Scaling

Jack Ma’s Top 9 Rules For Success | Why You Should Listen To Your Customers

March 26, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Photo credits: Frederic Legrand – COMEO / Shutterstock.com and feelphoto / Shutterstock.com

Remember the gut wrenching heartache you felt the moment you realized you gave up on your goal too soon? That if you’d persisted, you would have reached success?

I know the feeling. It’s like the analogy where you’ve been drilling for oil for several months. You’re tired and disappointed, so you give up. But if you had just kept going for one more hour, you would have struck it rich.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and now billionaire, always believed that today is hard, but giving up is not the answer. “If you give up tomorrow, you will never see the sunshine.” Those are wise words that apply to life in general, but especially true in business if you want to be successful with your customers.

I don’t follow too many other entrepreneurs, but Jack Ma is definitely one of a handful that I look up to because of how much his wisdom resonates with me. I have probably read every single book written by or about Jack Ma.

Maybe it’s his poor, English teacher background – I’ve always found him to be very compelling and persuasive. He’s also a very articulate public speaker and visionary. As a global educator, I can relate to his teacher’s heart.

Success is not easy to achieve, and both Jack Ma and I have been down that road to prove it. We can’t make your journey any shorter or any less difficult, but we can share Jack Ma’s nine rules of success to give you an advantage in business and in life.

Watch this video about Jack Ma’s nine rules of success.

1. Think Outside The Box

Let’s start with how people like to perceive you. They like to label you. So if you don’t make sense to them, they think you’re crazy.

When I was younger, people thought I was crazy because of my outside-of-the-box thinking and teaching style. People thought of Jack the same way when he came up with Alipay, an online payment platform.

When you don’t make sense to others, you’re a lunatic, but when you’re successful, they give you a different name. They call you eccentric and innovative because when you’re successful, all your ideas are validated.

Jack believes that being crazy is good. Why? Because Jack says that, “If everyone agrees with me and if everybody believes in our idea is good – we will have no chance.”

You wouldn’t be the one standing out from the crowd. If everyone thought the same way, you would all blend in together and succeed and fail together.

So what can you do to stand out and be innovative and be a little crazy? Jack teaches us to “Focus on the user.” As long as you’re focusing on the customer and they love what you’re doing, that’s all that matters.

2. Seek Opportunities Before Anyone Else

When it comes to opportunities, I do believe they are everywhere.

As an entrepreneur, we create our own opportunities but to be a good entrepreneur and visionary, you must see the opportunities before anyone else. You don’t want your competitors to see your vision.

I’m talking about the Blue Ocean. In business, you’ve found a Blue Ocean when you don’t have competitors and you’re the only one offering what you offer in your market.

When Jack Ma’s company Taobao became a market leader in the Chinese market, eBay withdrew from China. EBay, the competition, was like the shark fighting and making the ocean red. When competitors are gone, there is no more fighting, no more red. When they are gone, the ocean is clear and blue.

For me, founding the High-Ticket Closing program was a Blue Ocean. I offered a premium prices sales program that was new to the marketplace.

When you can create a Blue Ocean opportunity, you will have found something ahead of your competitors. To do that, identify what it is that no one else is offering and take advantage of it before anyone else.

3. Hire Women

Jack Ma’s secret to making a company excellent is to hire women. Almost 47% of the employees at his company are female. I strongly agree with this secret to success.

All of the bad business partnerships I’ve had in the past were all with men. All the ones where I’ve been successful were all with women. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my wife Jennie.

Really, it’s women who have all the major buying power. If a man wants to buy a new house, he has to talk to the wife. If he wants to buy a new car, he has to talk to the wife. Even if the husband is the one bringing in the money, it’s the wife that makes the buying decision.

In closing, in sales, I teach my students to sell to the wife. If the husband can’t move forward, he needs the wife to say yes. If the wife says yes, then it’s a done deal.

4. Think Bigger And Create An Ecosystem

Jack Ma believes that when you have a couple million dollars, that money belongs to you. But when you have one billion dollars, that money doesn’t belong to you anymore. When you have that much wealth, you have a social responsibility to other people.

He believed that when you have that much wealth, you can create a global economy, one ecosystem where people can buy and sell, make payments, and travel using one global system. We could create an economy that would generate 100,000,000 jobs in the world.

His way of thinking inspired how I set my own business goals. I started small, and kept dreaming bigger and bigger.

At the beginning of my career, I started my business because I wanted to support my mom. Once I had enough income coming in, I was able to support my mom, my family, and myself. At the next stage, I improved my lifestyle with a better car and a better house.

Once I accomplished that, I went on to larger goals. I started solving bigger problems while building my organization and my team. Then it wasn’t just Dan Lok organization, it became the students that benefited from my programs and services.

Over time, I was building an ecosystem where I was helping not just myself but the people around me to create opportunities, a better lifestyle, and more abundance for others.

Like Jack Ma, I was learning to think bigger, beyond my own needs and my own family’s needs. I was thinking at a global level.

Apple has created an ecosystem with its products. The information from our lives is integrated with the cloud.

5. Business Is A Team Sport

Business is not a sport that you play on your own. It doesn’t matter how talented you are.

As a leader, it’s not about you doing all the work. It’s about you having the vision, figuring out what the are most important critical drivers within your business, and then finding the team members that can execute your vision and turn that into reality.

