Dan Lok

How To Buy a Business With No Money

June 11, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Have you heard the saying, “It takes money to make money”? The truth is, sometimes it does take money to make money – but often it doesn’t. It’s possible to buy a business with no money… if you use the following strategy.

A lot of entrepreneurs lament about not having enough money to grow their company, or say they don’t have enough capital. But when I started my own business, I had neither money nor capital.

When you have no money, you have to get creative to make things work by coming up with good strategies to get sales. If you don’t have the money for high-quality marketing campaigns, for example, you’re forced to think outside the box and that’s the exact type of thinking that will get you far in business.

When you think of it that way, having no money could actually be a great thing for your business because you’ll develop cost-effective strategies that you’ll carry with you throughout your journey as an entrepreneur. It’s these creative strategies that will save you and your business money down the road.

Watch this video about how to buy a business with no money.

You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need A Better Strategy

Let me tell you a story about a flower shop owner named Matt. He owned a flower shop in his little town, and it had been doing well for several years. His competitor owned the only other flower shop.

One day, Matt got approached by the competitor – an older gentleman. The competitor wanted to sell his flower shop to Matt because he was getting old, and he wanted to retire and travel the world.

Matt realized that if he bought this flower shop, he’d own the only two flower shops in town. He’d have a monopoly and everyone in town would only buy flowers from him.

So he asked the older gentleman how much he wanted for his flower shop, and found out the asking price was $50,000. Matt said that he didn’t have $50,000, but the other man stood firm at his price.

So Matt went home and talked with his wife about the possibility of getting a line of credit or getting a loan. He explained that he could double his business if he bought this other flower shop but she thought it was a crazy idea.

Matt called up a brilliant entrepreneur for advice and a potential investment. He told the man, “Dan, could you loan me $50,000?” Matt explained that the flower shop was in a great location and with his other flower shop, he’d corner the market and double his business.

The smart businessman told Matt, “You don’t need my money. You need a better strategy.” The businessman went on to say, “Matt, ask yourself this: Who would benefit from this purchase? How do you add value?”

How To Double Your Business With No Money

As Matt thought about all the people who would benefit from the purchase (the older flower shop owner, Matt himself, the customers, etc) it was the businessman who pointed out who could potentially benefit the most, and who would therefore be willing to help Matt. The supplier.

You see, currently, Matt only used one supplier to stock his flower shop. This supplier got about $125,000 per year in orders from Matt. The older gentleman had been using a different supplier to stock his flower shop.

As the new owner, Matt had the power to switch suppliers and double his current supplier’s business. Instead of $125,000 per year of business, Matt could now give his supplier a quarter million in business every year – as he’d be filling double the orders.

All Matt had to do was convince his supplier to buy the exclusive rights to provide for his flower shop for the next five years. Matt could charge $25,000 for these exclusive rights. When Matt presented this proposal to his supplier, it was a no brainer for them.

For $25,000 they would be getting an extra $125,000 worth of business for the next five years. Of course, they happily agreed and paid Matt $25,000 to seal the deal.

With that, Matt went back to the older flower shop owner with a new proposal. He told the older gentleman that he’d be willing to pay $60,000 for the flower shop instead of $50,000 as long as they could agree to a payment plan.

How To Use Resources, Time And Skills

He’d be willing to pay $25,000 up front and the rest in installments. Since the older gentleman stood to gain an extra $10,000 if he agreed to more flexible payment terms, it was quickly agreed upon.

With that, Matt was able to buy the flower shop without spending a dime of his own money. Without spending anything out of pocket, Matt doubled his business. How? Because of a smart business strategy.

The difference between the average entrepreneur and a great entrepreneur is knowing how to use leverage. It’s coming up with creative ways to leverage other people’s resources, other people’s time, other people’s skills and other people’s money.

This requires some out-of-the-box thinking where you figure out who could benefit and who would therefore be willing to help. Leverage is one of the best ways to make money without spending your own money.

Final Thoughts On How To Buy A Business With No Money

It doesn’t always take money to make money. If you don’t have money, you just have to get creative. One way to do this is by using leverage.

Matt was able to buy a flower shop without using a dollar of his own money because he was able to negotiate, and using leverage, bought a business at more than the original price, but without spending a dime.

A great entrepreneur is always thinking about who will benefit from a deal and who would be willing to help. Remember that!

“It takes money to make money?” Do you agree? Comment below.

What Do People Buy – Personality Or Product?

June 4, 2019 by Dan Lok

Photo credits: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com and Bloomicon / Shutterstock.com

What do people really buy? Your personality or your product?

If you choose personality, then does it mean you have to first become a better leader and a good communicator? Or do you have to create a powerful product?

Well, over the years I could tell you that if you study my work then you know I am very big on personal branding and building a business around your personal brand. That’s not the only way to build a business but it’s my way of building a business.

Of course I’ve got other companies and in those cases it’s all about the company and the product. But I found that when I shift to the personal brand focus on the Dan Lok brand, not only do I experience more success, but more doors open up.

