What's More Critical: How You Think or What You Know?
Rich Schefren discusses whether mindset or knowledge matters more for entrepreneurs, exploring business constraints and strategy. The conversation covers how thinking patterns shape success more than facts alone, with practical advice on overcoming obstacles that hold back growth.
I was a one man show, closet.
Warrior, as we say.
And Rich gave me the courage to.
Realize that I had a real business.
And from there I was able to go not from just a seven figure business, but to an eight figure business. Within the next two years, I went from making a five figure income to a seven figure income. My blog went from 5,000amonth to 15,000amonth and then 20,000amonth. Believe we went from 1.3 million to 2.4 million within a year. We were fairly new in the business of doing Internet marketing and we did not know what. We did not know the recession had just hit. I had lost half my business. You know, I just wasn't sure what to do at that point. The best way I could explain it would be if you had a dumpster fire and you were just pouring more gas on the dumpster fire. Grabbing everything I could because I wanted to make money. But then at the end of the day, it wasn't serving my business. You individually need to do more. That's what I thought. I thought success was based on how hard you work, how many hours you work. Everybody else was just coming up with the tricks and the hacks. Here was this guy who brought not just practical digital online marketing wisdom, but he brought practical business with him. Everybody I know was like, you need to know Rich. I'm like, rich, you. I don't know Rich who Rich? This is the guru's guru. This dude teaches all the people that we're all reading from. You got to go to the guru to the gurus. This guy is the guru to the gurus. When you get inside kind of inner circles, everybody knows who Rich is. Rich was the first person who really explained online marketing in a way that I really could understand and apply.
It was like the light came on in a dark room and I saw, oh, I've. There's a whole layer to running a business I never thought about.
Since the time that I started working with them, I've generated, you know, many to millions of dollars in revenue. More money started coming in. Then all of a sudden I'm producing products and coaching programs and building an audience that needs what I am good at. And I'm getting 5,000 bucks for my 12 week program. I'm getting 2,000 bucks for my four week program.
But I want to say this, that.
It'S been about more than just the money. I feel like in many ways he.
Gave me my life back.
Besides being a guy who thinks, thinks strategically and thinks in terms of solution, Rich is a good guy. And it's really refreshing to have somebody with his caliber of knowledge who you can tell really cares. It was freedom. That's the easiest way I could put it. It was freedom, a sense of freedom, a sense of hope and future where I could see a path to get to where I wanted to go that I wasn't going to get to on my own. Someone like Rich can really put worth in you that you're not seeing. Confidence. You know, in business, so much of our success depends on our own internal confidence. Having the confidence, knowing the fundamentals, and understanding how the business moves. He works with people who are having your same problem. So he's able to show me someone like me. It's not just someone talking about hypotheticals. These are trying tactics that he's done year in, year out. I'm glad he's back around, you know, helping people. I'm excited he's coming out of retirement for this. That's a big deal. I can certainly recommend it without hesitation. I know that anything that comes out from Mitch Jeffert is going to be top, top quality, best coach, best mentor of my life.
His main concern is making sure that he's delivering more than he promises in every project that he works on.
It had a huge impact on my business. So I'm excited for all the people who will benefit from it. This go around. I'm just say do it before he goes back into the vaults. I think that you will get just some immense value from working with him, even better than he seems, which is.
Rare on the Internet. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome, everyone. Hopefully this is on. Let me know if you can hear me and where you're watching from. This is Rich Sheffern. I am Rich Sheffrin, and I do these live streams every Tuesday from 2 to 4 and Thursdays from 6 to 8. If you'd be so inclined, please let me know that you can hear me, where you're watching from and who you are, and I will bring it on screen. And of course, we always try and make these as much of a dialogue and as opposed to a monologue. It's more exciting for you if it's a dialogue, and it's more exciting for me if it's a dialogue. And the platforms reward us if it's more of a dialogue, they see that as engagement. So if you're watching on YouTube, please give it a thumbs up comment and subscribe to our channel. If you're watching on Facebook, give it an emotion comment and join our free Facebook group. Strategic profits. That's the name of the group, and that's the name of my company. And if you're watching on LinkedIn, then make sure to follow me as well. So this way you'll be alerted to these live streams. And let's see. So want to check in with the comments? And what I thought we would do today is actually, you know, we have that question that I threw out there, like, which is more critical to your business success, how you think or what you know. And that's actually one of three questions that I started a presentation that I did back in 2009 for the early to Rise Boot Camp. And it's really the only time I ever presented it. And it is based on some of the elements of Theory of Constraints. And so I did this webinar towards the beginning of this week, or was it two days ago, I think on Tuesday, with Jay Abraham, Alan Bernard, and Jason Fladline. And it's about how to turn your top line into your bottom line. And I've helped quite a few clients do that over the years, as has Jay. And there was something called a viable vision, which was what Eli Goldratt, the creator of Theory of Constraints, who worked very closely with Alan, that was their program to turn your top line into your bottom line. And so we've all joined forces with Jason Fladline as well to help other businesses do that. And so we had this webinar where we kind of explained the concept and showed people why it's possible and how it's possible. And then companies could decide if they wanted us to take a look at it and figure out if we saw a way for them to be able to turn their top line into their bottom line. They had to pay $1,000 and then submit all the material that we would need so that we can cover it and see. And then from there, people have a choice of whether they want to do it on their own or if they want the four of us to actually make that happen. And so that's what that was about. But it reminded me when I was preparing my section, I was talking about how back in 2007, I wrote these two reports called the Attention Age Doctrine 1 and 2. And it was during that time that I became convinced of how important attention is. And that was where I predicted that attention was going to become the scarcest commodity online, at least in number one. And then in number two, I talked about the implications of prospects attention now going to social media. And that was my prediction that prospects attention would go to social media. And what were the implications of that. And then I listed a lot of the implications, like the need for authorities, the prospects being your best channel, and not only targets anymore, and how citizen publishers will either make or break you, and stuff like that. So anyway, I got really fixated on attention for a while. And then two years later, a year and a half later, I wrote a report that called the Entrepreneurial Emergency, which was all about that. Most entrepreneurs spend all their time just adding more potential and never removing what blocks them from tapping into their potential. And when you add more potential to a business that is already not fulfilling its potential, then there's not necessarily any correlation in an increase in results just by an increase in potential. And so what that during that time after I wrote the report and I was actually teaching the Theory of constraints course, I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas for the annual worldwide conference for Theory of Constraints. And so I was really excited to go meet a lot of other experts and practitioners of Theory of Constraints. And I went and I got the chance to meet Eli, and I told him that I thought that told him about my results, which he was kind of blown away by because no one had just learned Theory of Constraints and then made millions of dollars from it. So he was really kind of fascinated by that. And then I told him that I thought that he thought that the biggest constraint in marketing was the offer. And therefore the way you overcome that is by creating a mafia offer, an offer that's too good to refuse. But my assertion, you could say, was that attention is actually the biggest constraint in marketing because you could have the best offer in the world, but if you're not getting any attention, it means nothing, right? So that's what I thought based on the people that I worked with and the people that I helped when I was doing Theory of Constraints. And what's interesting is that the whole Eli and Alan, as they worked more and more, came to believe, and I would agree with them, that attention is actually the scarcest and the biggest constraint across the board. It is with your customers getting their attention. It is in marketing getting their attention, but it's also in executives in your business or you, that you only have a finite amount of attention. And that attention does not equal the number of hours a week. There's different qualities of attention, right? There's full, focused attention, which, you know, you certainly can't do for the full day, and then there's quasi kind of attention. And, you know, that just got me thinking a lot about, well, how much attention do we really have in a day? How much do we like? It's finite, that's for sure. But how much do we have? And based on how little we have, because I assume it's not, you know, if it was even half of the hours that we're awake, it would probably be a lot. How do we best choose what to focus our attention on? Because there's, it would seem to me if that is the biggest constraint, then more often than not we probably sacrifice a huge amount of opportunity cost of our attention giving attention to things that have no payoff. And so that just has me thinking and I want to kind of pull that concept apart a little bit, but haven't had the chance yet. So that's kind of just marinating in my head. In addition to that, this I just find fascinating. So I did a workout, you know, and I've been going to the gym with my daughter recently, my youngest. And we've been going to this place, F45, which is a 45 minute workout in the morning, right? Well, you could go anytime, but we do it in the morning and it's really difficult and really kind of grueling for 45 minutes. And then when I was in Nashville, I was at the Traffic and Funnels mastermind or gathering and Taylor's coach or Taylor's trainer trained me. And. And so after that I went upstairs because I had to take a shower and then fly out. And when I took off my shirt, I was kind of surprised at how big my ab muscles were because we had worked out stomach really hard. And so I took a picture and I put through it up on Instagram. And that Instagram pic had more comments and more likes and more impressions I guess, than any Instagram post I've ever done. Which is kind of shocking and I don't know what that means exactly, but nonetheless, I thought I would share that tidbit with you. We'll go through the comments, we'll see who's with us, and then we'll chill and I'll dive into this presentation. So I'm guessing how you think is more important than what you know. What's your prediction? That's a good prediction. Mathematics guru. What's up, Steven Butler. Ryan is here taking notes and he's also on my left. Hey Rich, one question I didn't get answered from your previous video on Tuesday. I should probably put this over here, actually. Let's see, the question was when your guest said they don't always sell, but they still plug affiliate links on their description area of the video. What about for someone that only does email. Could I use the PS of that email or treat it as a video description area? And always plug affiliate links to sell stuff. Of course you could. There are better things to do in a ps. Like in a recent Steal Our Winners.
