Why aren't you making a million dollars a year in your business? And if you don't aspire to make a million (or more) per year, then why are you still struggling to make the amount you'd like to make?
For you, this may be fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, a quarter million or half a million. It doesn't matter. But have you noticed that it seems like an uphill battle to get there, no matter what the goal is?
Now you may think that the answer I'm going to give you is that if only you were a better marketer, you'd make the amount you want with less struggle.
Not exactly.
True, one of the things you'll probably have to do on the way to reaching your goal is implement some effective marketing and selling strategies. But that's a bit like saying, "If you want to run a marathon, you'll have to do some running."
Kind of goes with the territory.
But notice that there are a lot of people who can run - and are pretty good at it - who never run a marathon. So you can actually get darn good at marketing yourself and even attract clients on a consistent basis and still struggle to make the money you'd like to make.
Let's say you'd like to make a million dollars a year (substitute any amount that you'd really like to make). And say that right now you're making half that amount. Your goal is to double your income and do it in a year.
Just imagine that and feel what it's actually like to have that goal. What's it like? Is it fun, exciting, scary, stressful, overwhelming?
Are the feelings primarily positive or primarily negative? Do all kinds of thoughts pop up such as, "I could never double my income in a year." or "That's just to much money." or "I don't know where I'd start." or "It would be way too much work and commitment."
OK, now imagine that you are at the bottom of a mountain looking up. This is the view from below. The mountain is five thousand feet high and it looks pretty steep. If your goal is to ascend this mountain, you may have thoughts and feelings similar to doubling your income.
Now imagine that there is another mountain beside the first mountain and it's twice as high. Ten thousand feet. Next you jump in your helicopter and land on the top of the big mountain and look down on the smaller mountain.
Doesn't the change of perspective alter everything? The five thousand foot mountain doesn't look so tall anymore. And your thoughts and feelings about ascending it start to change. It now looks possible, where before it looked impossible.
Let's go back to your financial goal. Imagine that you've earned twice your goal. In other words, in a year you've already earned four times what you're earning now.
From that new vantage point, look at your previous goal.
You've already earned two million and you're looking at a goal of one million. Now ask yourself, "I've already earned two million in a year, what would it take to earn just one million?"
Take a little time to think from this new "Two Million Dollar View."
You may notice that things don't look so scary, stressful, and overwhelming anymore. With a change of perspective, your attitude, mindset and thinking may change dramatically.
To earn twice what you are earning now, without a massive amount of struggle and effort, you MUST change your perspective. Reaching that goal must seem not only possible, but relatively easy. Inevitable even. (Just as you now feel it's inevitable that you'll likely earn about the same next year as you've earned this year.)
This is just one approach to changing your perspective. It's actually quite powerful. Almost immediately you see how small you've been thinking and how this thinking has shaped your strategies and actions to achieve your goal.
And you see quite plainly that changing perspective can change your sense of self, what you believe, and what you can and cannot do.
The More Clients Bottom Line: The master key to change is first changing your perspective. When you see that something is in fact possible, from a new vantage point, it becomes possible in reality.
What perspective is holding you back from achieving your goals? Can you create a new perspective? Please share on the Blog.
I just read Sam Deane's response to this million dollar article. It seems to me that there are two kinds of people as it relates to personal growth and each kind works towards the middle from opposite sides. One type is adept at metaphor, analogy and what I might call the metaphysical approach. The other is very practical, down to earth and nutsy boltsy. I think Robert and I am guessing Sam are actually the latter. I have been reading Robert for some time and have noticed his writing moving to the ethereal dimension. I am quite comfortable there and have been myself moving in the other direction, to where Robert has traditionally written from. I appreciate that the journey is hard from either direction but a special kind of integrity exists in that middle ground, a sort of "middle town" that is worth the journey (pun intended; the guy is called Middleton for a reason:). ) Keep the faith Mr. Deane.
Posted by: Keith Hanna | October 10, 2006 at 11:15 AM
Here's another perspective:
"It takes just as much hard work to build a small company as it does to build a big one."