People buy your personality more than your product, and here are several reasons why.

Watch this video about what people buy, personality or product.

Putting Your Name On What You Sell

Just looking at the results, as I focus more on my personal brand, big business becomes more successful and my wealth increases faster. Here’s what I notice: people buy people at the end of the day. People like to do business with people that they like, trust and admire.

It depends on what you’re selling. Commodities are a different thing, but if you are selling a product or service, people buy people. Even though people are buying Apple products, when Steve Jobs was alive they were buying a piece of Steve Jobs’ genius, creativity and vision.

The people who do business with you need to trust you. It’s easier to trust and like you when you have a face versus a faceless corporation. When you’re just a product there’s no emotion involved.

But if you do have a face to the company, and you’re the spokesperson for your brand, it takes a lot of guts, if you think about it. If I put my name on everything that’s built around my personal brand but the product fails, it’s my name on the line!

You must be pretty confident to put your name on your products. When you search Dan Lok’s company on Google or on social media, you can find me. On some subconscious level, this gives people some comfort, knowing that I’m putting my name on the line. It’s not like a company that will change its name when it goes out of business.

What Really Sells Your Product: You Or Something Else?

Second, when it comes to selling and marketing, it’s never about the thing. It’s the thing that sells the thing. People see so many entrepreneurs struggle and put in so much time to create what they believe is the perfect product.

But it’s not about what they think, it’s about what the marketplace wants. They have too much personal attachment after spending a long time creating the perfect product, but they don’t spend time thinking about how to sell the product.

Do people even want to buy this new innovation? How can they verify if that’s what their marketplace wants? That’s what I mean when I say it’s the thing that sells the thing. It’s the marketing and sales that sells the new product.

It doesn’t matter how talented you are or how great your product is if nobody knows about it. Nobody can benefit from it because you were so focused on making that product or service perfect before getting it out there.

The Marketing Genius

The customer is the marketing genius. They will tell you if they like your product or not, and they you will tell you if your price point is good or not. Your customer is the expert in all the details – right down to what kind of color they want.

Your branding is based on your personality, so for your personal brand, lead with your personality. Your product may change or die but if your personal brand is strong, you can sustain it for a long time.

Look at Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan. Michael doesn’t even play basketball anymore. He’s retired, but those shoes are still selling, making millions of dollars. That’s the power of personal branding.

Imagine if Nike just build their brand on one product, not a person. If you study Nike’s history, Nike would not be where they are today without Michael Jordan. Their success is all built around a personality.

Being a personal brand isn’t for everyone. You may be afraid that you aren’t capable or ready to be a personal brand. But if you think this is what you want to do and you think you could do it, then I would say definitely do it.

What Customers Really Buy

I know people buy me because of me. Very often I do business with people and we talk about what we do and I joke about the moment that we sign. They don’t even know my company name.

It doesn’t matter what my company name is. They are doing business with Dan Lok and that’s what they’re buying. On the agreement it may have just the company name but at the end of the day, they’re buying me. That’s the most important thing.

The product might change but the comfort of knowing that they’re doing business with me is what makes them move forward. The name is what they are buying at the end of the day.

Look at Steve Jobs over the years. There have been different inventions of Apple products when he was alive but it was Steve Jobs that customers were buying.

They believed in his vision and they believed he’s a genius. When the iPhone first came out, people were fascinated at the invention that could play music, provide internet, and make phone calls. It was phenomenal.

It revolutionized the entire cellphone industry and changed the way we live. The iPhone disrupted an entire industry for an entire generation. And it was one man’s vision, one man’s idea. That’s the power of building a personal brand.

Final Thoughts on Personality Or Product

Your personal brand, your personality, creates trust with your customers. People buy Nike because of Michael Jordon, and they buy iPhone because of the vision that Steve Jobs had for his company.

They aren’t buying a product from a faceless company that could go out of business overnight. Of course, there is more risk involved when you put your name on your product. But you also increase customer loyalty.

Let your customers be your marketing experts. They will tell you what they want but your brand is why they will stay with you.

If you want to know more about how I am able to close deals with my team of closers, or how you can improve your closing skills for your business, click here to book a call and find out more.

5 Stages Of Market Sophistication: How To Stand Out From The Competition

May 24, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Photo credits: rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com – Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com and Paolo Bona / Shutterstock.com

Isn’t it true that someone who has bought a smartphone will be more skeptical and demanding than someone who has never owned one before?

Your experienced cell phone owner will have a lot more questions and objections than your first time phone owner. So how can you as an entrepreneur, a business owner, communicate a marketing message that speaks to your customer, depending on their experience level with a type of product?

This is the biggest challenge that most entrepreneurs face when communicating a message: they don’t understand the five stages of market sophistication. They communicate exactly the same way with their customers regardless if it’s stage one or stage five. So what do I mean by the five stages?

These are a way of describing the amount of experience a customer has with a product, such as a cellphone. Once you see the distinction in the five levels, you see why the typical marketing message – one-size fits all message for everyone – doesn’t work.