With.
What was the one that you were just looking at?
What?
No, no, the one that Kevin Rogers. Kevin Rogers had a Steal Our Winners where it wasn't the core of what he was talking about, but he did talk about creating, selling, getting a copywritten and everything. A coaching program from just the psych. So pretty cool. But you certainly can sell in your pses. John Sinclair in Pennsylvania, how are you doing? I'm doing well, Dr. Vogelman. And downtown San Diego or across from it in Coronado Island. I always get that wrong. Yep. Texas.
Cool.
Hey, Rich. Hey, Facebook user. Hey, Irv in Boulder, Colorado. Good to see you. And Paul in Grand Junction, Colorado. Good to see you. Are you ever going back into the vault? Someday, yeah. When my work is done. Dr. Vogelman, here you find in Melbourne, Australia.
Cool.
Rich is the messiah of Internet marketing. That might be a little strong. Brian Miller from Auburn Indian. Is that Indianapolis or Indiana? It's Indiana, I think. Stephen Butler. Hey, Rich. Coming from Miami Beach. Looking forward to this discussion topic.
Cool.
Hi, Rich, watching from Nigeria. Well, welcome, Samuel and Dr. Vogelman. You can always learn more. How you think will dictate your ability to learn. True watching on Facebook group.
Cool.
Elizabeth, good to see you. How are those sheets doing? I can sit and think I'm a millionaire all day long, but that money won't show up in my bank account until I have the skills. Well, the first year that Jay Abraham did anything online, he did not have any online skills. He knew less than your average Internet marketer as far as online marketing, but he made $6 million that year. So, you know, I think it's a mistake to think that you need to have the skills, because if you come up with the right strategy overall, you can generally afford to pay people with those skills. And the next comment is from my single biggest fan, which is my girlfriend, Kim. Hey, Kim. I haven't seen her in a week and a half. She's in New York. She was working on an Airbnb of hers in the Hamptons, and now she's working on her health. And she's had a bad migraine, a cluster headache, for the last month and a half, which has got to be grueling. And I hope that she feels better any minute so that she can get back home and I can take care of her. Me too. Hey, Jack Wade. Jack Wade is the killer copywriter behind the scenes that makes the action guides and other cool strategic profit stuff happen. How do we show our name? You got to go to streamyard.com facebook and then you give them the ability. You give Streamyard the right to know your name, and then it will put it in here. Call me Lisa. Okay, Lisa. And Rich looks like an introvert marketer, but an extrovert, diet coke drinker and cigar lover. Misty Barnes. Great topic. Thanks, Misty. All right, so I think we should dive in, shouldn't we? So let's see. How am I going to add this to the stream?
Cool.
And so. Yep. So here are my slides from 2009. And you can even see it up there. Says 2009. I am good, Francisco, now that you're here. So let's dive in. So which is more critical to your business success? How you think or what you know, what one factor determines your success? And what is the single most profitable task that you must do specific to who you are and your unique situation? Well, my goal in this presentation was that you'll get the answers to those questions plus the answers to many other questions before we are done with this presentation. So who am I and why should you believe what I'm about to tell you? I think we can kind of bypass this. So here are just some of my clients and the different periodicals that I have been in over the years. Here's a bunch of testimonials. Wow, Chet, I want to read the chat one just because I haven't read that in years and he's passed away. Rich is the Internet marketing guru's guru. The world's leading Internet experts use Rich as their guiding light and personal advisor. He's quickly become a legend, transforming business into smooth running, fast growing, cash making machines.
Very cool.
Very cool. Yeah, cool. All right, so what will determine your personal success? Will it be your intelligence? Will it be your strengths? Will it be your experience, your creativity, your commitment level? Are you as committed to growing your business as Rocky was to win the title? Is it your passion or your luck or your winning personality or your willingness to do whatever it takes or the knowledge that you've acquired or the connections you have or the tools that you use or the skills that you've developed? Okay, so I had them do an exercise. We're not going to do the exercise, right? Like pick one. Which of these do you think is most important? And you know, you could in your head kind of pick the one that you think is most important. So it was a trick. It's none of those.
Right.
All of these things define your potential, but they do not determine your success. And let me ask you a question. Are you currently living up to your full potential? And my assumption is going to be that most of you would say no.
Right?
Because if you said yes, you'd be like, yeah, this is as good as it gets where I'm at. I ain't getting any better than this. I don't think any of us want to believe that about where we're at or what we're capable of. So. Yeah, so, exactly. So if we're not living up to our full potential, the big question is, is why?
Right?
Because build like, understand what I'm saying here. If Your potential is 2x and right now you're doing X, it's not that safe of an assumption to assume that if you get your potential to 3x that just magically your results are going to go to one and a half X, because before it was half of your potential and now we're going to get half more because we've raised the potential. It doesn't work that way. There's something stopping that potential for being tapped. Imagine what you'd feel like when there's just one missing piece to your success and you aimed all your efforts on it. In other words, you knew exactly what you needed to do in order to achieve the success that you wanted and you aimed all your attention, all your effort on that one thing. And that because you were clear on what you focused on and it was the right thing, it suddenly made business easy for you and profits poured in. And I'm going to show you how to do that, to tap into your full potential in the fastest, most results, certain way. Warning. This presentation is different, not just my slides. And I have no idea what I meant by that because this was like I said 12 years ago.
Wow.
But wow, 12 years ago. Geez. Systems, you and your business, right? Business is a system made up of many smaller processes working together, right? And we talked about how ultimately, we talked on other live streams about how ultimately your business is just a system to get an outcome in the eyes of your customers.
Right?
So, you know, one of the motives that I had for building Steal Our Winners is, is that I believe that the format that we have and Steal Our Winners is a better system at finding strategies that will grow your business than any other system out there. Like what's what other alternatives are there. There are buy courses and then consume the entire course to find a few tactics Hang out on forums, hang out in groups, go to masterminds, like, all these different ways. But I think that the best way is to gather the best experts with what's working right now and make it available in real time, right? So that's kind of the idea here. And you're like, so I'm trying to take the perspective of my prospects and clients and looking at my business as a system to get winning strategies and comparing that to other ways out there that are getting winning strategies. And I believe that the best system ultimately wins. Just the way Netflix beat Blockbuster. They're both ways of enjoying home entertainment, but Netflix had a better system. And so more people chose the Netflix system than the Blockbuster system. And so it's just a way to think about business. And it's a useful way as we talk about this, because your body works the same way. Your body is a system made up of many smaller processes and systems, right? You know, your entire body is a system, and the goal of that system is to live a long life, right? But the. There are other systems in your body, like the digestive system or the nervous system or what have you. So why do systems exist? Systems exist to achieve a goal. The goal of your body is to live a long, healthy life. It's first appropriate, like, from a standpoint of why are, like, why we even exist. But our goal of our body should be to live a long, healthy life. The goal of your business is to make money, right? Doesn't mean it can't do a lot of other nice things. But if a business doesn't make money, it goes out of business. So make money now. Something prevents every system from getting more of its goal, right? There is no infinite system. And so because of that, because of that, there are. I don't even know where I was going with that. I got distracted for a second. I was looking at the number of people who are on. And what's interesting is that overall, there's just a lot less people today. So I don't know, I feel like maybe we sent out the email at maybe not the best time. I'm not really sure. But the way I'm looking at it right now, we have 10 people on YouTube watching, and we have about 21 people on Facebook, so a pretty sparse group. But anyway, something's preventing the system from getting more of its goal right in your body. So far, nobody's lived forever. No business has infinite profits, as much as Amazon and Apple would like and Google would like to have, right? In fact, many businesses have no profit so something holds us back, right? And it's the very same thing that's stopping you from tapping into your full potential. So what prevents getting more of your goal is what we call a constraint, right? What prevents you from tapping into more of your potential or more of preventing your business from tapping into more of its potential is a constraint. A constraint is anything that limits a system from achieving its goal. It determines the maximum capacity of a system. So if I were to die of a heart attack, then at the end of the day, my heart was the constraint to living a longer life. And any time I spent on any other organ improving any other organ would be for naught. It would be a false efficiency. That's what we call it in theory of constraints, because we're improving something that is not the thing that is limiting our ability to achieve the goal. Okay, so for this example, pounds equals profits, right? So if you can imagine that you have a chain and the chain holds £500, right? Or all the links hold £500 except for one, right? And that one can only hold £100, then how much can that chain hold before it breaks £100, right? So every other link is wasted as far as the extra 400 pounds of ability to hold. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about a constraint. There is one thing that is dictating. So Francisco said he didn't get the email today. There is one thing that is dictating the amount of the goal that you are getting. And there is always just one thing. And I know that it might be. It might seem like there are many things that you need to do, but there is one thing that if it was done, you would immediately be making more, and then there would be a new constraint. There's always a constraint. The question is, is did you get to choose where you want the constraint? Or are you operating blindly not knowing that there is a constraint that's currently limiting your success? Okay, whoops. Let's go back to this. Somehow I got. There we go, let's go. There we go. The chain can only hold £100. The potential is £500, but the goal achieved only £100. Our weakest link is our constraint. If you strengthen any other link in the chain. What are you doing? You're just adding more potential, right? If we made every link a hundred pounds stronger, right? We would be wasting our effort on every link except the one link that is at 100 would now be 200. So now we'd be able to hold £200. But think about how much effort we would have had to put in because we're making every link £100 stronger, right? When in fact all we had to do was make that one link stronger. So it's a false efficiency, like I was saying, to make any other link and spend time on anything other than what is currently limiting the outcome of your efforts. So false efficiencies raise potential, but very little else. And the vital few, the constraints, right, they grow your results by tapping into that potential that right now is just sitting dormant. So full potential minus constraints equals your current performance. So for all of you that said that right now you're not at your full potential, then the next question is, what's the constraint? What is currently blocking that? And that's the question that we need to figure out, right? So if you don't know your constraint, you're working too hard for too little because you're adding 100 pounds of additional effort, right, to every link in the chain as opposed to just that one constraint. And if you're with me so far, just let me know that you're following this so far. Tell me what you think. I'm taking a little bit of a second here because maybe if I get some more comments, maybe somehow magically we'll get a few more people on here because Facebook and YouTube will think, oh, my God, this is really getting some action. Can you look into that email and just see? All right, I think Ryan messed up. All right. Are you driving with your emergency brake on?