Choosing the right team member is critical to your success. Jack Ma said that you should choose the right person for the job. If you don’t know technology, hire the best technician. If you don’t know finance, hire the expert.

6. Work With Small Businesses

Just like a business isn’t something you can build on your own, success isn’t something you can reach on your own. If you help others, then you will also rise up.

Jack Ma says, “I believe small is beautiful. We can use the internet to help the small guys. If you can help others to be successful, then you will be successful.”

I’ve approached building my business in that way. I’ve made most of my money serving small businesses, clients, and my students. Only a small percentage of my wealth is from big companies. The majority of my wealth is from small businesses.

As Jack Ma said, “In this world, if you want to win in the 21st century, you have to be making sure that you are making other people become powerful, empower others; making sure the other people are better than you are, then you will be successful.”

7. Traditional Education Is Important But Not Everything

Jack Ma advises us, “Don’t hire people because of which school they are from. Hire because of their learning spirit.”

I absolutely agree with this approach because within my company, we never hire based on resumes. Actually no one has ever submitted a resume! We look at your attitude, your culture fit, and what talents you can bring to the table.

Skills are something we can develop and train, but attitude and company culture are number one. It doesn’t matter if they have an MBA. I never went to university.

What matters is your learning spirit, the fighting spirit, the hunger. Any skill, if someone wants it badly enough, they can develop, but I cannot teach them culture. I cannot teach them to share the same values and beliefs that my company has. I cannot teach them the desire to succeed.

8. Focus On Value, Mission, And Value Training

Jack Ma taught values, the mission, and professionalism. After that, his company got more managers and leaders than other startups. With that change, his company started to do better because he believes it’s about creating value for others.

Technology might change. Your product might change. Your service might change. But if you have the right people, the right culture, you can work together as a team, and you can innovate. So it’s definitely people driven and customer centered.

When you are focused on the customer, on the people, and your team, that’s what makes the company grow. That’s what makes the company stay and sustain the growth.

9. Follow The Customer To Business Model

Of all of Jack Ma’s rules for success, is the most important tip of all.

You may have heard of B2C and B2B, but Jack Ma believes the future of ecommerce is C2B, consumer to business, because we have a large number of consumers. The focus won’t be on businesses to customers (B2C) or business to business (B2B), but the power of the customer.

They can ask for things to be tailor made on a large scale, and businesses will need to addresses their demands because consumers are now more demanding than ever.

They want to consume content exactly how they want, where they want, from whatever technology that they want. For example, they may want to watch a show without interruption. Or they want the option to watch a show from their iPad, their iPhone, not just their TV.

They want to buy and consume on their own terms and organizations need to be able to fulfill that need.

The model of “this is what we have and you should buy some” won’t work anymore.

Even Coca Cola has personalized bottles with people’s first names as one of their campaigns. Consumers made demands, and the largest companies are listening. They are custom tailoring to the needs of their customers.

Summary: Jack Ma’s Top 9 Rules For Success

If you want to be successful, never get too comfortable. Always be thinking outside the box, looking for new opportunities that will keep you in a Blue Ocean. Business is a team sport, one that you cannot play on your own. So work with small businesses and focus on creating value. And most importantly, listen to your customers and their needs. It’s your responsibility.

Which of Jack Ma’s rules for success do you like the most? Comment below.

How To Systematize Your Business If It Isn’t Working

March 20, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Remember when you first started your business and you measured time from one deadline to the next, one task to the next?

One of the biggest challenges you’ll have when you start a business is the number of tasks that you’re taking on.

You’re the expert at everything. You wear the suit and make executive decisions and chat with clients. You roll up your sleeves to make the coffee and fix the photocopier when it breaks down.

The business becomes a part of you so you are living and breathing and dreaming it from morning until night.

At this point, your friends and family are probably wondering where you’ve gone, if you can be separated from your business the way employees can be separated from their jobs. Clearly, you need to make some changes to your professional life so you can have more of a personal life. But how?

The good news is, it’s possible to systematize your business if it isn’t working. It starts with a closer look at all the roles in your company, and then deciding how you can delegate responsibilities to other people.

Watch this video on how to systematize your business so you’re working on it, not in it.

1. Decide What All The Aspects Of Your Business Are

In a typical internet business, for example, you have so many aspects to manage. You have content, copywriting, list building, getting traffic, having offers, technology, and finance. These are some key areas you have to focus on.

Right now, you may be working on all of the areas shown below.

You could be working on all of these areas of your business.

In each of these seven aspects, you may also be working on any or all of these tasks.

You could be completing all of these tasks.

Maybe you’ve done most of these tasks before, maybe you don’t know how to even begin doing some of these things, like a teleseminar or RSS feed.

As you expand your business, you will need some help with any of these seven areas. At this moment, let’s pause and take a look at the org chart of your business to see where you need help.

2. Draw Out An Org Chart And Decide On Roles In Your Organization

An organizational chart, or org chart, shows all the roles in your business, from you, the CEO, to everyone else in management and those with the least amount of responsibility.

This is what an org chart looks like for a typical business with one person. Now you can see why entrepreneurs seem to have split personalities. You have to do all the roles and handle all of the tasks.

