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If I gave you $1,000, what would you do with it? Take just a moment and think about that, because the answer will tell you a lot about the way your business is structured.
It's been a while between episodes, which is pretty unusual for me. But I've been spending a lot of time working with my Total Market Domination clients, creating training modules, answering their questions and helping them to create top of mind awareness and dominate their markets.
For quite a few years, I've been talking about cutting back on the travel and the free training and focusing more time and resources on helping our active clients. In particular, our AIM SmartEQP, Inner Circle, Makeover and Total Market Domination clients.
In fact, the way I've been spending my time recently is what lead me to ask you the question that I started with.
If I were to hand you $1,000, what's the first thing that leaps to mind for you to do with it?
Would you buy yourself something fun?
Pay off some bills?
Buy some holiday gifts?
Invest it in the stock market?
Or, would you invest it in the growth of your business?
Most people work hard for their money, and even those who don't, probably tell themselves they do. Even those of us who aren't engaged in hard, physical, manual labor fancy ourselves quite busy and hard working.
But when we earn money, particularly extra money, what do we do with it?
We spend it, we save it, we invest it in the stock market (which is essentially investing it in other people's businesses, rather than our own.)
One year, when the stock market was tanking and I saw my investments going down, I asked myself, why am I investing this in other people's businesses instead of my own? I mean, Warren Buffet is a brilliant guy and all, but when we have our sales processes dialed in, shouldn't we be able to make more than single digit or low double digit returns on our investments each year?
And what about our time? Same thing there. If we're not making back a high multiple in revenue of the time we're putting into our businesses and sales careers, then why are we doing it in the first place?
Sometimes, particularly in the early stages of a business, we have to invest a lot of time, energy, effort and resources to get things going. But... if you've been at it for years, and you're still putting in more time, energy and effort than you feel you're getting back in revenue, that's a screaming indication that something isn't right.
One of the primary tenets of our Total Marketing Domination course is the idea that if you’ve been in business for any length of time, and you’re STILL not hitting your desired levels of sales and profit, that indicates a real problem -- the kind of problem that time is unlikely to fix.
Because if time hasn't already fixed the problem, why would that change in the future?
Instead, we need to change our actions.
Over the years, I've invested a lot of money in my own training and education. I've purchased books, tapes, CDs, DVDs, printed reports, digital audios, videos, training programs, online courses, memberships and anything else I thought would help.
Not all of them were gold, but I can tell you without a doubt, that the money I invested in my own training and education produced a far higher return on investment than any other financial investment I've ever made.
I remember telling Michael Gerber, the author of the business classic The E-Myth (and The E-Myth Revisited) that after reading his book, I developed more systems and processes, restructured my environment, grew my sales and profits, and started, built and sold several different businesses. Then I told him that buying his book was the best eleven bucks I ever spent.
When you think about the huge leverage and high return on investment we get from investing in our own training and education, it makes other purchases, or even just saving, seem somehow irresponsible.
With the holidays coming, it's likely you'll spend a lot of money on a lot of things that will be forgotten within a matter of days or weeks -- things that will provide zero return on investment.
Before you do, consider investing something in yourself. Something that could actually fix some of those problems that time has been unable to fix.
If you're a business owner or salesperson, consider investing in our Total Market Domination course, so I can work with you, over the course of the next year to help you create the top of mind awareness you need to dominate your market and be the resource that your best clients think of first.
You can get more details on that at topsecrets.com/tmd. That's topsecrets.com/tmd.
If you're a smart, focused independent distributor in the promotional products industry, doing a reasonable volume of sales, check out our AIM SmartEQP program and get our exclusive combination of EQP Buying Power, Quality Connections and Cutting-Edge Training.
You can get details on that at smarteqp.com. That's smarteqp.com
So, when someone hands you your next thousand dollars, whether it comes from a paycheck, or a commission report, or even in small increments in a bunch of holiday cards, what are you going to do with it?
Invest it in yourself? Invest it in your own growth, training and education?
Or will you just blow it?
The choice is yours.
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