Let’s take a look at the five stages of market sophistication and how applying these levels will distinguish you from your competition.

Watch this video about the five stages of market sophistication.

Eugene Schwartz: How To Make Yourself Number One

One of the greatest copywriters back then, Eugene Schwartz, came up with the market sophistication concept. He wrote a book called Breakthrough Advertising, which I would say is one of my top three marketing books that I have in my library. It’s out of print, but I think I brought mine for $500 on Amazon.

Here’s the key to Schwartz’s concept. You must market your product or service depending on what stage of sophistication your market is currently in.

By “stage of sophistication,” I’m talking about how long that type of product or service has been around, how many competitors you have, and whether your customers are jaded.

It’s important to understand market sophistication because you always want to aim to be number one or number two in the marketplace. It doesn’t mean you have to be the highest quality. Instead, perception is more important than reality. What does that mean?

You’ll notice that in any category, any industry, the top one or two people or companies make the most money. In fact, the top 10% of any industry make 90% of the money. And 90% of the business owners make 10% of the money in any industry.

It doesn’t matter if what you sell is a product or service, but you should aim to be number one or number two, even if you have to create your own category. For example, instead of calling yourself the “number one realtor in the universe” or the “number one realtor in Vancouver,” narrow down the category and become “the number one expert in this neighborhood.”

The Advantage Of Being First

Being first has a huge advantage. Have you seen those cola blindfolded taste tests for Coca Cola versus Pepsi? You’re supposed to guess which drink sample tastes better. Pepsi is always saying, “Seven out of 10 say our cola tastes better than Coca Cola.”

However, it doesn’t matter. Pepsi will never beat Coca Cola because Coca Cola was on the market first. When you think of cola, you think of Coke, you don’t think of Pepsi.

Because they knew the competition was too fierce, Red Bull decided not to compete with Coca Cola. They went for the first market advantage in the new energy drink market, and they promoted themselves in that category.

Red Bull started with the saying, “Red Bull gives you wings.” Then they stopped focusing on this message when more energy drinks came on the market. Now, they sponsor extreme sports events. The brand has evolved and they have more attitude.

They’ve evolved through the stages of marketing sophistication, which began at stage one when they simply announced themselves to the marketplace.

Stage 1: Announcing Your Arrival To the Marketplace

At the first stage, you are simply saying, “Hello market. I’m here!” You’re very simple and very direct with your message.

It’s similar to saying, “Hey, I’m a mortgage broker. I’m a real estate agent. I am a grand master. I’m an accountant.”

At stage one, the marketplace hasn’t seen this type of product or service before. A simple, short announcement will suffice. And since you have very little competition, your innovation is enough to capture the market.

For example, a simple, direct message can be, “Hello, my business is _____. My market is_____. I do this_____. So buy from me.”

An example of stage one advertising is a full page ad in a print publication for a weight loss supplement. The message is basically take this pill and you lose weight. They say, “I’ve got this pill. Take it and you lose weight.” Very simple and direct.

Another example is a computer ad from many years ago. It said, “Personal computer for under $200.” It’s a simple and direct message. It’s not an iPad but back then, a computer for $200 was already a big selling feature.

Then, as the market evolves, your marketing needs to evolve too.

Stage 2: Features, Benefits And Claims

At stage two, you’re getting more competition, so your direct claim isn’t enough. You need to outbid your competition with features. Now you’ve got to communicate with the marketplace why your product or service is better.

You need to take your original claims and your promise and enlarge them. You need to explain exactly what it is that makes you better.

Here’s the weight loss example again. It says, “Take this pill and you lose weight in seven days or less.” You’re more specific about the timeframe. It’s not enough to just say the customer will lose weight.

Here’s an example from Apple. They are saying every child should have an apple after school. They also say, the Apple computer “is easy to set up and learn, and it comes complete with almost everything you need to start computing in one box including a free easy to use course.”

It also has 128K of internal memory and built-in hard drive. Back then, it was a huge deal to have that much memory. That made the Apple as powerful as the average office computer!

At stage two, the descriptions of your product or service are longer, the market is more sophisticated, and you need to explain more than why you’re better than the competition.

Stage 3: How Does It Work?

At this stage, you’re telling the marketplace more than what you have and why you’re better than the others. You’re explaining how your product or service works.

Consumers are getting more skeptical by stage three. They’ve become more jaded from exaggerated claims made by the growing group of your competitors, selling pretty much the same thing as you.

To get ahead of the competition, you need to get a new mechanism to make the old promise work. What does that mean?

It means you need to reframe it. You’re saying, “Hey, here’s what we do, here’s how we’re different.” Then you’re adding one piece of information that the customer might not know about what you do, and you tie it back to your claim.

Here’s an example. “Take this pill that blocks the absorption of fat in your intestines, and you lose weight in seven days or less.” You’re now backing up the claim with a mechanism, not just, “Here’s the benefit, but let me tell you what makes this pill different because this pill blocks the absorption of fat in your intestines. That’s what makes this different from the other pills.”