No wonder you’re overwhelmed! You’re the only one in your org chart.

You can also see that this format cannot work over time. You cannot sustain it.

If you aren’t feeling the exhaustion already, you will. You can’t just stick your head in the sand and hope the problem will go away.

Now instead of just putting your name on all of the roles and responsibilities, like you did in the org chart above, diagram it out more clearly by role. You have several responsibilities but they all contribute to the same end objective.

As the CEO, your objective is to work on the mission. You are the leader, the conductor of the team. To turn your dreams into reality, you need to figure out what roles contribute to your mission.

Every business has four core functions: operations, finance, marketing, and people. Each function includes different responsibilities. When you’ve figured out the functions of your business, you can start clarifying expectations for each role.

Decide on roles and describe each role.

3. Assign Names That Clarify Your Expectations For Each Role

Define and name each position in your business but give careful consideration to each name. For example, there is an assumption of seniority when you call someone the Director versus calling someone the Sales Manager.

The way you create a title also makes a huge difference. For each position, assign a name that shows your expectations for each.

If you called someone a Marketing Manager, what do you think that person’s job would be? What if you called that same person the Chief of Revenue Generation instead? Notice how the purpose for that person changes depending on the role you assign them.

4. Systematizing Your Business Requires A Clear Plan

You are not your business. You are you. You create value in the marketplace and you create wealth for your family.

To separate yourself from your business, start delegating others for the other roles in the organizational chart. It may not happen overnight. You will still be in many of the roles when you start.

Over time, you will find someone to be your Chief of Revenue Generation. That is their role. Their responsibilities will be to generate revenue for the company, and that may include different aspects of marketing.

But to systematize your business, you must first decide on all the roles and responsibilities in your company, starting with you as the CEO. Over time, you will find people to take on those responsibilities as you delegate more tasks to other people, while you continue to oversee the mission.

This method is the first step to take so you’re working on your business, not in it.

Are you working on your business, or in it? Comment below.

How to Hire the Right People: Lessons From A Future Billionaire

March 17, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

How do you hire the right person so you can build a highly successful organization?

The choices you make are critical. Like a great marriage or a bitter divorce, hiring or firing an employee affects everyone. If the new person is the right fit – harmony for you and the team. If it’s a bad fit, like a bad divorce, not only do you lose time and money, it affects the morale of your team.

So how do you know if a person is the right fit for your company? And if they seem like a good candidate, but lacking in skills, how much should you spend training them if they still need to develop their skills?

Before you answer those questions, understand the marketplace. The best people are trying to decide amongst several opportunities at once. If you want to get their attention, you have to cut past all the noise of all the recruiters and ads.

When it comes to building a company and organization, having the right people in place is most important. In business, the best team wins because they will find a solution no matter what happens to the market or the economy. The right team and right culture will be resourceful and will always be able to solve problems.

My hiring philosophy and my leadership style are very different from most CEOs and business owners. Most companies hire based on resumes. My company does not. Not a single person on my team has ever submitted a resume. Even though we are a rapidly growing global organization, no one on my team has done a traditional kind of approach.

Watch this video about how we hire the best talent.

Do you want to hire the right people? Click here to talk to one of the leaders on my team who’s an expert in this area.

Hire For Attitude And Train For Skills

There’s a saying, “Hire for attitude and train for skills.” Even for the leadership positions within my organization, not every single person was “qualified” for the job. None of them “have the training” for their particular position.

They might join the team to do a certain task and from there when I see they’ve got potential, I give them more and more responsibilities. They rise up the ranks depending on their attitude, their skills, their capabilities, their desires, and their loyalties.

I don’t believe in resumes because anybody can write a good resume. A candidate can give a very good interview but when you actually hire them, they’re terrible. The reason they are good at giving interviews is because that’s what they do. When it comes to getting the work done, they cannot do it.

So I like to make people jump through a lot of hoops. Not the traditional hoops in which you submit a resume and go to multiple interviews and take personality tests or complete certain tasks to see how you perform. Talk is cheap.

The people who apply to my organization send me a video resume. I get a better sense of their personality on video. After they send me a clip, I give them a series of projects to see how they perform. I watch their attitude and I always give them different opportunities and chances to excel. Then I ask for feedback from my team.

If the candidate does well, then I give them more and more responsibilities. I always look at a person, not their skill set because skill set and knowledge can be acquired later.

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, also looks beyond the resume. A question he likes to ask during the hiring process is “What didn’t make it onto your resume?” Candidates can talk about their personal accomplishments… anything that would show their resolve, empathy toward others, or ingenuity.

Hire People For Your Company Environment

Everyone is different. Some people thrive in a more quiet and calm environment. Some people thrive in chaos while others work better when everything is very systematic.

My organization moves so fast that when something doesn’t work, we change direction immediately. So if a new hire is not used to that kind of environment, they might crack under pressure. We are very nimble, flexible and quick.

If there’s something I want to implement, we just do it. If there’s something we need to change, then we change direction like the flick of a switch. It’s very very fast. Most people are not used to that kind of environment.

The people we bring in like the challenge and this kind of pace. They are at home. Others may find this speed way too stressful. Then they will leave because it’s not a good fit. Or they quit because they don’t have the right energy with other team members and they don’t get along with the team culture. It’s an organic process.

