like I said before, help you to create an individual plan for you and your business and how you plan to implement these concepts. But I think it's an iterative process. As I think about this and as I've begun to do this work in my own business and think about teaching it to you, I think it's like we're going to read the book, we're going to make a plan, we're going to implement the plan, we're going to evaluate and then we're going to learn, right? And take all that learning and then I'm thinking I'll probably read the book again and make another plan and just kind of iterate as I go. That really is how business is built, right? It's not like I'm going to read this book once, make a big long list of things to do, go do them, and then have a 10x business. I think it's like I feel this book just blew my mind, but I think when I read it again with you guys in the book club, it's going to blow my mind all over again in a whole different way, right? Because I'm going to see different things and I'm going to learn different things. And as we're discussing them together, which I think is really the power of having this book club is we get to learn from each other. And as I hear your discussions and your questions and thoughts about what you're reading, it's gonna blow my mind about this, these concepts all over again. So I'm really excited about that, if you haven't guessed. So I really invite you to join me as we do this together. And you're welcome to Visit my website, melissamkellog.com and scroll to the bottom of the homepage and you'll see the link for the book club or you can refer to the show notes and we will have a specific link that will take you directly to the book club. We're starting on September 5, 2023. We'll be meeting weekly to discuss the book. We'll have weekly reading targets. We will be setting one to three action items each week that we want to implement? I'm going to. Or we have a private Facebook Facebook group set up so we can create a community and also do coaching and discussion in between our weekly calls. And of course, we'll pack in all the teaching and coaching from me that we can pack in during our time together. And this is all my friends for $49. Isn't that crazy? But that's the number that came to me and I was like, okay, hell yeah, let's do it. I. I think it's so important for all of us to. To read this book and learn these concepts and do it together. So I wanted to make it a no brainer. And I guarantee, my friends this work will change the trajectory of your business. It will be so amazing and I want to invite you to join us. Get signed up now. All of the zoom calls that we do will be recorded and those recordings will be in the Facebook group. So if you can't join every one of them live, they will be in there. You'll be able to watch them on replay. And that's what I have for you today, my friends. I hope this has been inspirational and really encouraged you to think differently about your business and about growing your business. Because I believe every single one of us can 10x our businesses. I really, really do. And using the concepts and the ideas in this book and working together, I know we can do it right and imagine the impact that we can have on this world if more of us women are making more money helping more people. It's such a great thing. So let's go for it. All right? Are you with me? All right, I'll see you next time. Bye. If you like this podcast, then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training. Training Grow youw Sales Doing what yout Love Where I teach you in depth my simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time.