Brands that enter into a saturated market need to already need be at this level. To get to stage four, you must focus on defeating the competition.

Stage 4: Crush Your Competition

At this stage, it gets more competitive. There are so many choices out there with people doing similar things as you. So now not only do you have to promise more benefits than your competitor, you need yet another mechanism.

These days, the internet is making it easier for entrepreneurs to start their business. But with market saturation and massive competition, it’s much harder to gain visibility. Some experienced entrepreneurs are charging barely anything just to get a customer.

The barrier of entry is also easier to start but it’s more difficult and takes more skill and money to succeed. That means the strong will survive and the weak will fade away.

I like that competitive environment. To stand out, a new mechanism must be created that is believable and significant by your market and you must promise more benefits. At this point, your prospects have heard it all and competitors start dropping out like flies.

Let’s return to the computer example. At the early stages, when personal computers were getting more competitive, Steve Jobs asked, “What makes it tick and talk?” That was the new mechanism. A computer that freaking talks.

Only one thing was needed to differentiate their computer from everybody else, and that one thing put them in the headlines.

At stage four, they had the Apple versus PC ads. Apple was for the cool guys. They were the cool bunch. At the time, they claimed, “Last year there were more than 114,000 viruses for PCs not for Macs.” It was a direct claim to say PC sucked and they were better.

By stage four, the competition is getting fierce. If you want to distinguish yourself from your competition at this point, then you must evolve to stage five.

Stage 5: Become Iconic

You don’t want to be just one in the marketplace. You want to be the one.

The marketplace place knows so much about the industry, they won’t buy into whatever you have to claim or hard sell anymore. They’re just so skeptical. This is where you sell on how your brand services only specific types of people and you encourage them to buy into the exclusivity.

You’ve heard the question before: are you a Mac person or a PC person? It’s usually half and half when you survey a random crowd of people. Both products serve a certain segment of the marketplace.

Macs for artists and designers and cool people. PCs for geeks and nerds and gamers and corporate. Microsoft office for businesses. As you can see, it’s two very distinct markets.

You’ve got to be clear which market you’re going after. There’s a shift from features to identifying who your customer is, who you serve, and who your product is for.

Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone? “It’s an iPod, it’s a phone, it has internet.” People were freaked out. They didn’t realize you could have all that in one device.

That’s iconic. The product is totally different and made history.

Here’s another example using diet pills. “Super powerful diet pills make comeback. They’re flying off the shelf, but they’re not for everyone.” The exclusivity makes people wonder who they are for. They also want to know why they are flying off the shelves and why the pills are selling so well.

Final Thoughts On The Five Stages Of Market Sophistication

In the marketplace, there is a tremendous advantage to being first. You don’t have as much competition, it’s easier to be number one, and your customers are more easily wowed by what you have to show them.

As more competition enters the market with similar products and services, you will need to talk about your features and benefits. It’s not enough to say that you exist. When an increase in similar products and services enter the marketplace, your customers will become more skeptical.

At that stage, you must explain how your product works. To defeat your competition and stand out from them, you must introduce a new mechanism. How is your product or service different from the rest? And finally, at stage five, you become iconic. Customers buy your product or service for the exclusivity.

Which ad do you consider iconic? Comment below.

How I Built A Powerful Team Of Independent Entrepreneurs

May 20, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Business is a team sport. If your team doesn’t work well together then it will be like a soccer team with half the players trying to kick the ball to one side of the field, and the other half trying to kick the ball to the opposite side. That kind of thinking doesn’t work.

If you’re a business owner trying to build a successful team, you must think of it like a team sport. The people you hire must work together and share your passion for what you are doing.

Most organizations hire employees who work set hours and quit if they aren’t paid what they’re worth. You cannot build a powerful team with this kind of employee.

I hire entrepreneur-minded people who work together to reach the same goal. My organization grows quickly and moves quickly, adapting to change within hours.

Finding the right people for your team is not easy. As your business grows, you’ll notice you cannot do everything yourself. You need to start building a team of people around you. The problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is that they are control freaks. So as an entrepreneur, you must learn to let go of some control. Then you can start building a team.

To start building a powerful team, you need to have four key elements: vision, mission, culture, and talent.

Watch this video about building a powerful team.

1. Share Your Vision With Your Team

You want to have a very clear vision of what you want your business to look like. Your vision will be your greatest asset when it comes to leadership. You cannot inspire anybody without a vision.

Historically, when someone wanted to conquer a country, or start a movement, there was always a very clear vision of what they were going to do. They were clear about what the outcome would look like when they won.

Having that vision is extremely critical. As a leader you need to sell your team on the vision every single day.

You then get them excited because people go through ups and downs so you can’t tell them the vision once. You have to keep selling and selling it.

Sometimes as a leader, even you aren’t sure if you can actually achieve what you say. But you had better not share that doubt or show it. You need to have unstoppable, unshakeable confidence. You have to inspire them with words like, “Let’s do it together as a team.”