Hire Young People To Keep Up With Trends

People have asked me why there are so many young people in my organization. They ask, “Why is a kid responsible for millions of dollars of marketing budget?”

They think I should hire someone with 10 years of experience. But I don’t believe in that because at the end of the day, my team is in the online education business where things move incredibly fast.

I need to be on the pulse of what’s happening day to day, hour to hour. I hire millennials so that I know what they’re thinking, even if they make me feel old. They always bring in new ideas about what’s hip and what’s trending. If I want to know what young people are thinking, I need to have young people in my organization.

Hire a Team of High Achievers

I love the Russian Doll Principle. When it comes to hiring, a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs and CEOs hire people who are smaller or worse than they are.

A CEO who is hiring a manager will look for someone who is less skilled, and then that manager will hire a team leader who is less skilled than the manager. Then what you will have is a company made of dwarves.

On the other hand, if that CEO hired a manager who has better skills, and the manager hires a team lead with better skills than the manager… you end up with a company of giants.

The CEO or manager hires people that are smaller than them because of their insecurities. They are afraid that if they hire someone with better skills, they can’t manage them or get their respect. If they hire someone less skilled, then they can more easily control them. This type of superior/inferior thinking is common in Asia.

The problem is when you hire less skilled people, the organization doesn’t grow. Hiring people that are better than you will get you that company of high achievers.

Russian Doll Principle: Hire the Right People

Hire a Team of Specialists

As the leader and CEO of my company, my job is not to make sure that directors, department heads and executives can’t do their roles better than I can. That’s not what a CEO does.

Each person in the company has their own area of expertise. As the visionary, my job is to come up with the strategic plan for each of them to execute. My job isn’t to outperform them at certain tasks.

Think about the book, The Art of War. In military terms, the general is not necessarily the best horseman or archer, or even the best soldier. The general is the one that sees the big picture, such as how to mobilize the troops and where to allocate resources. Similarly, the big picture is the CEO’s job.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, wanted a team that liked to create and explore. He didn’t want people who were only skilled in management, so he devised a test as part of the interview process. Those who asked questions and showed excitement and showed promise that they were A players made the cut.

So, to hire a team of specialists, find people who are experts at what they do. They should also be creative A players who are very motivated.

Hire Motivated People, Then Get Out of Their Way

I think it’s very difficult to motivate people. The better solution is to find people who are already motivated.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” That means, instead of trying to motivate people with motivational quotes and all that stuff, find people who already have the fire and desire within them. When you find good people who are already motivated, then all you need to do is create the culture, and give them responsibility, authority and power. Then get the hell out of their way and let them do their thing.

Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox, says that one way to find out a person’s motivation level is to ask them about who they admire. You will quickly find out who is there for the paycheck and who really cares about their work depending on their answer.

Motivated people will make stuff happen. They will want to help you grow, not because it’s an obligation, but because they have that desire.

Myself, I’m a very motivated person. I don’t need people to motivate me or pump me up. I am motivated. I’m driven. So I want people with the same desire in my organization.

If you spend so much time trying to motivate your people, then you’re not spending enough time getting work done or moving forward. So find motivated people and get the hell out of their way.

Hire People Who Will Pay for Their Own Training

In this very competitive business, the key to thriving in any economy is constant learning. It doesn’t matter how much success you had in the past. What matters is where you’re going in the future and what you’re doing now.

As the leader of a global education organization, I believe constant learning is extremely critical. I invest hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in my own education and I expect my members to do the same. My training policy is very different from most organizations because I don’t pay my team to attend workshops. My team members invest in their own education.

They pay for their own flight, their own hotel, their own workshops and courses. I don’t want them to do it because it’s an obligation or it’s required for their promotion. If I invest in my own education, they should do the same. When they upgrade their skills and perform better, they will get compensated.

The other reason is if they invest in their own education, they will pay more attention and get more out of the training. I lead by example. I’m always learning, reading, and attending workshops. When it comes to education, I don’t take shortcuts. I’m a good leader because I’m a dedicated student, and that’s the culture a successful company should have.

If you want to hire the right people, you must hire people with a desire to work hard and excel at what they do. It does not matter if they are more talented than you, or younger than you. When you have a team of high achievers, you will have a powerful team.

Do you want to hire the right people? Click here to talk to one of the leaders on my team who’s an expert in this area.

7 Powerful Lessons I Learned On How To Build An Empire

March 10, 2019 by Dan Lok

Imagine if the YouTube kid celebrity you’re watching on your screen is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Or next Vera Wang. Or next Kylie Jenner.

You can’t always predict what will happen in the future.

The first part of my life was a bit of a disaster and nothing like the success I have now.

My childhood sucked. I was born in Hong Kong and I immigrated to Hong Kong to Canada years ago with no money and no connections and not a word of English.

Growing up, I was only one of three Chinese in my school, so I was an outsider. I didn’t get along with the other kids, who made fun of me and teased me. I got beat up a couple times.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was 16 and that was one of the reasons we immigrated to Canada. I wasn’t one of those people that was born with big dreams. I didn’t have great talents. My teachers said I had average intelligence. I dropped out of college.

Not in a million years would I have imagined myself doing what I’m doing today, writing books, speaking in front of thousands of people, and mentoring millions of entrepreneurs around the world.