Right?
Because right now your speed is determined by your constraint. Like how fast you go, how where you end up, etc. Is based on your constraint.
Right?
How do you find your constraint? With the theory of constraints. And that's why I. That's why I. Okay, let's see. Okay, let's just see what we got here. I'm looking at. Yeah, so Lisa said. I got notified via Facebook notification. Much of the Internet was down today.
Was it?
I didn't know that. I didn't get your email. Maybe this is why there are a few people on. Maybe. Aha. I thought you were talking about the British pound ucs. Unknown constraints syndrome. Quite the diagnosis, isn't it? Following.
Cool.
Glad to know you're following. Emails from Matt Rizvi with two hours notice will get less opens than emails from Rich Efron with two minutes notice. Just saying. Listening. You're listening, but are you getting it hitting, like, for the algorithm to pick up? Thank you, Stephen. Mr. Abs. Selling a course. No, I am not and who's Mr. Abs? What is Abs? Is that like a lingo for something?
I don't know.
I have to share a few times. Please do. I think you're absolutely right.
Cool.
Great webinar so far.
Cool.
Today's constraint is reduced number of views. Yes. But I think it might be the email that might be the constraint. My biggest constraint is me developing strategy faster than I take action, not knowing when to stop listening and just take action. Update later, that might be. Generally there'll be something underneath that, though. All right, so there are two types of constraints. There are physical ones and there are logical ones.
Right?
So a physical one is like you have a conveyor belt and there's one step in the process that takes longer than all the other steps and doesn't have the same capacity. You will have a bottleneck there.
Right.
But when it comes to logical, these are more paradigms, rules, like ways of doing things that are just not the ideal. So physical constraints, like I said, are bottlenecks. They're capacity issues, they're resources issues, like capability and cash.
Right.
So those are some of the physical constraints, either bottlenecks or resources. And I gave you a few examples.
Right?
So here's actually an example of a physical constraint that I solved as part of my original coaching program. Hans and Danny Johnson. Their constraint was bad product development process. Right. There was tremendous demand for Danny's products, but she didn't have very many. And she was going from like city to city every weekend and speaking. And so I worked more with Hans, her husband, and we developed a product team that would film her, create the product and get it out to market. And they went from a half a million in sales to 6.5 million in sales in a matter of months. Joel, calm.
Right.
He was trying to do everything himself. That was his constraint.
Right.
He hired his first assistant immediately and believe it or not, taking half the stuff off his plate was enough for him to then grow an eight figure business.
Right.
The constraint of no money. Now, do I talk about it or do like. I just want to see what the next slide is because I'm not sure what comes next. Okay.
Yeah.
So the constraint of no money. The constraint of no money for many. Whoops, let me get rid of this. The constraint of no money is actually a false constraint for many people. And here's what I mean. Let's say I had a program that, you know, I was selling, and you're guaranteed to make a million dollars over the next two years or your money back and the program costs $100,000.
Okay.
And, well, yeah, let's say it's $100,000 and you say, I don't have $100,000.
Right?
So therefore the constraint is no money. But what if I had the million dollars in cash right here? You could see it, you could touch it, all that. And I said, you raise $100,000 and bring it here, and I will give you this million dollars. Now, if you could do that, like, if you started thinking about it and you're like, you know, I call this person and borrow some money, I could call this person and borrow some money, and this person borrows some money, right? Then the constraint is not that you don't have the money because you can get the money. In this particular case, the constraint would be that it is not as certain, right? You're looking for a certain level threshold of certainty to go borrow that hundred grand.
Right?
Which I'm not saying that's not like the certainty thing isn't like a valid one. It certainly is, but it's not the money, right? If you could raise the money for something else, then it's not the money. And that's important for you to understand, not just about money, just about constraints in general, that you want to make sure that you're actually targeting the real thing. Because if you target the wrong thing, you know, now you're just going on a wild goose chase. All right, let's see. Go back here. Let's go back to you guys for a second. Oh, Mr. Abs, muscles. Oh, I get it. Abs, abs, chest as in ripped. Got it. Overthinking constraint of the strain indica problems. Lol. No sativa. Actually abdominal buffering suffering solutions. Got it. Okay. So are you guys with me on that? That, like, do you understand? Thank you, Dr. Vogelman. You are my hero. So do you guys get that right? That really the constraint is never no money if you could get that money for something else.
Okay.
Logical constraints are paradigms, which would be beliefs, behaviors, and assumptions. And then there's cause and effect. Like, you know, understanding that something that you're deciding over here is actually causing a ripple effect over there. And for me, that actually was the first constraint that I discovered when I learned this methodology. And I was working on strategic profits, going through this process for strategic profits, the process I'm going to take you through. When I did cause and effect analysis, everything that I disliked in my business was being caused. When I did, you know, all the cause and effects and laid them out was being caused by having a business that was Totally dependent on launches. So we'd have these feast and famines when we were feasting, when we're bringing in way too many customers in any given day, we'd have bad customer support. We disappoint people, right? When we were outside of a launch, we had too many employees and our overhead was too high. And so there were many more problems than just those two. But as I started, like, working all these problems, I started with like, our customer support isn't up to stuff. This isn't. And so as I started working on them, that's what I came to. And so that was another reason why I stopped writing reports. And we created the automated webinar. All right, so here's one with Mike Filsane. Mike Filsane, he had a false belief about a desire to work from home. You know, it was really kind of interesting, right? It's like so bizarre to think that Mike Filsane, right, the guy that's built these, like eight figure companies. @ one point, after he quit his job at the car dealership, he was working from home. And I'm like. And he was gaining momentum. And I was like, it's time for you to get an office. And he didn't want an office. And I was like, why? And he's like, I used to hate going into the office. And he was like, just thinking about his old place where he worked as an employee and equating that with office. And I said to him, this is your office. You can make it any way you want. And so he did put a foosball table in. I mean, he made it a fun place to go. And within like 12 months, he went from 15,000amonth to 400,000amonth and now does well over a million dollars a month. But that false belief about thinking about an office was blocking him. Brad Fallon, that's a name from the past, right. Didn't recognize his weaknesses. He would focus. The fix was focusing on his strength and getting a partner for his weaknesses. And he launched two eight figure businesses in five years. Of course, unfortunately for. For Brad, both of his partners kicked him out. So I haven't spoken to Brad in quite a while, but super sharp guy. I hope he's doing well. Frank Kern, this was an interesting one. He made the goal more complicated than it needed to be. And a lot of people do this. In this particular case, what Frank had done was Frank wanted to have. Create a continuity program. He assumed that just like in his head, he went to. In order to have a continuity program, I have to Have a membership site. And then he spent three months studying and looking at what are all the different options for membership sites, got overwhelmed and just kind of was dragging his feet. He then realized he doesn't need a membership site to start a continuity program. He could just send people stuff in the mail. And so that's what he did. He decided to do that. A week later, he launched it. A month later, he had 2,000 new customers, I think paying him like 400 bucks a month or something like that. And, you know, I see that happen very often that people make the. They think in order to get X, they need A, B, C, D, E, F, G, whatever. And more often than not, there is a faster path that can be done with a lot less. And when your goal is money coming in, you want the least number of steps, not the most amount of steps to make that money. Kind of happened for it to rain one shopping cart. Rob Bell. The constraint was him spending too much time in the office, believe it or not, working too many hours. So this is a great constraint. I see it from time to time. The fix was drastically reducing the number of hours and then him actually taking a summer off, which for 10 years he'd never taken a day off. And believe it or not, as he spent less time in the office, people took on more responsibilities and the business exploded in a good way.