That vision is extremely powerful once you have it. You want to be able to tell your team, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to dominate the real estate industry. We’re going to change the energy sector. Or we’re going to help the people of this community.

2. Sell Your Team On Your Mission

Once you have the vision, the big picture, then the next thing you need is the mission. The mission can’t be that you’re building a business so you can get rich. That doesn’t inspire anybody. Why should they help you get rich? You have to have a mission that inspires people beyond your self gain.

People want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to know what they do matters and makes a difference.

Lifestyle entrepreneurs have trouble building a team because they lack a sharable mission. They just want to make enough money to work from home or work so many hours per week. It’s just about me, me, me. That kind of mentality doesn’t attract talent because it’s too small.

Bill Gates’s dream was, “We’re gonna put a personal computer in every household in North America.” Steve Jobs wanted to put a computer in the hands of everyday people. Elon Musk had dreams of making space travel for everyone.

These big dreams are what get people inspired. There’s a purpose. You’ll have a more driven organization with a mission that goes 10 to 20 years into the future.

3. Develop a Team Culture

What do you stand for as a leader? What makes up your culture are your values as a company and as a leader? There are usually four to five key ideas. Everything else builds around those four to five things.

In my company, culture is very important. People don’t think about what is or isn’t their department. Everyone helps each other and is very supportive. We learn, argue, fight, and then get back to work the next day and focus. We are focused on growth and excellence.

Having a strong team culture is important when building a team.

4. Find Talented Entrepreneurs

When you’re interviewing somebody for your team, tell them what you stand for, the vision, and where you’re going.

Potential employees who are looking for a 9 to 5 job are not a fit for my organization. They just want a pay cheque.

Anyone who works for me or works with me knows it’s very intense: long hours, hard work, and a high standard. I don’t tolerate excuses. I don’t tolerate bad performance. Those kinds of 9 to 5 people don’t last in my company, and I’m upfront about it. If a candidate is willing to accept those conditions, and they can thrive under pressure, then I want to get to know them.

That’s my management secret. I want to know their personal goals. It’s not a good sign when they ask me about the salary or how many hours of work are required. I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear what motivates them. If their dream is to buy a car, I want to know what car and why.

When you tie personal goals with company goals, you and your team are aligned. You get loyalty.

Most employers play just enough so their employees don’t quit. In my organization, I don’t dictate how much each person gets paid. If someone’s income goal is $100,000, they need to find a way to add value. Then I’ll increase their compensation to get closer and closer to their income goal.

Strong Leadership

You are who you attract. So look within yourself if you want to lead a team like mine. Leadership always starts from top to bottom.

Final Thoughts On Building A Powerful Team Of Entrepreneurs

Today I’ve given you a glimpse of the mindset to build a powerful team. If you want to build a team of entrepreneurs, not employees, first, have a vision and a mission that your team can be a part of.

Then develop the team culture. Look for good talent. Ideally, you want to find people who are willing to put in hours of hard work because they love what they do, not because they want a pay cheque. Work on becoming a strong leader, because if you are strong, you won’t have any problems attracting talent. Strong leaders are the foundation of powerful teams.

What is your mission statement? Comment below.

Elon Musk’s Top 9 Rules For Success

May 19, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Photo credits: Jatuporn Chainiramitkul / Shutterstock.com – Ivan Kurmyshov / Shutterstock.com and Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

People call him the real-life Tony Stark, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. Elon Musk’s name is synonymous with Tesla and SpaceX, and ranked as the 40th richest person in the world (2019) and 21st on the World’s Most Powerful People (2016). What valuable lessons can we learn from his success?

He has been associated with controversy, but no one is perfect. We’ve all made mistakes. But what’s certain is that he is one of the entrepreneurial geniuses of our time. He knows how to juggle a busy schedule and consistently innovate to launch successful businesses.

If you want to be highly motivated, show great leadership, and persevere as an entrepreneur, then follow these top 9 rules for success from Elon Musk.

Watch this video about Elon Musk’s Top 9 Rules For Success.

Rule 1: High Drive

Ever since he was a little kid, Elon Musk had a really strong, innate drive. By the age of 12, he had already learned programming and sold a video game for $500.

Most successful people are successful because there’s an internal drive or fire they have under the belly. They want to create something great, something that no one’s ever done before. They don’t want to settle for average and they don’t want a 9 to 5 job.

Most importantly, they don’t need to watch motivational videos to be motivated. They are self-motivated. No-one has higher expectations for Elon than Elon Musk himself.

Rule 2: Spend Time Wisely

Elon follows a very specific schedule, spending about half his time on SpaceX and half on Tesla. A normal week would be Monday at SpaceX then Tuesday, Wednesday at Tesla, Thursday and half a Friday at SpaceX and then the remaining half of Friday at the Tesla Design Studio which is adjacent to SpaceX. Then the weekends with his kids.

Elon Musk manages his time very wisely. You have to when you are running two massive companies involved with large projects.

