What Is Your Shelf Life?

So what is your shelf life? This is not about food that's getting expired, but think about movie stars, sports personalities, and today creators, entrepreneurs, all of them have a shelf life. And the purpose of the podcast is how do you increase your shelf life?

Hey there, Sidh here. Welcome to yet another episode of the Freedom Business podcast. And if you're not subscribed to me on Apple or Spotify, go and subscribe. So you get more episodes like this. So what does shelf life have to do with your growth and your business? And why is it important? See, if you actually think about it, movie stars, sports personalities, and today, if you look at content creators on social media, influencers, entrepreneurs, marketers, a lot of them have a shelf life unless they are able to, you know, be in the game and continuously deliver value. And I'm going to be talking about, you know, how do you really increase your shelf life by the end of this podcast? But this entire game is about relevance, about your mission, about legacy, about being adaptable, change and many other aspects to it. You know, if you look at people who have a shorter shelf life, I'm talking about people who are remembered only as a spike and they're not able to really do anything after that. Even many music stars also, you know, like a one hit wonders, what happens is they just create one hit song, people remember that one hit song and then you don't hear from that particular artist ever again. So those kind of situations are when there's a short shelf life. These are all what I call as trend riders. Okay, so if you are a trend rider, if you're looking at which is the hottest trend right now and ride that, then you would have a shorter shelf life because there's, you have to again, reinvent yourself and go back to, you know, ground zero. Whereas people who have a longer shelf life, I'm talking about people like, you know, let's say Warren Buffett, who's been investing for so many years and the compounding of his investments have gone to so many multiple billions of dollars and made him, you know, the richest man in the world or probably in the top five, top 10. All of that is because he has stuck to one thing. He's not a trend rider, but he is a culture creator. He's created a culture of investing and he's understood cultures. So trend riders have a shorter shelf life and culture creators will end up having a longer shelf life in the minds of your audience. And if you look at many of the top, like religious organizations, way after the creator of that organization has Left the body or left the planet. Many of these organizations have grown multifold after their, after they have left. So that is an example of a longer shelf life. Why? Because they create a culture, okay? They, they have created a culture around which their, their message has, you know, outlived them. Okay, so let's understand what are the attributes of trend riders and what are the attributes of culture creators. And then we will come to how do you increase your shelf life? Okay, so if you look at trend riders, even today, if you look at influencers, marketers, Instagram influencers, podcasters. Not podcasters, but we have many people in the YouTube space. Trend riders are all focused around quick fixes, okay? Their foundation is around hype, you know, clickbaits being hypey, showing off and very transactional in nature where it's a more like a one night stand mindset where yes, they want to somehow get the customer. They'll do whatever it takes to create whatever kind of hype, to oversell or to, you know, basically sell with hype and provide a quick fix solution. And then what happens after that? One of the attributes of these, you know, trend riders is their half baked knowledge. They are truly not masters of their craft. You know, they know that there's some trend that is happening. They go quickly learn around that trend, they launch something with hype. They have like a one night stand with their customers, they give a quick fix solution and they're not focused on one thing because every trend is going to die down, okay? It's not going to be the same thing. So what is the new trend? They jump into the new trend. So these kind of people don't have a long shelf life, meaning since they are not focused on one thing, they will not be remembered or they will not be known for one thing. They have just provided some value at a very short juncture and it did the work for them. But they are not really able to have a long sustainability. They have to, they again get back to ground zero. Now let's look at the second category which is the culture creators. So culture creators, if you see who have the longer shelf life in the mind of their audience, are mission focused. They don't look for quick fixes over here. Then they take a big problem and they make a mission out of the bigger problem. And rather than selling through hype, they sell with value. Okay, let's look at an example. Steve Jobs. Apple is a classic example of a culture creation. So Steve Jobs had this mission of thinking different and making technology simple, amazing value in every single Product and innovation that came with it. Because of that innovation and the value that was added, a community was automatically formed. And the fourth point was they were not half baked in their knowledge. They were truly masters of their craft. In fact, they would spend years in doing R and D and research before they launch a product. So they were really notched up on their skills. The skills were at the highest level and they would hire people also with the highest skills. And they were focused and known for one thing, you know, Apple technology. Of course they had a stack of products, but they created one ecosystem under which they had a multitude of products. And they were not just, you know, jumping from one trend to the next trend. Create one product and they became a trendsetter because of the culture that they created. So to recap, culture creators have a clarity in mission. They over deliver value, they build communities, they're a master of their craft and skills and they are known for one thing. These are the attributes of those who have a longer shelf life in the mind of the audience. Where, you know, the impact is, is felt for years and years and years together. And that's one of the reasons I'm really happy about building communities. And I'm telling people to build communities rather than just be transactional. Because this is a game of sustainability. You should not go back to ground 0 every 2, 3 years. Rather you should build on your successes and move from the first version to the next version. Just like how Apple launches from version 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Like iPhones, keep getting updated. The product has never changed, but the evolution of the product happens. So how do you increase your shelf life? It comes down to a few things. Number one is stop trying to be trendy, but keep improving your core. Number two is leverage the concept of the Flywheel, meaning you keep improving your existing system for a better customer experience. That will help you attract more customers, that will get you more success stories for your customers and that will help you build your brand. In fact, I've recorded a video called Digital Coach Flywheel. Just go search for that on YouTube and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