It grew.
And then eventually he sold his business to a much bigger business. I don't know who bought it, and it's been a long time since I've spoken to Rob, but I hope he's doing well. And Yarrow Sterek, uh, Yarrow was in the wrong business. He sold it and focused on the right business for him at that time, which was blogging in the. In the months later, he was making more than his old business and it keeps multiplying.
Right?
So he was spread too thin and he was spending too much time on the wrong business. He had a blog, he started spending more time on that, and the blog went from 5,000amonth to 10,000amonth to 15 to 25,000amonth. And eventually. Now he's got a lot of businesses and has done extremely well. So what is the goal for your business? And this is important. Like, what are you trying to do? This is like step number one, knowing what the goal is. Like, is the goal to have a $10 million info publishing business that continues to, you know, that is sustainable and grows consistently with not a lot of effort from you? Like, what is it? What's the goal? Because I want to Help you get to that goal. I want to help you get to that goal today, right? Or give you a plan to get to that goal today. And in order to do that, right, we're going to use these three diagrams, for lack of a better word or charts or graphs or whatever, to kind of. I'm going to walk you through the steps to figure out the sequence that you need to go in and then I'll even show you a way to get at what the constraint is. Is that cool? So let's see what else we got here. We got positive mindset. Crowdfunding here in Holland is always an option. Live long and prosper without these constraints. Sometimes ignorance is a blessing. Simplicity, scales and complexity fails. True that.
All right.
Oops. Thing. Rule number one, the prerequisite tree. Just because you have a goal doesn't mean you know how to reach it. We have. Why haven't you already reached your goal? So this is the first really like, important question that has to be answered, right? Like if my goal was to build a hundred million dollar info publishing business, right. The question is, why haven't you reached your goal? And I'd say, okay, well, I might first draw like a map or a diagram of what that hundred million dollar business would need in order to actually function, right? Like what elements would that business must have or it would never do. A hundred million or we definitely need a marketing department. We'd need copywriters, right. We would need something to sell, right. If we're going to sell 100 million of it. And so we're starting to now lay out like what this business would need, right? And if I were answering it, it'd be like, well, one of the reasons why, you know, why we're not there yet, right? And we have a long ways to go. We're not Even close to 100 million right now at strategic profits since I've just taken it back over. But. But I would say like, we're not getting offers out as quickly as we need to. In fact, we're not getting offers out in anywhere near the volume that we should.
Right?
So that's like. So one reason why we're not at our goal yet is that we're not producing enough promotions monthly and annually, right. Another one would be we're not effectively advertising as much as we need to, right? So I'm starting to list all of these reasons why I am not at my goal, right? These reasons are obstacles. They are things that currently are standing in your way of getting your goal. And what I found when I went through this process myself. Was that this planning, this way of planning by first getting clear on what your goal is and then thinking about all the reasons why you don't have that right now, right, Was one of the absolute best ways that I ever came across to actually come up with a plan to get to your goal. Because if the. If you're right, if these are the obstacles, if we knock down these obstacles, we have a plan to get to the goal.
Right?
You can take those obstacles and actually do these things, right? You can lay them out in sequence, and I'll show you how to do it in a second. But by doing that, you'll expose some missing intro. There'll be things that don't make sense yet. So you'll be like, oh, yeah, I forgot another reason. I found that it released a lot of anxiety because as soon as I listed all these reasons, it was the very first time I listed all the obstacles in my path to getting to the business I wanted. And so I just felt like a release from it. In addition to that, once you have it laid out and you can actually map it out kind of visually, you often can spot shortcuts. And I'm going to show you how I spotted mine. And lastly, as I said, it lays out the steps to the goal. Like, you actually have a different way of planning. And it's not like reverse engineering. It's actually just looking at what are the obstacles that currently are preventing me from having that. And now, which needs to come first, second, third, fourth, and you start laying them out. Okay? So you choose your goal. That's step one. You might want to take a picture of the screen right now. You identify the obstacles that are blocking you from getting that goal. Like, why aren't you at that goal already?
Right?
Then you would take that obstacle and you would turn it into an objective. So if the obstacle is. We're not putting out enough promotions each and every month, right. The intermediate objective would be we are releasing, you know, we are putting out six promotions each and every month, right? So that would be converting the obstacle now into an objective. Now, once you have all the objectives, right, you've turned all the obstacles into objectives. Now them, you can put them on postage, put them on index cards, or you could just look at them on a list. And you want to decide what needs to come first, second, third, fourth, right? Like, you want to put them in sequence. Now, some might be done anytime. There might be a few of those, but the majority, like, are dependent, right? Like, for example, if one of the reasons why we don't have enough promotions going out is that we don't have enough copywriters. Well, right, then, you know, another intermediate objective would be strategic profits has six great copywriters on staff or whatever the number is.
Right.
But in other words, I am laying out all the obstacles that I service, but I'm converting them to intermediate objectives. And they're intermediate because we still have the main goal. But these will lead us to our goal. You decide the sequence and then you map out the objectives and the obstacles. So hopefully you're with me. Hopefully you're getting this. And let me give you an easy example. Okay? So this was from Nicola, from an act from the class that I. From the program I was teaching on theory of constraints, which was called gps. So the goal is to take the train to London. She lives in England, but not in London. Right. So why isn't she there already or why isn't she on the train already? Well, her suitcase isn't packed, Right. She doesn't know what to wear in London. And there's hardly any parking at the station.
Right.
So if we're turning these into objectives, right? My suitcase isn't packed. I have a suitcase packed. I don't know what to wear in London. I have a list of things I'm going to wear in London. There's hardly any parking at the station. I go early and I grab a parking spot.
Right?
Okay. Now we're putting it in the proper sequence, right? You can't pack until after you look at the list of what you're going to wear. So that has to come first. I have a list of things I'm going to wear. I have a suitcase packed and I go in early and I grab a parking spot, right? That would be the proper sequence. Here's how she originally did it, right. I don't know what to wear in London. There's the obstacle. I have a list of things I'm going to wear. That's the intermediate objective. My case is in packed. I have a suitcase packed, right. I have no transfer. So she changed this one, right. That there's no parking at the station can be eliminated by getting a cab. I have no transportation though to the train station if she's taking a cab, right? If she's not going to park. So I have a ride to the station. I need to catch a train to London on Friday afternoon. So you see how like this kind of walks you through that. It's a very simple example. Here's my own example. So when I first did this, right? This was when I was a coach coaching a lot of gurus but nobody knew who I was. And when I was asked to, when I thought about it, right? When I thought about my goal. My goal was to have a business that was selling $150,000 of products each and every month. So $1.8 million business. That was my goal at the time. Time. This was sometime in around 2005 ish. And here were my obstacles. I don't have any front end products to act as lead generators. I don't have any mid tier products to generate income, excite affiliates and generate more leads. All I had was my coaching program at that time. I don't have a satisfactory process that will create information products easily and consistently. I don't have a portfolio of products. I have not defined my information product ascension funnel. I'm afraid to the info products I will develop will cannibalize or jeopardize my current coaching revenue stream. My time is limited to create new products because I'm spending so much time on research, creating and testing the content for the coaching program. Our current list of marketers has grown very cold. Competitors are starting to enter my space. Our company is not known in the general market. So these were the obstacles, right? So I turned each of those into intermediate objectives. So I don't have any front end products to act as lead generators. My business has robust lead generation process that generates buyers of my lead information products for the obstacle. I don't have any mid tier products to generate income, excite affiliates and generate more leads. I have a series of information products that can be sold to buyers of my lead product, right? I don't have a satisfactory process that will create information products easily and consistently. I have a process that takes my work from my coaching program and builds on it to create products, right? And so you can see that I took each of these obstacles and I turned them into objectives, right? To put them in the right order, I just would compare one to the next one, right? So in order to have blank, we must have blank. And if that made sense, right Then I knew that the we must have needed to come first, right? And you just go down the list asking yourself that question. So when I came up with the list, right, this is how I started putting it together, right? So on the bottom I have not defined my information product ascension funnel. I have a detailed plan of all the products that will be created to fill our marketing funnel. Next, we have distinctive products planned, each with their own unique value proposition targeted to their segment Next, we have a process that leverages the content I create into multiple products and marketing channels. Now, this goes into two, right. Because this one here.
Right.
Is dependent on this, and so is this one. So you see how, like, I'm mapping it out. Are you guys with me? Let me know. I feel like I'm teaching you a course here. Like, this is extremely valuable stuff, and I just want to make sure that you're with me and that you're getting this.
Cool.