The upside is this: you and I have 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

You and I have the same amount of time that Elon has. He has the same time resource as you, the same 24 hours a day. It all depends on how you invest your time, and whether or not you use that time wisely.

Rule 3: Persevere

Do you use your time efficiently? That is going to dictate how successful you become. You see, a lot of people look at Elon Musk and what he’s built today but they don’t know that at one time both companies were very close to going out of business.

You see where they are today but the challenges that Elon had to overcome: getting money, growing the business, educating the marketplace aren’t as well known.

When everyone thinks your success rate is so high that you risk losing everything, you need to be persistent. You need to be persistent, even if your first attempt results in failure. Elon was driven because he knows what it is that he wants to do.

You want to ask yourself how bad do you want it? Are you willing to make sacrifices? Are you willing to push forward and persist regardless, even if the whole world thinks that you cannot do it?

Even if they doubt you, you must keep moving forward if you are hungry enough to achieve your goals.

Rule 4: Innovate

Elon Musk believes it’s economics 101. Economics should favor innovation, which is important to protect small to medium-sized companies.

It’s hard for a new company to grow when it’s just a seedling or sapling. It needs a lot more protection than if it’s a giant redwood or fir. That’s why small to medium-sized companies need more protection on the innovation front.

Most people think that being innovative involves creating something new that no one has ever seen on this planet. They want to do something that’s no one’s ever done before, like creating a new technology or invention.

I believe there’s a difference between being inventive and innovative. Inventive is when you have to be creative. You’re inventing a new technology, product, or service – something that no one’s ever done.

However being innovative is something different. I don’t consider myself to be very inventive. But I’m very innovative, meaning I can see what we need in the marketplace and ask myself how I can make that a little bit better.

For example, how can I have a new spin or new way of marketing a product or add a new feature to it? I see there are so many products and services but there’s this gap in between.

There’s this need that’s not being fulfilled. I come up with interesting or different and unusual ideas and approaches to satisfy a need in this particular space. I’m not creating something brand new, just being inventive.

Rule 5: Attract And Motivate Great People

To Elon Musk, the ability to attract and motivate great people is critical to the success of a company because the company is just that: a group of great people that are assembled to create a product or service. That’s the purpose of a company.

Business is a team sport. Now at the beginning of your entrepreneurial career you’re probably doing everything yourself. I was doing everything myself at the start: the bookkeeping, the selling, the fulfillment, meeting with the customers.

I was doing everything a business owner needs to do to keep his business running. However as you grow, Elon Musk is saying that you want to find a group of people who share the same values. You want to share the same vision and accomplish a goal together.

But the key is, how do you attract good people? People come to me and ask me all the time, “How do you build such a great team?” They cannot attract good people and they don’t know why.

I always tell them, chances are if they don’t have good people within their company, they’re a lousy leader. The question is not so much how do you find good people, the question is, “How do you create an organization?”

How do you become a leader that people want to follow? How do you create a team that people want to join? That’s a very big difference. It starts right here, with you, not the marketplace, but right here.

Rule 6: Entrepreneurship Is Not A One Man Endeavor

Entrepreneurship is not a one-man endeavor because with one person, how much leverage can you have? With me, although everything is personal-brand driven, just like Elon Musk, with myself as the visible element and spokesperson for my brand, team Dan Lok is not just Dan Lok.

I played my part, a small part, but the success of the company actually involves a lot of people and partnerships and talents. It’s not just one person, although what you see is me representing the Dan Lok brand. It’s really the people within the organization that makes the company work.

The problem that prevents a lot of entrepreneurs from going to the next level is that they are control freaks. They want to control every aspect of the business.

These entrepreneurs want to micromanage instead of empowering or inspiring their people, and giving them the authority to make decisions and achieve great things.

They want to get their hands in everything and micromanage because they want that control but that actually comes from a lack of self-esteem and lack of trust. If you don’t trust your team, how could you empower them to help you to grow your company? It’s impossible. You cannot work alone if you want to be successful.

Rule 7: Have A High Pain Tolerance

A friend of Elon Musk said that building a company to success is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. The first several months are exciting and then things don’t go as planned. Customers aren’t signing up or the tech isn’t working. It can be painful for years as the company grows.

So if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, have a high pain tolerance.

Many years ago I had a conversation with my mentor Dan Pena and he asked me the question about the same concept. He asked me, “You know, Dan, what do you think is the number one quality of a successful entrepreneur?”

I said it was having an idea or creating new technology or better pricing. Or it was needing a team or being smart or having a good education. I gave him many answers but he disagreed with them all.

None of those are the most important quality of a successful entrepreneur. The most important quality of a successful entrepreneur is the ability to endure pain for a long period of time which is what Elon Musk is saying.

You have to have high pain tolerance. You see someone who is successful like Elon Musk and you see the glory but you don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears while working for years without any results or recognition.

When you read a business magazine you see the people who make it but you don’t see the millions that lost all their money or the companies that went bankrupt.