The third thing is keep your system nimble. When a system is bloated, it's going to be hard for adaptability, meaning if you have a large organization, lot of people, too many processes, too many sub processes. When you complicate the heck out of systems, it's going to be difficult for you to adapt. When it's difficult to adapt, your shelf life will start to go downwards. People will look into Other places with faster opportunities. In fact, I was listening to a top, you know, one of the top entrepreneurs in our country, the founder of Zerodha, and he was saying this, he was saying fast will beat big companies, faster companies will beat big companies. It's not big beating small anymore. It's about fast beating big and companies that are not able to adapt to change. Where they have bloated systems, what happens is they get stuck, they can't move, they can't update themselves in technology. Okay? In the fast paced technology. Now, another way on how you can increase your shelf life is there are no shortcuts. Show up and deliver for at least a thousand days. Deliver your core message, deliver result for your students. When I say a thousand days is like three years, focus on one thing for three years. And that's exactly what I've done. And it's at this point of me recording the podcast, it's going to be five years. And the reason I've been able to create so many success stories is because over the last five years, I've not changed my message, I've not changed my path. I've done the exact same things that I was doing even in the beginning. I've just improved the process. That's it. So show up and deliver. Deliver for a thousand days. Which leads me to the next point is number five is build deep relationships with your customers. Provide them a great customer experience. Once they get habituated to you, they will not want to go anywhere else. Like these days, in my calls and stuff, I just need to send one simple email and people come in multiple hundreds because they are so used to, you know, I basically created a habit forming ecosystem where coming to my calls is a habit that people, they, they feel they are losing out on something if they miss my call.

And it's also fun, they look forward to it. It's not just a Gyan session, it's a lot of fun. That happens also. And if you want to increase your shelf life, you got to empower your leaders and build facilitators, okay? That's the way you can actually create something which is going to really outgrow you. It's going to outlast you. It's going to create a ripple that cannot be measured and where you would actually be a culture creator and not a trend rider. So I hope you found this podcast useful. Movie stars today, sports personalities, creators, entrepreneurs, all of us, everybody has a shelf life. And if I had to like pin it down to one thing that they should do to overcome their shelf life, is to own the space and to add value and to hold people together and to build communities. That's where the secret is. If you found this podcast useful, please share your comments below. If you're listening to this on my blog and if you are on Apple or Spotify, just subscribe to this that you get more of this. Please share this episode with your family or friends who may find it useful. And more than anything else, if you're not a part of my community you can go to sidsidsids co Live and attend my next live webinar. And if you're already a part of my community, make sure you attend my Diamond Showcase where I'll tell you more about the diamond membership. You can go to sidsidsids co diamond and that's where you will see this whole community building process in action at a whole different level that you would not see anywhere else in the world. Wish you all the best and catch you in the next episode.