All right, so Jay got Tank says yes. Is that the only person that's getting it? All right, here's a bigger.
Cool. All right.
Yeah, it's a lot of content, that's for sure. Cool. Yes. With you. Yes. It's much content. Yes, it is. Loving it. Yes, Absolutely. Yes. Yep. Just busy taking notes. So many screenshots. I definitely need to watch this video again. Yeah.
Cool.
All right. So there it is. Just looking a little bit prettier maybe. And you can kind of see the logic here of how I put it together. And, you know, this was me in 2005, like, trying to figure out how to make all this work for me. Why is this not advancing? Oh, because. All right, didn't we do this already? Choose your goal, Identify the obstacle, convert the obstacle to. Yep. Okay, So I thought it did that. Nope. I guess it was just a dupe. This was kind of interesting because when I taught the course, right, like when I taught the theory of constraints course, what I was kind of surprised of was how many people could not tell me what their obstacles were.
Right.
Don't know what my answer here is. Let's see. What if you don't know enough to identify your obstacles.
Okay.
If you don't know enough to identify your obstacles, this presents a challenge.
Right?
And that challenge is exposing that you need more education. And what you need to find out is what is necessary to have the business that you want. By getting clear about what that business needs to look like, you will then know what's missing. And until you know what's missing, the odds of you actually building that business are slim to none. So that's why it's so important. So if all this does for you today is expose that you don't even know enough yet to know what obstacles are in your path. Well, great. You've just learned an extremely valuable lesson of what is the most important thing for you to learn next, which is the model and what successful people who have already built the type of business you want, what their businesses look like, what they have so that you can get an idea of what you need. So that would be my advice to you. All right, so after you've driven, you've kind of drew out that map, right? You've kind of. You sequenced it, you're now making it look a little pretty. Whatever. What you want to do is you want to challenge it because there might be a shortcut. And I found a shortcut for myself. So, you know, I'm a big believer in this. The first question you want to make sure is, do you have any obstacles that are not really obstacles? Because, like, why focus on something you don't need to focus on?
Right?
So you want to make sure. Is this really an obstacle for me getting to the goal?
Right.
It could be a problem, it could be a challenge, it could be an issue. But if it's not preventing you from getting to your goal, it really shouldn't be. On this map, are there any connections that don't make sense? Is there something missing in between or something like that? And does this objective really overcome the obstacle? All right, so those are the three. And by looking at it often, you can also see, like, is there a way to maneuver this? Well, generally you ask yourself two questions. Let me see if I. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So here are the challenges. The road to your most profitable plan. So you have this map, and now we want to challenge it. And we're going to challenge it in these two ways. We're going to do the ambitious challenge and the shortcut search. So the ambitious challenge is if I needed to do this in X period of time, right? Like, so let's say, like, you look at this list and you think it would take you five years, Right. If I had to do this in a year, what could I change here to get this done faster?
Right.
If your goal was to build a $10 million business, if I were to build a hundred million dollar business, what would I need to change here? If I was going to, like, is there a way for me to do a lot less and somehow get some of these handled by something else?
Right.
So those would be three ways to challenge it ambitiously.
Right.
The shortcut search is, are there any objectives here that I can just jump over? Or there. Is there an intermediate objective that I could create that would knock out three intermediate objectives? Or is there an obstacle that you don't need to have an intermediate objective around because you can kind of like sidestep it? All right, so this is for me, what I developed, right? So I had that map and I looked at it and I said, well, Okay, I have no front end products. Our list is called, there are competitors entering the space, right? And me and the company are not known. I could actually eliminate all of those obstacles if I developed a free report that got populated and passed around online. I have no expensive products to excite affiliates. I have no product ascension funnel and I don't have a portfolio product of products. If I created a $5,000 program and I gave affiliates a commission on that, then the money would be exciting to affiliates. I wouldn't need an ascension funnel and I wouldn't need a portfolio of products.
Right?
If I sold a group coaching program that's very similar or the same of what I'm currently doing, then I don't need a process to make products. I don't need time to create those products. And I don't have to worry about cannibalizing my coaching program because I'm just selling my coaching program, right? So I want you to get that. You know, there was a time before I figured this out where I was thinking I needed to do all this if I wanted to make 150,000amonth. What I figured out was I could make a half a million dollars a month by doing this. By getting rid of these 10 obstacles or objectives and doing only three. Create a free report that sold a $5,000 coaching program and have group coaching be a component of it. I mean, I want you to like, to me, when I look at this, I still get kind of goosebumps because I remember coming up with this and being like, is that all I really need? Like, can I take what appears to be a ton of work and a ridiculously long slog? Is it really possible that just these three things could do this? And it totally was possible. Tool number two. So that's, that's the process, right? And you might have to watch this a few times, but that's the process. I just showed it to you and it's extremely powerful. Okay. Tool number two, the IO map. What pieces need to come together to achieve your goal. Now, when I taught this, when I was teaching theory of constraints later on, I actually taught people to do this piece first. And I taught people to do this piece first because when we're looking at, you know, we're going to start the next phase, which is a current reality tree, by starting with a bunch of problems, right? The reason why we're not at our goal, those obstacles. But we're not interested in just all problems. We're only interested in problems to reaching the goal. So it's a Good idea. To create a visual of what's required to get the goal as far as critical success factors. And I forget the name of the thing underneath it, so we'll get to it in a second. But what does this business need to be able to do in order for you to achieve it? And then it's only problems that relate to doing that that are relevant. So let me show you. The IO map creates the boundaries that surround your constraint. It distinguishes between likes and musts. You got the email. Now clarify what's necessary to achieve your goal and creates a reference tool for your daily to do's.
Right?
Because you're visualized, you're visually representing the. The business.
Yeah.
So okay, so here's the goal. These are the critical success factors, right? And the idea behind the critical success factors is if these were to happen, right? If you had these, then your goal would be there too, right? Like just having these makes the goal happen. And then below that are necessary conditions. So what needs to happen? What needs to be there in order for those critical success factors to be there, which makes automatically your goal. So here you're categorizing the necessary conditions and these are the immediate objectives directly from your prerequisite tree. So here is another step by step. So you analyze your intermediate objectives. You convert your iOS into necessary conditions, right? You group your necessary conditions by function. You label that function by creating critical success factors. And then you map out the goal on top, the critical success factors below. And then below that the necessary conditions. All right, let's see. So Jay Gottnik said. So we need a mentor. Not necessarily. If you know the model, then you might not need a mentor. Very smart. That sounds gangster as fuck. Thanks for sharing. It must be amazing feeling when you come up with the idea. It is. But then there's excitement and then there's concern. Maybe it won't happen. You got to like, you know. Got the email now.
Cool.
Just had a huge aha moment. Gotta read. I gotta read that book. Which book? The. There's a ton of books on theory of constraints. If you're going to read a book, I would probably read Logical Thinking Processes by William Detmer. Top down approach, Rich? Well, it's top down in the sense of understanding how all the pieces fit together, then making sure that you're going about it the right way. What if you're still. What if you still are stuck at identifying your goal? Okay. Then you're making your goal more important than it needs to be in order for your actions to have any purpose today. There needs to be a goal. You can change your goal as often as you want, and having a changing goal is still better than not having any goal at all. And let's be clear about what a goal is. A goal, from my perspective, okay, like, you know, everybody can have their own perspective on this. Obviously, I'm sharing mine. The only purpose of a goal is not to achieve anything. The only purpose of a goal is that it gets you up in the morning and gets you working, like, with purpose. That's it. Because I can tell you, as someone who suffered a midlife crisis, as someone who hit the goals that they had set for themselves at 40, by the time they were in their early 30s, that the thinking that somehow magically achieving goals makes you happy, you will be surprised, unfortunately, that no matter how big the goal is, no matter how exciting it is to you right now, when you achieve it, you will be ecstatic. You will be super excited for a week or two, and then life will go back to how it was. And so what often stimulates a midlife crisis is, is this all there is?
Right?
Like, I thought achieving these goals was going to make me happy. I've achieved all these goals. I'm not happy. Now what do I do?
Right?