You only see the glamour side of entrepreneurship and that’s the problem sometimes with social media. You see the glory but you don’t see the guts. Most people give up too soon. They don’t have that tenacity or high pain tolerance.

The first few months of a business are great. You’ve got a great idea to start with. Then problems kick in with customers or technology or the recession arrives. Either you give up or you persevere.

That’s what makes an entrepreneur successful – having the pain tolerance to deal with stress, anxiety, and rejection. An immunity to pain – that’s the difficult part, I think.

Rule 8: You Don’t Need Traditional Education

Elon Musk believes there are good schools out there, but teachers do not explain why students are being taught a subject. For example, they don’t know why they are being asked to solve problems in math class.

A cognitive dissonance occurs when we are taught to memorize formulas or information that seems to have no relevance to what we do daily, but we memorize it anyway so the teacher doesn’t punish us.

Compare that to taking apart an engine to see how it works and then putting it back together again. To do this task, you will need wrenches and screwdrivers and allen keys. As you solve this problem, you learn about the relevance of all these tools to the assembly of an engine.

So the question is, how practical is a formal education?

It doesn’t guarantee you success in life. People think that if they have that degree after their MBA, then their life is set.

Well that may not be the case. I didn’t graduate from university. I don’t have a lot of formal education but I do have a lot of self education from reading a lot of books and having great mentors. So if you don’t have a formal education it doesn’t mean that you will not succeed.

If anything, now I subscribe to the principle called “in time learning,” meaning you learn something that you can implement right now, not by going to school and learning a subject.

With this type of learning, you ask yourself questions. How am I going to implement this? When am I ever going to use this? What am I learning right now that will get me results?

More importantly, learn more about what is necessary to take your career or business or income to the next level.

Rule 9: Have A Feedback Loop

Elon Musk tried to optimize the productivity of every game day. It’s very important to have a feedback loop where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.

Listen to your customers and prospects. What do they want? What frustrations do they have? Are you listening to and understanding their needs? How can you solve their problems better than anybody else? How I can you fulfil their needs better than your competitors?

That’s what business is about. It’s about understanding what the marketplace wants. Nowadays you can even co-create your product by working with the customers to create something that is for them.

With this approach, your customer will like the product more. They’re more likely to refer other customers and they’ll buy more from you. This is the type of information you want to gather for your feedback loop.

Final Thoughts On Elon Musk’s Top 9 Rules for Success

Elon Musk is an inspiration to entrepreneurs who want to achieve his level of high performance and innovation. Even when he was young, he already had a high drive and a strong desire to persevere.

When you own a business, you must learn to spend your time wisely. You must also learn leadership to attract great people because entrepreneurship isn’t something you can do alone. Traditional education isn’t as important as “in time learning” and having a feedback loop to learn from your customers.

Most importantly, have a high tolerance for pain. If you’re not comfortable with being uncomfortable, you won’t be prepared for the challenges you will face on your path to success.

Which Elon Musk rule do you like the best? Comment below.

How to Use Niche Marketing to Grow Your Business

May 4, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

What if I told you I was looking for companies that deliver food or medical supplies and they only deliver to remote areas inaccessible by transportation? A fairly specific request, isn’t it?

That’s the nature of niche marketing – because if you’re selling to everyone, you’re not selling to anyone. It’s a real product by the way- drones that drop off food and medical supplies to remote areas by parachute. Marketing to businesses looking for this technology is very specific, very niche.

To be effective at your marketing, you want to specialize by profession. This is the most basic specialization and it’s ideal for service professionals. It means identifying a niche within a profession and owning it through promotion and personal brand development. You’re just working on one segment in the marketplace.

To be effective at niche marketing, you can implement any of these strategies: first, target a very particular segment of the market, second, gain an incredible advantage by becoming the competition, and third, create some mystery when describing what it is that you do.

Watch this video about using niche marketing to grow your business.

1. Be Clear About Your Target Market

To find your niche market, be explicit about what type of client you are looking for.

For example, Ken was in internet marketing for 17 years, and he was just dealing with anybody that would work with him in any area of business.

Before he started working with me, he noticed a significant part of his business – 40 to 50 percent – was with real estate agents. So I told him not only to forget everybody else, but to exclude everybody else.

We formed a company that specialized in internet marketing for realtors. It was a pretty big market. I also suggested that he write a book about the topic. After he formed the new company, he also had a new, improved business model.

The company name that he had before was called “Standard Marketing” which was as attention grabbing as a blank wall. So we changed it to “Top Agent Internet Marketing.”

The new name tells all, including who we serve.

We also have a book called Sold. It has a very powerful image for a real estate professional. The sub headline, which I came up with, is “How top real estate agents are using the internet to capture more leads and close more sales.”

The book title is very clear about the target audience.

I just put a description of the target audience right in the headline.

If you’re a plumber, are you going to read that book? No. They’re not our target market. Not unless the plumber is curious about a career in real estate.

But a real estate agent will look at it and think, “Oh that’s interesting. I should read that.” Being specific about your target market will get you much stronger results.