It was my dysfunctional childhood that made me the functional achiever that I am today. My parents’ divorce and my tough time in high school both also had a part. It’s because I was the only child in my family that I had to learn how to stop being a boy and grow up so I could take care of my mom.

Now, after building 21 companies and starting a global movement for entrepreneurs, I want to share with you seven powerful lessons I learned when building this business empire.

Watch this video about seven lessons I learned on how to build an empire.

Lesson 1: Adversity Is Your Advantage

People look at their childhood as wounds. I see adversity as your greatest advantage. I hope your childhood sucked too. Because going through difficult times is like a workout for your emotions and your psyche.

When you work out at the gym, you tear your muscle fibers and when they grow back, they are stronger. That’s the first lesson I would like to share with you. Don’t look at your past as your wounds. They’re your muscles.

Business is not a sport for the wannabe. Business is tough. I failed at 13 businesses before having my first success. Statistically, 96 percent of businesses fail within the first 10 years. So in ten years, only four businesses would still be here.

The game of business is for the ambitious, not the weak. It’s for the committed, who will do whatever it takes to succeed, as long as it’s moral, legal, and ethical. I haven’t met a super successful person in my life who hasn’t overcome a lot of adversity.

I’ve lost over two million in business. It doesn’t mean I’m smarter or more talented. It just means I’ve made more mistakes.

Lesson 2: Love What You Do

There’s a saying, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” That’s a load of crap. So many people follow their passion, yet they wonder where their money is. If you want to follow your passion, you’d better make sure your passion makes you money.

For example, I love teaching and speaking about business at events. I could do that all day. The problem is, I hate travelling. I don’t even like to commute to work. I work from home. So imagine how I must feel about travelling from city to city. But I am willing to do what I don’t like to do because that allows me to do what I do like to do.

You would be exceptional at what you do because the marketplace will always pay for value. So it’s not about the money. It’s about choices and lifestyle. In my book, F. U. Money, I talk about financial freedom.

Want to find out more about financial freedom? Download the F.U. Money ebook or audio version here.

Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the luxury of not having to do something when you don’t want to. It makes no sense when you work hard and you still struggle to make ends meet.

I believe entrepreneurs who do a good job and deliver value to the marketplace deserve to be well paid. Money earned is a byproduct of value creation. The more money you make, the more value you deliver. Most successful people are successful because they serve a lot of people.

You deserve to make a nice profit and feel good about it.

When you learn how to make money, it is a gift. You’re morally obligated to make as much money as you can.

Lesson 3: Save Yourself Before You Save The World

The best way to help the poor is not to become one of them. It’s your responsibility to maximize your profits as an entrepreneur.

Here’s an analogy. If you’re giving blood, how many bags of blood can you give before you pass out and die? That’s employee mentality: one person, one donation. You want to give blood? Build a hospital. That’s entrepreneurial mindset.

So maximize your profits. Now some people say that “Money isn’t that important,” and “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” People usually say that as a defensive statement, or they don’t have any money or they don’t know how to get some.

Money is only supposed to do two things. First, it gives you comfort. Second, it allows you to extend what you do beyond your physical presence. So think big. Think about how you can grow your business and reach more people.

Most businesses fail because they aren’t getting enough attention in the marketplace. If you want to grow your revenue, your brand, your company, you must get attention.

Attention is the new currency. Are there any products and services in your industry that are lesser in quality than what you’re offering but they’re selling more? The reason is they’re committed to getting attention.

For example, I have a YouTube channel where I upload my videos, a podcast called The Dan Lok Show, and blogs on my website. That’s all free content. But that’s not how I make my money. That’s something I do to promote my brand.

You have to get yourself out there to push your name. There’s so much noise out there on the marketplace nowadays. One tweet or one Facebook post is not enough. Don’t think in terms of one. Think bigger. Not one tweet. A thousand tweets.

It also means when you’re getting attention, not everyone will like you. First they will ignore you… then they will laugh at you… then they fight you. Then you win.

Lesson 4: Promotion Over Creation

Visibility is more important than ability. Spend time promoting your brand. Every day I have Facebook posts. Instagram posts. Blogs. YouTube content. Emails to subscribers.

I’m very focused on promoting my brand and selling what products and services I already have. Then, when I reach a certain level of success, I create more products and services.

You’ll get some haters when you promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. You’re getting attention.

Lesson 5: Stop Pretending And Start Asking

Entrepreneurs who say their business is fine are using an acronym.

Freaked out

In debt

Not making enough money

Emotionally stressed out

Here’s some inside information. When I go to a speaking gig for a thousand people, only about five percent will come up and talk to me afterward. And out of the five percent, less than one percent will follow up.

They would come up to me and tell their stories. I love to hear their stories. They spend 20 minutes telling me what they do. But they never ask me, “Dan, what do you think?”

Here’s a tip. If you want to establish a relationship with powerful, successful people, don’t go up to them and pitch your stuff. It sounds like you want them to endorse your products to their clients and partners even though they don’t know you.

Here’s how to follow up after a speaking gig. Don’t give them your business card. It’s not their job to follow up with you. They’re already successful. It’s your job to follow up with them. Ask for their contact information.

After that, ask them two questions.