So what's preventing you, Irv, from picking a goal is that you think it's too big, too important. The consequences of making the wrong choice are too steep. So better off to hold off. What I'm telling you is the exact opposite, that you pay a price for not having a goal today. And that price is that you don't, like, attack the day because you feel like you're moving towards something. And that as long as you have something to move towards, your actions today are purposeful. And if tomorrow morning you want to change the goal, then so be it. But your actions then will be purposeful to that goal. So for me, the only purpose of a goal is that it gets me to take action. Because you've heard the cliche, and the cliche is true. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. The journey is the achieving, is the pursuing of the goal, right? It's not the achieving, it's the pursuing. The destination is achieving the goal. And there's a lot more happiness over time pursuing than there is achieving, right? It's the same reason why we think that we'd be really upset if we lost a leg. But our base level of happiness is going to be exactly the same a couple years later as it is before we lost our leg. We think that winning the lottery would make us happy, but in fact, we're at the same level of happiness several years later after winning the lottery. So these things do not make a difference, and neither does achieving your goal. And the sooner you understand that, the sooner then you start picking goals that just motivate action, because at the end of the day, that's the only reason to have them in the first place, at least from my perspective. So hopefully, Irv, you just pick something and you can change it as often as you want. I change my goals as soon as they're not getting me up and getting me excited. Is your goal money or health? Right now my goal is to get my body in ridiculously good shape. That's what my goal is. So every morning now, I'm taking a picture in front of the mirror. I'm not posting it to Instagram because I'm not a fitness influencer, but I'm taking a picture and I want to see how in shape can I get? And I'd like to. So I'm pushing the envelope on that side and then on the business side, right now I am working on a couple of big things that will eventually see light of day, where I'm really trying to redefine certain things that are being done in this industry. And you guys will know when I roll up my sleeves and actually press the trigger on this. But I think it was 15 years ago during this time. Well, 15 years ago, on June 30th, I believe it was, I released the Internet Business Manifesto. And then over the next 18 months, I released the seven reports I wrote. And so right now we're in the 15 year anniversary of when I kind of shook up the Internet by being the first to really use like the. The freemium model.
Right.
Chris Anderson wrote the book Free a couple years after I did that, invented the automated webinar, did all the things that I did.
Right.
So anyway, those are my goals right now. To re set the industry to grow, steal our winners to the size it should be, and to get in massively great shape and then to help Kim do the same. Sorry for the false info. It was a promotion for the POD hacker system. What false info? No, that. That was the. That was what we did on Tuesday. Hit like, this is good stuff.
Cool.
Never better to hold off. No, it isn't. Are you familiar with Rory Sutherland? I'm a huge fan of Rory. I'm trying to better understand the psychology aspect of marketing and directing interest. I am a huge fan of Rory. In fact, that's someone that I want to reach out to. And I'd love to get and steal our winners. And I just need to do it. The magic is between departures and arrivals. Yes, Preach. This industry needs a major shakeup. Well, let's see. Done it before. My plan is to do it again. All right, so let's see. What is this? Complete product funnel. Ongoing marketing build, product development process built around my work. Yeah, I'm not sure what launch calendar with products that maintain our positioning. This might have been a newer. I'm looking at this intermediate and necessary conditions. And to be honest, I just don't know where in the process this one came from. So I'll have to get. If it becomes vitally important, we'll go back to it. Ah, okay, I get it. So these are their intermediate objectives. I'm now turning them into necessary conditions.
Right.
So Ro like. So my business has a robust lead generation process that generates buyers of my lead information products. Okay. So the necessary condition is a robust lead generation, right? In an optimized conversion process, I have a series of information products that can be sold to buyers of my lead product. Complete product funnel, ongoing client only marketing. I have a process that takes my work from my coaching programs and builds on it to create products. Product development process built around my work. Right? So I'm. I'm defining what needs to be there, right? Which is different than the objective. And I hope you can see the difference there. So now, right, I'm developing the critical success factors. This is marketing. This is content. This is marketing. This is content and marketing. Right. So we're getting some idea here, right? So in this example, right. I have just. Here's the goal. 150,000amonth. Here are the necessary conditions. Effective content development department. Effective marketing department.
Right?
The effective content development department has the ability to repackage for different niches and prospects. A complete product funnel. A product development process built around my work. A free content development process built around my work.
Right?
A unique product positioning based on market research and similar selling products. Publishing calendar optimized for selling our products. So that would be both for both departments, right? And same with our positioning. So these two go to both, but the rest are just the marketing. Ongoing client only marketing. Robust lead generation launch calendar with the products that maintain our positioning, product sequence strategy, optimized conversion process, etc. So there you see it.
Cool.
Yeah. Well, I drink, so let me put this up on the screen. Love to connect with you after this and help out with that health goal. I have a supplement line Called cmos that does wonders for the body. I'll send you a free sample. Shoot me a DM on Instagram. Alkaline Life. Shoot him a dm. Oh, and then when you're in there, there were a bunch of people that hit the sow thing from yesterday. So if you could reply to them, like send them a link to our website or something. I do drink alkaline water. I've had the same machine for like 20 years. I bought it in Japan that alkalizes the water and that's what I drink every day. All right, let's keep going. IO map examples.
Right?
So here's another one. $100 million info publishing company.
Right?
Here are the critical success factors. Large sustainable revenue, sustainable results, focused products and programs. Uncompromising customer focused, motivated and capable team.
Right?
In the large sustainable revenue. The necessary conditions for that are an optimum selling system, an optimized sales funnel, multiple guru product lines, front end focused, well managed, segmented customer and prospect list.
Right?
So the green here are necessary conditions. The yellows are the critical success factors. And the goal is $100 million info publishing business. Now is this everything? It all depends. It all depends on how you're thinking about it, et cetera. If this helps you kind of get clear about what you have to do and therefore what this business is going to look at, look like that's all that's necessary. So it's very kind of dependent on who's going to be looking at it. Here's a IO map for a $3.2 million info publishing company.
Right?
Large sustainable revenue, a stable of cutting edge products, A motivated and effective team of alliances, technical and support staff, high customer retention and renewal rates. Right? So now you can see all the critical success, I mean all the necessary conditions that this person put in place. Here's another one. Make over 500,000 in net profit. Now I have thousands of these because you know, when I taught this program, everybody would submit their maps and I would review them on video so that everyone could learn and I would correct them. Okay, so here's the necessary conditions. Leverage. Well, down here are the necessary conditions. Up here are the critical success factors. So let's take a look at this. The critical success factors are leverage existing assets of non core businesses to maximize net profit. Maximize operating profit of core business. Use financial controls to improve cash flow. So use wouldn't be here be financial controls. Right? Leverage partners, affiliates to max values, net profit, fully leveraged partners. Right, we're not doing verbs here. These are nouns, right? We Want to make these nouns rank assets by combo of potential profit, speed of implementation. All right. I would change a bunch of things on these, but I just wanted to show you some examples. Now it's your turn. Just follow the steps on the left. Analyze your intermediate objectives, convert them into necessary conditions, group them by function, create the critical success factors by those functions, and then map it out. Pretty straightforward. Tool number three, the current reality tree. This is the behemoth. This is the big work dog of the group of different charts. It helps you find your constraint. It uses cause and effect analysis. It makes you a better entrepreneur if you just do this. That was kind of surprised to me that one of the side benefits you could say of doing this kind of mapping is that you just become a better entrepreneur. And the reason you become a better entrepreneur is because your thinking moves ahead. Because as you start doing the work to map out the cause and effect relationships in your business, you then have, you then have a perspective that you don't have right now. And you're therefore able to make better decisions. And when you make better decisions, you get better results. It's that straightforward.
Really.
I'm kind of surprised that you're 75 minutes in and you're still wondering what's more important, how you think or what you know. It's how you think, right? Because most of you are not thinking about the constraint. Most of you probably think about everything but the constraint. And so you're also wasting all your effort because the only thing that drives you forward and gives you a big jump is identifying the constraint and eliminating it. So it's thinking. You could say it's knowing, knowing your constraint, but you only get there by thinking. So let's keep it to thinking. Do I have a motto? Well, I guess I end every video that I have with to hire profits and beyond. I guess that would be a motto. But we also used to have like, what was it like? More profit, more time off while building the business of your dreams, or something like that. It's not really all about knowing. These are things that I would imagine that everyone should know. Like, how can you say you're trying to build a business and you have no idea what that business should look like or what it needs or why you aren't at your life. Like these kinds of questions. To me, I was kind of shocked that people couldn't answer it. I'm like, it's like my goal is to weigh 175 pounds. Well, how are you going to get to 175 pounds? I have no idea. I thought I tried eating chocolate cake and seeing where that takes me, I figured I'll eat a lot of chocolate cake for breakfast, a lot of chocolate cake for lunch, and a lot of chocolate cake for dessert. Because I have no idea what's actually going to get me to my goal. Like, that's insane. And yet that's what people are telling me. Like, I'm not really sure what's necessary to build the business that I say I want. Well, then if you don't know what's involved in that business, how could you even know whether you want it or not? Like, to me it's. I don't know, it seems kind of weird. Mindset is everything. Well, it's more than mindset, though. But certainly mindset is important. If you have a bad one, it can stop you, you know?
Right.
The chocolate cake diet. Now we're talking, right? Undesirable effects. Okay, so we're, let's talk about what are undesirable effects. They are the symptoms you are experiencing. They are undesirable compared to the IO map and the critical success factors and the necessary conditions. Because that's the map that you're going to look at, right? To just make sure that all the obstacles and all the intermediate objectives deal with the necessary conditions. They deal with the necessary conditions because you don't do the critical success factors. The critical success factors happen when you fulfilled all the necessary conditions. So when you fulfill all the necessary conditions, the critical success factors have been accomplished. When the critical success factors are accomplished, that causes the goal. So the only thing you have to focus on really are the necessary conditions. But you look at the critical success factors and the goal just to make sure everything's supporting it. So how do you find them? You analyze each entity on the IO map. You compare reality with each entity. If bad, articulate the deviation. Hopefully that makes sense to you guys, Here are the steps for this. You analyze your IO map. You uncover undesirable effects. You create a two layer matrix. I'll show you that in a second. From that two layer matrix, you begin the current reality tree. You expand on those initial clusters which were the two layer matrix. You identify additional causes. You build down and across and you identify the leverage points. And I'll explain all this. So I'm not expecting you to get this yet. All right, so here are some undesirable effects as we look at this original IO map of mine.