So set your goals high. Shoot for something greater than a single owner/operator service business. They are the smallest and most unprofitable businesses you can get into.
Posted by: Peter | October 10, 2006 at 10:19 AM
There are a lot of ways of talking about change of perspective.
The tool I use most frequently is the Work of Byron Katie. Through questions, you look at if what you think is actually true. I you think "making a lot of money is hard" then it IS hard. If you look at this thought and question it, you may realize it's not true at all except that you have said it is. The opposite statement, "making a lot of money is easy" is just as true or truer. It depends on what you want to believe.
For this article, I did a "thought experiment." By imagining that I'm on a different, higher level regarding making money, I can see that it does not seem nearly so hard to make it compared to my view from the bottom looking up.
Thought experiments were performed by people like Galileo, Newton and Einstein in developing their theories about the universe. They created a change of perspective radically different than the perspective commonly held by society up to that point.
When you change your perspective, you think differently, feel differently and behave differently than before. Can anyone really argue that billionaires such as Warren Buffet, Donald Trump and Bill Gates have a different perspective about money than most of us do?
But what we all try to do is understand the techniques these people used to amass their wealth. Sure they used techniques, but these pale in comparison to the mindsets they possess that enabled them to employ these techniques in the first place.
Posted by: Robert Middleton | October 10, 2006 at 08:36 AM
Hi Robert -
Great thoughful posting this week. It's all true of course - perspective is a great tool to create confidence. Some thoughts to contradict Sam's views:
I sometimes use it when brainstorming with clients, and they come up with the "It just can't be done" line.
My comeback to this is usually something line, "OK, but IF you'd alredy done this, how would you have managed it?"
"Oh well, easy. All you'd need to have done is . . . " and we're off.
My business partner and I looked at our targets for the next year just last week. And waddya know - the targets that we've been struggling with actually look trivial when we considered how to uplift profits by 50%.
And finally . . . skiing (winter is coming!). A couple of years back, I spent a week on near-vertical iced-up black runs in the Alps. I'd hated skiing on ice, but since then it's just become part of the scenery, and (mostly!) doesn't even interrupt my technique.
Karl.
Posted by: Karl McCracken | October 10, 2006 at 05:52 AM
Contrary to Sam, I find this advice completely helpful. For me this is a column that reinforces what I've been trying to do over the last year. The new perspective, the helicopter, is simply this - the realization that working longer hours, "working harder", with the same clients, doing the same things is NOT going to get me where I want to go. I have been meeting different people, working on a larger scale, taking bigger risks than before. It is starting to pay off. If I can speak for Robert for a second, I would dare say his "helicopter" realization came when he decided not to work with individuals, but with groups, and now, not in person, but rather by phone and over the net. It is that type of change in perspective that gets you where you want to go.
Cheers
Andy
PS If you don't want to earn more - and money isn't everything, seriously - then none of this matters.
Posted by: Andy Strote | October 10, 2006 at 04:07 AM
I've been self-employed for 21 years.
Over that time I've made more and made less.
Looking back, I would say that the single biggest determinent of income was simply the goal I set. That is, if I set a goal of $ 50K I made it. If I set more, I made that.
LL
Posted by: Lyle T. Lachmuth - The Unsticking Coach(TM) | October 10, 2006 at 03:18 AM
Robert,
I have just read your article about creating a different perspective and I have to let you know that I thought it was rubbish.
You start out offering a vision to your readers that you are going to give them a way to make a million pound turnover per annum and in the middle you create this mythical event that somehow you get mystically 'flown in a helicopter' to a vantage point where you are creating a 2 million pound turnover.
There is no helicopter. Your analogy is rubbish and completely unhelpful.
No doubt you have many useful things to say but that was not one of them. You have left me frustrated and unfulfilled.
With best wishes nevertheless.
from Sam Deane.
Posted by: Sam Deane | October 10, 2006 at 02:44 AM