How can I learn more from you?
What’s your most important project that you’re working on that I or my network can add value to?

Lesson 6: Master, Don’t Dabble

A lot of entrepreneurs have shiny object syndrome. They follow whatever is the flavour of the week or the flavour of the month. They never take the time to master anything.

In my career, I focused on building one skill before the next. First, I focused on marketing, then internet marketing, then management leadership, then deal making, then investing. But it was one thing at a time.

And even when you’re working on mastering a skill, you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going. Most entrepreneurs spend too much time thinking about what they want to do.

Remember: perfection is the enemy of progress.

So you wrote an article you don’t like. It doesn’t matter. Upload it. You wrote a blog post you don’t like. It doesn’t matter. Upload it. Tweet the crap out of it.

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, said, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of a product, you’ve launched too late.”

Let my words ignite the power, the drive and the desire within you. Just go out there and just do it. Forget the naysayers, ignore these people and just do whatever it takes to achieve your goal and just do it.

Do you want to know how millionaires actually think? Click here to find out more about Dan On Demand where I reveal the secrets to developing the millionaire mindset.

Blue Ocean Strategy: The Art of Innovating A Sustainable Competitive Advantage In Your Market

March 4, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

With hundreds of thousands of new businesses starting up each year, is it possible to break free from your competition?

No business wants to be in a Red Ocean, fighting against cutthroat competition that turns the water bloody red. Every industry, all your competitors, are in the Red Ocean, like shark infested waters where everyone fights for the same prey.

Instead, we all prefer the Blue Ocean… calm, peaceful…and the only business of its kind in that market. Ideally, every business wants to be in the Blue Ocean, but what must your business do to be in this uncontested market space?

Before I share the business model that will differentiate you, let’s take a look at a recent phenomenon that disrupted the marketplace. Uber.

Taxis have been around for a long time as a public transportation option. There are many cab companies. Each one tries to stand out by saying, “I am better than everybody else. My services are better than everybody else’s.” But there’s one problem.

These statements may or may not be true and consumers become confused. They’re skeptical because they don’t know what is good and what is not so good. Just because you say you’re better doesn’t mean you’re better.

Then Uber comes along and introduces the concept of ride sharing services. They completely change how we pay for cab fares. No more tipping or carrying credit cards or cash. No more wondering exactly where your cab is.

There are good and bad points to this disruption, but that’s part of capitalist society. For Uber, competition becomes irrelevant. For taxi companies and drivers, they lose market share. So what can your business do to move yourself to an untapped environment?

There are three models you can follow. To be different, to be a giant in a vast blue ocean of customers, you must follow the third type.

Watch this video about how the Blue Ocean Strategy makes your business stand out.

1. Me-Too Business

In the first kind of business, the Me-Too Business, you are the same as everybody else. If you’re put next to the competitors, your message and products get swallowed up before your consumers can tell the difference. You look like everybody else. You provide the same product and service.

For example, there are over 35,000 health clubs in the USA, and at least ten, maybe more, major health club chains, each with 100 to 2000 locations. How can a customer decide to choose your club instead of someone else’s?

Maybe you tell them about your features. Does your location have a workout area? Group exercise classes? Personal training? Not surprisingly, most health and fitness clubs have these exact same features. You need to do more to stand out.

2. Me-Better Business

In the Me-Better Business, you’re better than everybody else. Maybe you’ve been in business longer than your competitors, maybe your packaging is better, or your warranty or your technology is better. It doesn’t matter. In the Me-Better Business, you’re the one saying you’re better.

Your health club is better because there are so many locations that a member can work out anytime, anywhere. Your club has the best equipment and programs for losing weight. Or, your club has more equipment and personal trainers. These are the reasons why you say your club is better.

How can you get your customers to say your club is not only better, but the best because you are different?

3. Me-Only Business

The Me-Only Business is where you want to be because you are the only person in that space that does what you do.

In the 1990s, a women’s health club broke into a market already saturated with health clubs, but it realized there was an untapped market in the fitness industry. At one end, there were high-end, full service health clubs. At the other end were home exercise programs that required little or no equipment. This club found a Blue Ocean somewhere in the middle.

It was different from a typical health club because machines were arranged a circle in groups of ten so members could talk and support one another while working out. The nonjudgmental atmosphere included the lack of mirrors on the wall. Most importantly, the company, Curves, offered value at a lower cost.

It also created a new demand for fitness consumers. And it wasn’t the only company to create new demand in the last decade. It’s possible to find a Blue Ocean in a 200 year old industry that has entertained generations.

It’s a Blue Ocean for a Me-Only Business

Creating A Blue Ocean In A Declining Industry

If you’re thinking you can’t find a Blue Ocean for your new business, think about the challenges Cirque du Soleil had in a declining, centuries old industry: the circus. Children wanted to play video games, and people protested animal rights. So what did they do?

Let’s start with what they didn’t do. They didn’t cater to the traditional end users, the children. They appealed to the traditional purchasers, and charged a lot more for an entertainment experience. Adults and corporate clients who enjoyed the theatre, ballet, Broadway shows, and opera now had another option, but in a circus setting.

Cirque now had an uncontested market space and they had eliminated costs. No more animals to feed and multiple performers to transport. People now came to the circus instead of the other way around. And they were now catering to upscale audiences.