Right?
Effective marketing. Okay, Our marketing department isn't effective. Okay, so that's A problem. Ongoing client only marketing. We don't market separately to clients.
Right.
In other words, marketing to our customers. One like offers and marketing to prospects. Something else. Your customers are where your money's at. So you should be marketing to that list differently than your prospects. Okay. Robust lead generation. We don't generate enough leads. Launch calendar with products that maintain our positioning. We constantly miss deadlines and abandon calendars. Free content development process and product development process. We don't monetize and utilize all of our content. Okay, so this is the mate. This. Okay, so we just uncovered some undesirable effects. Right now we're moving to creating a two layer matrix. So here are the undesirable effects. Our marketing department isn't effective. We don't market separately to clients. We don't generate enough leads.
Right.
These are the same ones that were just right here on the right. Right now we're going two levels deep by saying why our marketing department isn't effective. Well, why isn't effective? We've been unable to hire a lead marketer. Well, why have we been unable to hire a lead marketer? We don't have a good job description for it. Okay. We don't market separately to clients. Why? We don't have a clear product buying path. Why? The products we've created are not focused as or part of a curriculum. Okay. We don't generate enough leads. Why? We don't pay for any advertising. Why? We don't know the lifetime client value. Okay. We constantly miss deadlines and abandoned calendars. Why? We are always managing too many projects. Why? We don't know which projects will pay off. So we're doing too many. We don't monetize and utilize all of our content. Why? We haven't found anyone Rich can work with. Why? The way Rich develops content makes it hard to collaborate. Okay, so we start laying this out. We don't generate enough leads. Why?
Right.
We don't pay for advertising. Why? We don't know lifetime value.
Right.
So we're putting these on a chart and then we're starting to map stuff further.
Right.
So we don't market separately to clients. Why? We don't have a clear product buying path.
Right.
Which is one of the reasons why we don't know lifetime client value. Okay. It's not the only reason. And if I went further, I'd have more here, but there.
Right.
Why don't we have clear buying paths? The products we've created are not focused or part of a curriculum. Why? Rich creates products based on his current Interests. Why we haven't created a plan on the products we're going to develop. So since there's no plan, right, And I create products based on what I'm interested in, there is no kind of curriculum. And because there's no curriculum, we don't have a clear buying path. Do you see how we're starting to lay out, like, how everything is interrelated? Well, why haven't we created a plan on the products we're going to develop? Because we haven't identified our ideal prospect. Okay, well, why haven't we identified our ideal prospect? Well, because we try to cater to two very different types of prospects and customers. Another reason why we haven't created a plan is that we haven't created a comprehensive strategy overall. And then this goes more to the side.
Right?
Well, here's a different type of current reality tree, right? Here's one Undesirable effect. The car engine will not start. Second undesirable effect is the air conditioning is not working. And the third is radio sounds distorted. Why is the car. Why won't the car engine. Why is the car engine not starting? The engine needs fuel in order to run. Fuel is not getting to the engine. Okay. There is water in the fuel line. That's why fuel is not getting the engine.
Right.
Air conditioning not working. Air is not able to circulate. The air intake is full of water.
Right.
So we're starting to understand why. That's because the car is in the swimming pool and that's why the radio sound is distorted. And why is the car in the swimming pool? The handbrake stops the car from rolling into the swimming pool. The handbrake is faulty. Okay, here are the undesirable effects. Project gets done slowly or not at all. The company is not well known. The company sales are small and erratic. Why is the company sales small and erratic? We don't have consistent marketing effort. We haven't devoted sufficient time and resources to creating a consistent marketing effort. The company is not well known. We haven't tapped into our strong network of friends and contacts. We haven't taken the time to work out deals with our contacts. Okay. Projects get done slowly or not at all. Team members delay getting me what I need. Why? Because I don't follow up appropriately and we don't stick to our deadlines. And this is an and as opposed to either or.
Right?
And so why haven't we taken the time to work out deals with our context? I'm handling too many projects at once. We don't have a Clear plan of attack with well defined priorities. So this isn't mine, just so you know. This is just, you know, I'm just sharing different examples from the course. Another example, we're short on team members. Why we haven't built a scalable freelance team outside the company. Why we haven't dedicated the time to find the right long term relationships. So you're just getting a sense of like here's the four parts, right? The two level matrix that you take these and then you insert them into the diagram and now you're starting to connect them. That's the whole process. And if you use a tool like Flying Logic, which is a great mapping tool for theory of constraints, then it redoes the diagram. Every time you make a new connection or add another node, it completely redraws it in front of you to make it as simple as possible. It's pretty cool. Okay, let's see. I'm back to having a problem. Let's just move this back over a little bit. There we go. And now let's go there. Okay, so customer support is erratic, right? Number of support tickets has huge swings. Launches create a huge surge in new customers, right? We rely too heavily on launches.
Why?
Because we don't have front end products. That's why revenues are consistent. But that's not the only reason why revenues are inconsistent. It's also because we haven't developed an optimized selling system which, you know, if you read Ready, Fire, aim, it's about like what's the ideal client getting offer? And that's the optimum selling system. And daily sales outside launch periods are low, right? That's why revenues are inconsistent. These three. Are you guys with me? Do you see how this all works? So what you'll find is, is that as you do this, there's a convergence of cause. And so as you keep doing this and asking why, you have less and less causes to work with until you find the few causes that have linked out to all these. And so when you get rid of these at the bottom, they just trip over all the ones above. So I think many of you have probably seen this, but just in case, right? This is a, this was a diagram that I put in. Think the entrepreneurial emergency. I think. Yeah. If you've seen it, I've shared it with so many people. I know a lot of people have shared this. Aaa, bbb, ccc. Right? So this is all about like what's the best way to attack projects, right? And the whole idea is that like you don't take on A project in business for no reason. Every project that you take on in business is related to making more money. Even if it's a project to improve customer service. That's the help retention or word of mouth, like everything at the end of the day can be tied to more money. That' the goal of business is to make money. And right, that means that the sooner a goal is completed, the sooner money is made. So you want to achieve your goals, you want to complete your projects as quickly as possible. And so as we look at this diagram over here, right, what you'll see is you'll see three letters and you'll see like on each row you'll see nine boxes. I want you to think of each letter as a project and I want you to think of each box as a week. So you see here, there are three projects and there are nine weeks in both lines, right? This is nine weeks. This is nine weeks, okay? So most people online spend their time doing several projects. ABC, right? So one week they're working on this, one week they're working on this,. One week they're working on this. Then one week they're working on A. Then when we get working on B, then one work they're working on C. Now this is not. I don't know if I go this way. So let me just see now, okay? And it's really not as fully accurate because in general, if I'm talking about the average Internet marketer, it's this. These first three weeks, it might be abc, but the next three weeks would be abc and then D. And then the following it would be abcde. You, you add more projects before you. Before you actually finish a project. But look at this. If you were to attack your projects like this, look at the difference, right? So in three units of time, in three weeks you'd have A completely finished, which would mean you'd have six weeks here of A finished making money for you. If you finished, if you went then to B, right, You'd finish B at the six week mark, which would mean you'd have three weeks of making money with that, which in total would equal 9 units of time of making money. However, the other way, right, you don't finish A until seven weeks. You finish B after eight weeks. So you have two weeks of making money with A, one week of making money with B. So you have three units of making money as opposed to nine. And that's why multitasking doesn't work. That's why adding a project is always not a good idea unless you Finished a project. Because every time you say yes to anything, you're saying later to everything you've already committed to. Every time you say yes to a new project, you're saying later to every other project that's already on your plate. Most people don't recognize that just in time learning versus just in case learning. And I'm trying with steel, our winners actually to move the market more to just in case learning. I mean, just in time learning going through courses is just a case learning.
Right?
I want people to know what they need, come and get it, and then profit immediately from it. So now you have the keys to success. If you use them while you're here, you can get peer feed and expert peer and expert feedback. I want to bribe you to use them asap. I was offering at this event because it was early to rise and it's Agora property. And I always have bent over backwards for Agora because they pay me. So what I did was I bribed people. If you worked on all this while I was there, which I was there for the whole weekend, I would sit down and review your map with you not offering that today. I apologize. This was about Founders Club. Look at me and Todd Brown. That's Todd.
Wow.
Let me see if I can. Can I zoom in? Look at Todd Brown. I kind of look similar, except I'm thinner now and I have a little bit more hair. But Todd. Todd definitely is also. We both are more handsome, I'd have to say. Look at that. Anyway, I don't think these resources are there anymore, so I apologize about that. I don't know if there's any more. Let's see. Is that the last one? That's the last slide, guys.