2. Be Your Client’s Competition

Strategy number two is a subtle, pressurized kind of marketing but it’s effective.

I want to share the story of my long time partner and client, Matt. Again, we have a specialized niche. We only provide digital marketing services for audiologists and medical professionals.

There aren’t that many of them but because we only provide our service to them, we absolutely dominate the market. We are number one and the company in second place is very far behind.

We’ve been leading their industry for a long time. We have more clients, we charge more than anybody else, and we provide a whole list of services just for that market. We started off locally and then spread out across North America.

Behind the scenes we only work with certain clients in certain cities. Our marketing is not the typical kind. We turned the tables around. Instead of telling potential clients we do digital marketing and telling them about our services, we do the reverse.

We say that in each city and in each geographical area, we only work with one clinic. If that clinic doesn’t want our services, we call their competitor.

This strategy makes it a lot easier for us to sell our services. We also do recurring. Our clients pay us anywhere from $2000-$3000 per month, sometimes up to $5000 a month to do their marketing.

We offer this recurring deal through a signed 12 month agreement. After a year they can quit anytime. But if they cancel, we call the nearest clinic to them and they’ll become a client instead.

We actually have clients say, “Damn, you guys, I’ll just keep paying you.” It’s a much easier solution. They just want to make sure their competitor doesn’t have us on their side.

Understand Your Target Market

Now I have something that I must confess. I don’t know every industry.

I’m not a realtor or an audiologist. But I have my edge because I do more research and study more than anybody else. As a result, in a niche that’s unfamiliar to me, I still understand the market.

So although I’m not a real estate agent, I can tell you I know their business inside and out. I know their frustrations, what their pain points are. What they’re looking for.

I know their goals and desires. Because I learned to speak their language, they feel like I’m one of them. It’s the only way to be successful in unfamiliar territory.

There is a lesson here as well. I want to tell you about Gary, a realtor who isn’t just any realtor.

When you introduce yourself at a business event, don’t say, “Hi, I’m a realtor.” What’s the reaction of people around you?

You’re just another nameless face of yet another realtor. Gary and I came up with an elevator pitch. It’s this. Instead of saying you’re a mortgage broker or a consultant, you say something more specific. Here it is.

The Niche Elevator Pitch

“I’m a real estate professional. I specialize in working with investors, where we generate big profits through a buy and hold or buy and flip strategy. I often generate long-term wealth through a buy and hold strategy as well as various hedge fund strategies… I go into more detail in my book, The book on Vancouver Real Estate.

A book can be more effective than a business card.

It’s pretty clear who he serves and you don’t feel like he’s just another realtor. If I want to buy my first home, maybe, he’s the right person for me, maybe not. But he’s very clear, who he works with: investors on either buy and flip, short-term, quick profit. Or long-term wealth, buy and hold.

And if you have more questions, read his book. This also tells you that he’s an author. By saying he’s a real estate professional your mind doesn’t close off. You don’t instantly jump to the conclusion that he’s going to sell you something. Instead, you wonder, what does that title mean?

Is he an investor? Realtor? What exactly does he do? Then he can go into his specialization to answer the questions in your mind. When he has your interest, he then says he has a book if you want to know more.

Do you see the difference? There are so many realtors out there. So many realtors haven’t even learned how to talk about what they do in a 30 second elevator pitch.

Now remember I said I’m not a realtor. Gary, however, is. But I understand the industry. My edge is when I go into an industry to gather information. I go nuts.

I read the publications and I attend the trade shows to learn their language. I talk to a ton of realtors and take a lot of notes. That’s how I win.

I gather as much intelligence, or data, about the market as I can. Your wealth is in direct proportion to how well you understand your marketplace. Some people have been in their market for a few years, yet they don’t actually understand their market that much.

There are no excuses for not being informed, not if your wealth depends on it.

Final Thoughts On Using Niche Marketing

The key takeaway here is that even if you’re not familiar with your niche, you still need to be familiar with the market. That means that even if I’m not a realtor, I must study the marketplace for realtors.

If you don’t understand the target market, you won’t be able to communicate with them. Have an elevator pitch handy that will tell potential clients what it is that you do. Have an element of mystery about your description so the client will want to hear more.

You want to stand out from the competition. You can even beat your competition by telling your clients that if they don’t do business with you, then you will do business with their competitors. This is how you dominate in the industry.

Which strategy do you like the most? Comment below.

Dan Lok

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Rule 1: High Drive

Rule 2: Spend Time Wisely

Rule 3: Persevere

Rule 4: Innovate

Rule 5: Attract And Motivate Great People

Rule 6: Entrepreneurship Is Not A One Man Endeavor

Rule 7: Have A High Pain Tolerance

Rule 8: You Don’t Need Traditional Education

Rule 9: Have A Feedback Loop

Final Thoughts On Elon Musk’s Top 9 Rules for Success

1. Be Clear About Your Target Market

2. Be Your Client’s Competition

Understand Your Target Market

The Niche Elevator Pitch

Final Thoughts On Using Niche Marketing

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.