Discovering a Blue Ocean is possible, whether you’re in an old market, or a new one. In the case of iTunes, they entered an existing market and created a new one.

Creating A Blue Ocean By Competing With An Existing Market

Now how does a company create its own market by competing with one that already exists? It can, if the current market is entirely illegal.

In the late 1990s, file sharing programs enabled the illegal downloading of digital music files. A demand for MP3 players to play mobile digital music was answered with products such as Apple’s iPod. After making an agreement with five major music companies, Apple’s iTunes offered à la carte song downloads.

Consumers no longer had to buy an entire CD for one or two songs, which was previously a major annoyance. They could get the specific songs they wanted and recording companies could have the copyright protection they wanted. It was a win-win that started a new trend.

Fast forward to today, when millions of songs, movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts are now downloaded on iTunes. Apple has been dominating this Blue Ocean for more than a decade.

Now I’ve shown you examples of how companies have created their own Blue Ocean, by breaking free from tradition, like Cirque du Soleil did, or by creating a demand, like Curves did. But what if you’re a small company, or a micro business, or sole proprietorship? How can you disrupt the marketplace?

Dan Lok’s Blue Ocean Strategy

I’ve started a lot of businesses in my career. Some were Me-Too. I mowed lawns, fixed computers, and operated just like everybody else with a single employee company.

I’ve also had Me-Better businesses in which I was striving to have better marketing skills, management skills, better service, or better products.

But where I found massive wealth was the Me-Only Business. That’s when you’re the best one in the world at this one thing that only you can do. You may not get there overnight, but you can get a bit closer over time. How I created a Me-Only Business was by creating a certification program.

I founded the High-Ticket ClosersTM Certification Program which graduated thousands of students worldwide in its first year. The concept of a salesperson wasn’t new, but the term “High-ticket Closer” to describe people who close deals for premium products wasn’t familiar to most people. That put me in a Blue Ocean.

Your business idea doesn’t have to be revolutionary. You just have to give the marketplace that perception. That perception they have becomes the reality if they perceive you as Me-Only.

Once you’re doing something nobody else is doing, then you have dominated the marketplace and you have applied the Blue Ocean Strategy.

So, think about how you can find the Blue Ocean and dominate it.

How could you apply the Blue Ocean Strategy to your business? Comment below.

8 Golden Rules of Effective Delegation And How To Delegate To The Best People

February 21, 2019 by Dan Lok

The mission driven entrepreneur, working as a one-man or one-woman show, will not survive unless he or she learns the golden rules of delegation.

If you’re a fledgling entrepreneur, assigning tasks to other people is a critical part of growing your business. It’s a dream to believe that you can handle all aspects of your business yourself. You can’t work alone – you need other people. If you can’t trust anyone other than yourself to do the work, then you will be working endlessly on the hamster wheel for a very long time.

So how do you begin to delegate tasks, not just to other people, but the best people? As an entrepreneur, it’s natural that you want to develop a wide range of skills. But as you work on your business, you’ll realize there are aspects you hate and aspects that you just weren’t born to do. Delegate those tasks to someone else first. If you aren’t good at accounting, hire or outsource an accountant.

When you have a set routine for the everyday tasks for your business, delegate those tasks too. In one sense, you are clearing your desk of all the clutter. When you aren’t focused on the day to day survival of your business, you will have the energy and time to see the big picture and to think about the bigger questions. Where is your business headed? What are some current challenges you need to overcome? What’s the next step to growing the business?

But until you start to delegate, you won’t have the mental and time capacity to work on the big picture and jump off the hamster wheel.

Here are eight golden rules of effective delegation that will make you a great leader and free up your time for other aspects of your business.

Rule 1: Clarify The Task In Your Own Mind

Clarify what the task is before you ask someone to complete it. There are some important questions to ask yourself. When you have the answers, then delegate the task. You can envision the task in the following way.

1. Who will do the task?
2. What is the deadline?
3. What exactly needs to be done?
4. What is the desired outcome?

After you have the answers in your mind, or written down, then assign the task. Be clear on what exactly needs to be done, such as the entire first draft for a Facebook ad, or a completed inventory of your products for that month. Also be clear on the outcome, such as completed inventory in a spreadsheet that will be presented at the next meeting.

Rule 2: Delegation To The Right Person

Now that you are clear on what needs to be done, your next step is to choose the right person for the task. The best person to choose is someone who is brilliant at doing that type of work. It might be someone you’ve hired for your team, or someone you are outsourcing work to. Here are some more specific tips for making your selection:

Delegate to someone who is task-focused and explain why this task is important
Delegate unusually challenging tasks to someone who has lots of experience and would like something different than the usual routine
Delegate routine tasks to someone who is extremely organized

Rule 3: Always Have A Deadline

If you don’t set deadlines, nothing gets done. It doesn’t mean your team is lazy. Sometimes they have so much to do that they need deadlines to help them prioritize what is more important. The deadline should be challenging but realistic.

Stretch the abilities of your team to see what they can do, but don’t ask them to do the impossible either! If I am working with a new person, and I need something done within two weeks, I tell them I need it in a week.

I want to see if the new person can get the job done and find out early on if they can work under pressure to complete urgent tasks.

