You want business advice that helps you become known for your expertise, experience, and ability to help clients get the results they’re after. Because, these all help you increase your credibility with clients.
But you’re already juggling dozens of business and family responsibilities. And since you’ve got zero time left as it is, this sounds like some fantasy, right?
The good news? It’s not crazy if you adopt smart, alternative tactics to build skills that enhance your credibility. Concentrate on the skills that feed directly into one of your BIG goals. Commit to choosing a key skill that vitally improves your ability to accomplish your big goal.
The best news? You can apply this to one top skill you most want to acquire, then move on to the next one with this approach to personal development.
Business Advice that Worked for Me
One of the Mentors that I’ve consistently gotten successful business advice from is Darren Hardy. One of his ideas that’s given me the best results that I continuously use, made a big impression on me the first time I heard it. First, it was the name, he calls this his 1-1-5-3-1-30-30-10-10 Personal Development plan that he uses to vitally improve himself. The main parts of this personal development roadmap should be completed within a Quarter (90 days).
The experts say 90-days is the best timeframe to work toward when setting achieving goals. I like 90-days because you can see what’s working, or not working, and course-correct without losing too much time.
Darren Hardy’s plan goes like this,
1- First, you define 3 BIG goals, and then decide which one you are going to focus on first.
1- Next, you decide on the one skill you need to further develop this area. Select the goal that’s most important to accomplishing your big goal.
To help develop your new skill, you select:
5- Books on the subject. You can go to Amazon books, find the area your subject fits into and add it in their search window, ask for the Top 100 Books in this category.
3- CD/DVDs to learn from. You can also search on Amazon for these. Or check
out YouTube for videos on your topic.
1- Locate a live seminar or conference on the subject to and attend it.
If you are not sure of which conferences are going to provide you with the best business advice, you should select, talk to or research industry leaders and get their opinion. Also, ask your entrepreneur friends who are working toward the same business growth goals as you, about the conferences they found most valuable.
You should especially look for one that will give you the best potential to increase your credibility with potential clients. As you know, some conferences are designed to help you to upgrade your specific skills, writing, creating packages and programs, or designing your website. Other live events are best for improving your so-called ‘soft’ skills, like speaking, coaching, or leading groups and retreats.
After all, while it’s always good to get away from your normal routine and work ‘on’ your business, you want to make a wise choice because it’s time away from your family.
To accommodate you getting through the books and CD/DVD’s you set aside:
30- Minutes reading each day
30- Minutes listening to CD/DVD’s
Assume that you will not have to put in extra time. You can accomplish your daily reading goals while you’re doing something else like walking, riding on an exercise bike or walking on a treadmill, commuting to and from work, etc. Despite what the researchers say, multitasking can be worthwhile in some instances! You might also set aside 30 minutes in the evening to read. Many personal trainers and life coaches recommend spending time reading before going to bed and get a better night’s sleep.
Make Two More Investments
Lastly, you define some financial investments around two key commitments:
10- You commit to give 10% of your total revenue or salary to charities.
10- You commit to invest 10% of your total revenue or salary to investing in your personal development.
This might sound like a lot, but Brian Tracy, the notable motivational public speaker and self-development author, says “For every dollar you invest in your personal development it adds at least $30 to your bottom line.” When looking at personal development, don’t question price, rather focus on value. Also, think about what one skill, if developed and executed excellently will have the greatest impact on your career and life? Which skill would help you most increase your credibility with clients, or with a brand-new segment of clients you want to go after?
So, this is Darren Hardy’s 1-1-5-3-1-30-30-10-10 Program. I’ve found this business advice to be very helpful each time I evaluate new areas for my business. Here’s my most recent use.
How I Used the Program
Lately I’ve decided to look at the Boomer Generation, I am one, to get a better feel about how financially prepared we are for retirement. Using Darren’s program:
(1) – My three big goals were to
a. Determine this: how well prepared are Boomers to be self-reliant?
b. Understand how much we are planning on Social Security, Corporate Pensions, and Medicare being available. What happens if we all live 10 to 15 years longer than expected?
c. Identify which alternative income streams would be available to use?
I decided to focus on “c”.
