View from the Summit

Having Trouble Keeping Things in the Air? This is For You. 

What you can learn about successful businesses from looking at airplanes

You may find it hard to believe, but when I started my first business, I didn’t know how to ask for help. I tried to figure it out on my own. That’s right, the “mastermind group guy” didn’t even know such groups existed! 

I couldn’t see that other people in my life were there to help. I would never have thought to ask my peers in the industry for pointers. After all, they were the competition! There was no way they’d ever give me advice. 

Luckily, I didn’t stay in that scarcity mindset forever.  It took a while, but I mustered the courage to seek wisdom from successful people. It was hard to admit I didn’t know how to read a profit and loss statement. I’m talking about basic business stuff. I had no clue how to do a lot of the things that create a healthy business.

Sales and marketing came naturally to me, but I still wasn’t as good as I could have been. Understanding cash flow was a complex puzzle. I just hoped there would be enough money at the end of each month! 

When I found the right people and asked the right questions, my career took off. Life wasn’t without its challenges, but I was better equipped to face them. I discovered what successful people did and how they did it. 

Instead of spending years wondering if you’re doing the right thing, you can build a much more solid footing. When you surround yourself with people who are ahead of you, their experience makes up for your lack of it. Solving your problems with multiple brains is easier than solving them on your own! 

I want you to ask for help in your own business. I bet you’re feeling pressure to have all the answers. Well, you don’t have to! In fact, many people find The Mastermind Playbook after months of searching; don’t stumble along blindly any longer. 

Why prioritizing is so important

As a lifelong student of business, I look at what companies do well and what they could do better. Through observation, I get the chance to brainstorm what I would do in the same situations. 

I get a kick out of watching tech startups. These innovative companies always have lofty goals and tons of ambition. Any startup is almost guaranteed to have an interesting story.

One that comes to mind is a company called Jawbone. They could have been the next big thing in Bluetooth and wearable technology. Instead of a Fitbit counting your steps, experts said people would wear the UP3. 

However, Jawbone became a classic story of “too much of a good thing.” In their case, the good thing was capital.

Now wait just a minute! How can a company have too much capital? Well, think about it for a minute. Companies have the tendency to make poor decisions when they’re over-funded. They have so much capital that every option seems like a good one. 

It’s like these companies are blinded by possibility. This makes it difficult to see and adhere to priorities. A lean startup has to be ruthless about every penny. The over-funded startup can throw money into research and development, product teams, and marketing. Sometimes, they do this without validating the market’s demand for the product or service. 

If Jawbone had done a better job of keeping their priorities straight, we might be using their technology. Instead, they crashed, leaving little more than a case study. Don’t let the same thing happen to your online mastermind group. Get a copy of The Mastermind Playbook. 

How to Design the Perfect Vehicle for Your Dreams

How do you focus on what’s most important? This can be a simple task. The master storyteller, Donald Miller is out to prove it with his book “Business Made Simple.” As we read through it, I want to share the six core components of a successful business that Miller writes about.

If you want to build and scale mastermind groups, you have to do more than “bring people together.” You have to look at your group as a business. To illustrate, Miller recommends looking at these parts like an airplane. 

1. Overhead

Your overhead is the body of the plane. Keep this as light as possible while ensuring the plane does its job of carrying people. The overhead is full of necessary and unnecessary expenses, so pay close attention so you don’t have too much weight.

2. Products & Services

These are the wings that give your business lift. Without products and services, you’ll never take your customers where they want to go. Make sure your wings are balanced. You want them to be light, which means you can sell them at a good profit. You also want them to be sturdy, which means there’s a strong demand for them. 

3. Marketing 

Marketing is one of your engines. In smaller businesses, it may be the only engine. It must create enough thrust for your plane to take flight. Therefore, it should be the most well-put-together engine you can design.

5. Sales

A second engine can really get things moving! When you add a sales team, your plane takes off much faster. With two engines, you can take more people along for the trip. You can also go further and reach greater destinations.

6. Capital and Cash Flow

Where can a plane go without fuel? Nowhere. If your business runs out of cash, it’ll crash. Do you have adequate reserves, to ensure your plane never runs out of fuel? Could you improve fuel efficiency by cutting overhead expenses that you can redirect to cash flow? These are the questions you need to answer to have a successful flight. 

Will you make history like the Wright brothers? Are you prepared to build the absolute best plane you can? The Mastermind Playbook will get you started down the right runway!