Wow.
Just make sure that that's the last slide. Pretty sure it is. Oh, yeah.
Wow. All right.
So how was that for a free live stream, huh? I hope that you got lots of value from that, you know, obviously. Well, let me answer some of these questions here and then we can. All right, let's see. Just. This is validated. My last six months buried in various rabbit holes. And now start my venture towards the mountaintop. I knew this fellow club kid would steer me right. Good to see you, Davey Ball. How can I predict constraints that are in areas I'm just starting to get into? You don't need to. You always have an actual constraint. So maybe the constraint is like thinking that there's too much information you have to consume and maybe that there's a faster way or something else, but there is a current constraint. I would focus on the current constraint because there always is a constraint. My market separately to clients is a huge constraint. Is a huge constraint for many, I notice. Yeah, it's like they don't get that you should treat your customers differently than your prospects. Rich, how do you figure lifetime value? Well, lifetime value is basically what someone on average spends with you over their lifetime. And when you're just starting out, that's obviously pretty hard. So you have to guesstimate. But, you know, if the average person stays in, steal our winners for 18 months. And I'm just picking a number, right. And it's $50 a month, then it's $900. That's a lifetime value on average.
Right.
And that's what you're going by.
You.
You take the total revenue that you've ever brought in based on the total number of customers you've ever had, and that will give you a lifetime value number. Now, in the beginning, because lifetime value is difficult, you often look at how much people are worth over specific periods of time, like the first 30 days, the first week, et cetera. What kind of company. In the swimming pool.
Ha ha.
Yeah. That was just an example. Nice templates. Create some neural networks. Yeah. For using Flying Logic, for sure. This is Sun Tzu. Art of War turned to a business approach.
Cool.
You're with me.
Cool.
How you think? Yes. How you think? Is Flying Logic better than lucidchart? Totally different. Like when you're doing theory of constraints work, right, and you're mapping out cause and effect, you're going to notice new causes and effects all throughout. And if the diagram doesn't redraw on its own, then it's going to be a cluster because you're going to, like, say, oh, well, there's another cause over here and that's related to this one over here. And you're going to be starting to draw lines all the way across your diagram. And now it's going to be very difficult to follow. So Flying Logic, like, if I connect something from over here to something all the way over there, then Flying Logic is just going to redesign the whole map. It's going to redraw it right in front of me. It's pretty cool. And you can download a Sam, you know, you can download a demo, so something to play with at the very least. But wait, there's more.
Cool.
Whole talk is fire. Thank you, Stephen. That last piece, really about time. Wow. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Amazing. This stream was terrific. I really got some gold nuggets. Thanks, Rich. Unfortunately, late here, but definitely going to watch the replay. 10 minutes here. And the value is great. Thanks, my man. Renan, thank you for your time and being an example to the community. Thank you for saying that, Stephen. The value you just provided to us in this call, would you call it value and what type of value? I would call this value. And look, one of the reasons why I'm well liked and well known is because I've helped a lot of people reach their goals. And so if I can help you guys reach your goals, I know that at some point maybe you buy some of my more expensive stuff or you have me consult or whatever. And if you don't and you just think fondly of me, that's okay, too. Best advice for getting copywriting clients. Well, one, be a copywriter. Since I'm not, I have none. I have no copywriting clients. And then in the beginning, I mean, it depends. Like, I don't know how good you are, Stephen. If you're really good and you can write copy fast, then you might write some on specific. But if writing it takes a long time for you, you might be willing to write copy for someone and forgo the fee and just work on royalties. There's a lot of ways to kind of eliminate the risk to the business owner to get your start. But that wouldn't be your go to strategy long term, because ultimately you don't want to work on spec. But it's not a bad way to get it started. Absolutely amazing, sir. That's why you're my mentor, whether you know it or not. Well, thank you, John. Sorry, this was a question. The value just provided to us in this call. Would you call it marketing and what type of value? Yeah, I would call it marketing. You know, I got to share. Hopefully you noticed some of my success stories right in that list. And also that I know my shit and that. Oh, whoops, I forgot to put this on. Where is the brand? Let's see. There we go. Too tall. Should have had this up at different times. Obviously, I couldn't have had it up when you were. When I was going over the slides, but yeah. So this is marketing. And it's marketing because on the very one level, I'm doing this for you to create positive will.
Right.
Goodwill, and to give you guidance in areas where there are very few people qualified to give guidance.
Right.
So I don't know how many. There are a few Internet marketers now that knows that. No theory of constraints. Back when I started teaching in 2008, I don't think There were any. And it's a really powerful methodology. It's an insanely powerful methodology. In fact, the reason I teach it or the reason I taught it was that I was convinced how powerful it was. And I know if there's anything that I want to get really good at, if I teach it, I will force myself to get really good at it. I'm inherently lazy and I won't do that necessarily for just myself, but I will do it when I'm doing it for others. And so that was one of the reasons why I taught it. And if I can teach it to more people and I can be the first person that ever introduces you to theory of constraints, then that's a good thing, and that makes me happy. Thanks, Dr. Vogelman. Great conduct these issues. Yeah, and I didn't take that personally. I didn't mean it. I knew what you meant. Gene Kraul, what is the lifetime value in Agora? It depends. But I will tell you that financial buyers are worth less overall than people who buy marketing products.
Right.
So lifetime value is much higher actually for marketing products. There's just a lot more people in the world who are investors than there are marketers.
Agreed.
Will there be a replay? I'd like to go back and look at some of those charts. Yeah. It will be in the YouTube channel, so you can watch in high speed if you'd like. It will be in our Facebook group. I don't know if LinkedIn stores them or not, but it's definitely going to be in Facebook and it will definitely be in YouTube, so you'll have opportunities to review it. Thanks for the content. I've started taking some of your suggestions on improving my speed reading and getting myself better physically. Awesome, Rob.
Cool.
What's a good book on theory of constraints? Well, if you want to just get like the over the overview, then the Goal by Eli is probably the best. The Goal by Eli Goldratt. But you know, it's a great, like, intro to talk about what's possible, but it doesn't really tell you how to do anything. That's why I like the Logical Thinking Processes by William Dettmer. Dett E M E R or M E R but you'll find it. And that of all the books I read on theory of constraints, that was like a textbook, but it was the best. And it was very sequential. It gave me tons of examples. I learned theory of constraints from a bunch of Alan Bernard's presentations, but my bedrock was that text, because that text described it in a way where I Could self learn. It's like the baby duck who gets hatched. And the first theory of constraints guru he sees is. Yes, exactly. It's exactly like that. Dr. Vogelman. Rich, do you do any Google Ads for your business? Not currently, but we're in the process of like a bunch of these bigger things behind the scenes. And so, you know, Steal our winners is growing and that's great. But where we're going is really just. I just wish I could tell you more. And I'm not trying to be difficult or tease. It's just that I have promised my team that I wouldn't share these things because we want to make a big deal about them and me sharing them would kind of take away from that. So I guess we're just going to end 15 minutes early tonight. I've got nothing else to say. And I got up at like 6 this morning or 5:30, no, 5:30 this morning. Went to bed early last night, got the best night's sleep that I've had since April 4th. I know that because you know, I wear the Oura ring and last night I had my sleep score was an 88. And I was like, wow. Because I've been sleeping like crap on and off, but not great sleep and then last. So I looked in aura to see when was the last time I had an 88. And I hadn't had one until April 4th of this year and that was a 90. So the last time I got sleep like last night was X number of months ago. So that's great. And I've got a busy day tomorrow and a lot of stuff I got to get done here. Ryan posted where Logical Thinking Process Systems approach. Yep. Okay. I first learned about theory of constraints in another live stream of yours back in October, November. And then I read the Entrepreneur Emergency. I love its logic. It has been really helpful.
Great.
Yeah, that was the free report I released about theory of constraints teaching the market about it so that then they would be interested in buying a course about it. Can you repeat the name of the author of the TOC book you referred to? William Detmer. Thanks. You're welcome. And have a nice day. You too. Curious your thoughts on lifetime value versus monthly payments, but can talk Tuesday? Yeah, we can talk about that. Ask me then. Davey, thank you so much. Rich, you're the man. Thank you, Renan, you're the man. And thank you for all the positive stuff you say about us. Looking forward to this replay. Have a good rest, man. Level up a sleep score. 88 is my lucky number.
Cool.
All right, guys. To hire Profits Beyond. I'll see everyone on Tuesday. Make sure to. If you don't follow us on Instagram. If you don't follow us on Instagram. I am known as the real Rich Efron. The reason why is some black woman who I've never met before. She has Rich Sheffrin. Strange. They're on Facebook. You can follow my fan page at Rich Sheffron, or you can join the group Strategic Profits.
And.
And the YouTube channel has been renamed Strategic Profits. Don't eat skirt steak tonight. Yeah, well, because then I'll sweat at night. Can't do that. Love my skirt steak. Anyway, higher Profits Beyond. See everyone on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.
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