(2)- I went onto Amazon and searched for 5 of the top books on the subject. I ended up finding 6 and purchased them all. You might wonder did I read them all? For me, these tended to be reference books to help me get a better understanding of what’s going on with Boomers. I went through each one and collected valuable business advice for my specific growth goals. As I move through the project, I refer back to them when I have a question. One thing I did was purchase the Kindle version of a book if I found it very useful so that I could copy notes versus hand writing them.
(3) Here are the top books I decided on:
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- The 100 Year Life, Living and Working in an Age of Longevity
- The Retirement Dreammaker, Master the Art of Retirement Abundance
- The Retirement Rescue Plan, Retirement Planning Solutions for the Millions of Americans who Haven’t Saved Enough
- Purposeful Retirement, The Baby Boomers’ Guide to a New Level of Happiness, Checklist By Age for Social Security Medicare, Long Term Care Annuities
- Retirement Planning Tips for Baby Boomers
- And one extra for good measure: Encore Adulthood, Boomers on the Edge of Risk, Renewal, and Purpose
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(4) – I decided that I would need to talk directly to the community of boomers and needed to create a list and a way to get connect with them. So, I used online courses for this part. I took Jeff Walker’s “Product Launch Formula”, John Limbocker’s Internet Dominator Course, and then in order to figure out the best way to build the list, create offers and build a community I took courses on Kajabi on list building using their platform.
(5)- I decided that knowing more about the online business building platform, Kajabi, was important, I registered and attended their inaugural live event, Impact Summit in Irvine, CA. Luckily, Irvine’s a short 45-minute drive from my home in San Diego County. However, I did stay at the hotel since I wanted to network with others and find out what they were doing. They say, you get the best business advice after hours at conferences hanging out with other attendees. I couldn’t agree more.
Note: this Kajabi link is my affiliate link. I only recommend tools that I use and find valuable. The cool thing about this link are the benefits you get. First you get a 28-day free trial to use all the capabilities of Kajabi. Next, you get access to an online 28-day tutorial taught by Kajabi’s Founders. You also get access to Kajabi’s technical team that can help if you get stuck. Their goal for you is, have you use the platform and tools and create a product that you will sell online and potentially make $1,000 during the 28-day program. Should you decide to become a user at the end of the trial, I get a small amount from Kajabi, but it doesn’t cost you more.
It was a great event, with top of the line speakers who all use Kajabi. One of them was Neil Patel who I have followed for a number of years. Post the event, I contacted his organization and decided they would be a great resource to help me with SEO and List Building which is in the 20% of my core competencies.
(6) – For my 10% Charitable contribution, I support a number of Veteran Groups, as a former Marine who served in Vietnam. I’m happy to say that, since 1976 I’ve contributed monthly to Save the Children.
(7) – For my 10% Self-Development, I belong to a Private Mastermind Group and also attended two live events: a Retreat held by my Mastermind Group in Nashville, TN and Ryan Deiss’ Traffic and Conversion Conference here in San Diego.
Using Darren’s personal development plan has had a significant impact on the time it takes to evolve into new areas and grow my business. It certainly beats what I used in the past where I would just look everywhere for any information that might help me. I also collected some information on what I found, stuck it onto my hard drive and then eventually looked at what I collected and attempted to make something useful with my decision. Haphazard, it ends up, is not a formula for success.
I usually found that most of the data I would collect was not very useful. I would put up Google Alerts on certain words or phrases and would get hundreds of emails on things they found. Just not a smart way to work.
How many times have you heard someone say, “Work Smarter, Not Harder”? I’ve probably heard this more than a thousand times. Here was the problem, I rarely heard advice that allowed me to work smarter and not harder. That is, until I ran into Darren Hardy and his personal development plan.
I know that you are already busy with your current business. I know that because if you were not that busy, you would be going out of business. You probably get that queasy feeling in your stomach when thinking about looking at something new.
Your Next Credibility Building Steps
So, here is my challenge for you:
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- Use Darren’s plan for yourself
- Go through each of the steps
- Track your progress on what does and does not work
- Let me know about your experience (jfbutz@resonnect.com)
- Were you able to work smarter and not harder?
I’ll be covering more on how you can apply this business advice practice to achieve your goals, in in future posts. So you don’t miss the next ideas, click below (in the purple box) to join my email list. You’ll get a free copy of my #1 International Best Seller, Spin Your Content Into Gold.