Rule 4: Communicate Orally And Write Your Plan Of Action

Sometimes I only give the core structure of what I want and I let my mentees figure out a plan of action. I let them make their own mistakes. By making mistakes, they learn their lesson. If I watch them too closely, they won’t be able to grow.

So communicate your plan orally to your team and let them decide on what to do. To check on their progress, ask them to write progress reports. You can have them report once a week on Monday, or daily at the end of the day. The frequency depends on the person’s skills and their needs.

Clear communication will look like this: message sent to get the task done, message received by the person doing the task, and message acted upon, or completed.

Rule 5: People Don’t Do What You Expect, They Do What You Inspect With Respect

You may be clear with your expectations, you may be choosing to delegate to the best people for the job. In the end, people don’t necessarily do what you expect them to do. That’s the tricky part about delegation. They do what you check up on with extra attention. So what you inspect, they do with respect.

It means you have to follow up to make sure the task gets done even though it’s not your job.

Rule 6: Delegate Responsibility And Authority

As an entrepreneur, you may be willing to delegate responsibility but you may find it much harder to delegate responsibility and authority. You don’t want to give up authority because you fear loss of control.

You will ask someone to do a task but require that person to run everything by you. In that case, you are micromanaging. You need to be able to give other people some authority, even if it means letting them make mistakes. It’s the only way they learn and the only way you get off the hamster wheel.

Mistakes are okay as long as they don’t kill the company. Only incompetence is not okay. You may be wondering what the difference is between the two. Let me share a quick story.

The C.O.O. at my mentor’s company made a mistake that cost ten million dollars. My mentor had a meeting with him about the mistake. The C.O.O. thought he was going to be fired but my mentor said he had just invested ten million in the guy’s education. He kept his job and made sure he never screwed up again. The C.O.O. was extremely loyal and over time made my mentor one hundred million dollars.

So if you are afraid to give other people authority because you fear they’ll make mistakes, you need to let them make the mistakes. Otherwise, they won’t learn, and you will be very busy micromanaging your team.

Rule 7: Give Praise, Feedback And Additional Responsibilities At The End Of The Project

So the project has come to an end and you delegated tasks to other team members. At this point, you want to provide feedback on how they did. You want to be a coach and mentor.

Whatever you do, don’t yell at them. Praise them for what they did right and then give feedback on what they can do better. That’s how they learn.

Also, give them additional responsibilities for the next project. By delegating more tasks, you free up your time for other aspects of your business, and your team grows in experience.

Rule 8: Don’t Be A Perfectionist

If you are too much of a perfectionist, you will be the runner of a marathon who never leaves the starting line. You will never get anything started or finished. Your projects will never end because you are going crazy with the details.

Effective delegation is about progress, not perfection. Start your project, and do what you can, but don’t get stuck on all the small details of what you need to complete.

When you go to the bank, the teller or the bank machine isn’t going to ask if you completed your work perfectly. Your cheque just goes into your account.

In the big scheme of things, if I’m facing a business problem that I find overwhelming, I look at this photo on my wall. It’s a picture of the universe. When I look at it, my stress disappears because I realize… I’m just a molecule. What’s the big deal? Nothing matters. I’m only here for 80 years. And then I’m not that important anymore. No one is that important. So don’t place so much importance on yourself to finish things.

Those are the rules of effective delegation. Now that you know them, here are three quick tips on how to find the best people to share your work projects.

Three Tips For Effective Delegation To The Best People

Tip 1: Respect them

Work together as a team and respect the people you have delegated with tasks. You can set high standards and expectations and be tough, and still have respect.

In some areas, their expertise will be better than yours which is another reason you should not be afraid to delegate. This is how your company will grow.

Tip 2: Pay them well

If you pay them well, you will have the best talent. If you can’t afford to find good people maybe your business model needs to be changed.

One Christmas I sent my contractors a bonus through PayPal. I got an email from them thanking me. The bonus moved me up on their client list. I want to represent 40% of their business so when I want stuff done, it gets done.

Don’t delay paying your team members and contractors. If you want to stand out with your clients and contractors, this is one way to do it. They should be making you returns because of how you treat them.

Tip 3: Praise them

I praise team members and contractors and anyone else if they do something well. Don’t just say, “Good job.” Be specific with your praise, such as telling them that you liked how they handled the situation and you appreciated the help.

Those are three tips for delegating to the best people. If you want to grow your business, then overcome your hesitation, and start delegating tasks to free up your time.

Summary of the 8 Golden Rules of Delegation

Delegating to the best people is key to getting yourself out of that hamster wheel and building a successful business. Richard Branson of Virgin Group says that if your team understands your vision and they work autonomously, “You’ll find that you have more time to focus on the big picture and achieve the things you need to do to make your product or service stand out.”

So here again are the 8 rules of delegation. You can also watch a recap of these rules of delegation and tips on how to hire in this video here.

Rule 1: Clarify the task in your own mind

Rule 2: Delegate to the right person

Rule 3: Always have a deadline

Rule 4: Communicate orally and write your plan of action

Rule 5: People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect with respect

Rule 6: Delegate responsibility and authority

Rule 7: Give praise, feedback and additional responsibilities at the end of the project

Rule 8: Don’t be a perfectionist

Have you started delegating? Comment below.