Why is Toyota dominating the car manufacturing business in America? Do they have secrets that the rest of the world doesn’t know? Do they innovate and implement the best technology or are they just really lucky that people love the Toyota Prius?

There is a secret and it can be used to improve all businesses. From running a small retail business to running a blog, the Toyota way of approaching manufacturing can help you grow your business and increase your profits.

The Toyota Secret is “Kaizen,” or for the direct translation, “continuous improvement.” Employees are encouraged to come up with and share ways to improve their job function - even if it only saves 1/2 a second or 1 penny. The “Kaizen” system focuses a company on small improvements that will add up to big results when you give it a lot of time and leverage it over a lot of people.

But how can you use it to improve your business?

In the remaining part of this article, you’ll learn about the five key steps needed to implement the “Kaizen” or the Japanese way of doing business. So, let’s get started:

Standardize Your Process

When you want to implement “Kaizen,” you need to standardize your process. You probably remember the importance of standardization from your 3rd grade Science class when you learned about the Scientific method. You need to set a control so you know whether your small change is improving or hurting your business.

Here are some ways to Standardize your process:

• The Time Standard: You can conduct business at the same time for the same amount of time. For example, if you are a blogger, you may want to spend X hours per week on writing blog posts. No matter what, when you hit your time standard you stop.

• The Place Standard: You can conduct business at the same place. For bloggers, this means if you want to write your blog posts at a coffee shop, you can, but make sure you keep track of what blog posts you wrote at a coffee shop.

• The Action Standard: You can conduct business the same way as usual. If you’re a telemarketer, this means you make phone calls, or if you’re a blogger, this means you write blog posts.

Please note, the more specific you are with your standard the better. It will help you make sure you can find an accurate correlation.

Measure Your Process

The next step in the “Kaizen” method is to measure your process. If you don’t measure what you’re doing, there will be no way for you to know if you’re making improvements. For example, how would you know if you are losing weight if you don’t weigh yourself?

Here are some examples:

• Money: How much money does this process make you? How much money does the process cost you?

• Time: How much time does it take you to complete?

• Widgets: How many widgets do you create? How many phonecalls do you make? How many blog posts do you write?

Compare Your Actual Results vs Desired Results

The third step in the “Kaizen” method is to compare where you are with where you want to be. However, to do this you need a clear understanding of where you want to be. Some people may want to increase their earnings, whereas some people may want to become more efficient.

Additionally, this is a great time to discover where you want to be. Once you know your actual measured results, you should make your desired results just a little bit higher than your actual results. For example, if you’re making 10 sales call per day, why not aim for 13 sales call? Or, if you’re averaging 3 blog posts per week, why don’t you aim for 5?

Discover How to Achieve Your Desired Results

And here is the big one. How do you plan on achieving your goals? You can’t simply make a goal and hope for it to happen. You need to create a plan and follow through with it. If your plan doesn’t work, you need to create a new plan and follow through with it.

During this stage of the “Kaizen” plan you should focus on activity or more simply, focus on what you can control. Here is where you make that one extra sales call or write one extra blog post. Here is where you comment on one more blog or meet one new person.

More specifically, if you are a blogger, don’t spend your time focusing on “search engine optimization” and ranking in Google. Sure, you may be able to influence it slightly, but you could simply just write four more blog posts or e-mail four new bloggers.

Make Your Your New Results Your Standard

Congratulations. At this point in the “Kaizen” method, you achieved your desired results. However, Toyota didn’t completely dominate the car industry by sitting still and enjoying their past success. They did it all over again.

Once you make gains, you need to make sure you make your gains the new standard. Then, focus on how you plan to achieve your next set of desired results. Please note, once you get to a certain point and completely maximize what you and your team are doing, there is only one more way to accomplish more and that is to work with more people.

The Success Factors Spotlight

Do you want to learn how Toyota implemented the “Kaizen” method specifically? Why don’t you check out “The Toyota Way” over at Wikipedia. It is comprehensive and should help you find ways to implement this into your work stream or startup.

The Bottom Line

Much of this may seem like common sense, but that isn’t the point. The “Kaizen” way is about implementing this process into your work stream so you can improve it. So, while this may seem like common sense, are you currently using it? Are you able to describe in words what your “Kaizen” system is? If so, I invite you to share it in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Success Factors
2. How to Improve Your Consulting Business by 327%
3. Why Einstein Became Immortal (and how your company can join him), Success Factors Day 3

How can you ensure that people remember your company? How can you prevent your products and innovations from spiraling into a black hole? What can you do to be the 1 out of 10 businesses that become successful?

These are all tough questions with no easily discernible answer. However, we can learn a lot from Einstein and how he joined the immortal ranks of Aristotle, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.

Einstein was a genius. Some claim he was one of the smartest people who have ever lived. But his intelligence did not make him an international celebrity. For example, can you tell me a different physicist who won the Nobel prize?

Einstein was also innovative. He created the micro and macro description of the world (quantum physics and relativity respectively). But his innovation in science did not make people know his name. For example, can you tell me who created Penicillin or the Polio vaccination?

So then, what makes Einstein different? Why does everyone know about Einstein and E=mc2? Is it possible for your company to stand out like Einstein?

Smash Your Company

Let me take you back to the early 1900s. A Coca-Cola executive approached a designer and asked him to create a glass bottle that would be easily identified as a Coca-Cola bottle — even if you smashed the bottle into 100 pieces. This idea went down in history as the “Smash Your Brand” test.

Now, lets apply this to Einstein. Can you smash Einstein into 100 pieces and identify him as Einstein? What if I were to show you a picture of wild crazy gray hair that is standing on edge? I’m willing to bet you would be reminded of Einstein.

From a physics perspective, Einstein’s work is obviously Einstein’s work. Scientists can identify Einstein’s ideas just by looking at the scope of the ideas. This is similar to how many people can identify Van Gogh’s art just by looking at it.

Whatever business you are in you need to make sure you can smash it. You need to make sure people will recognize what you do by focusing on seemingly insignificant details like your hair style. Or, in Chris Pearson’s case, a nifty options panel for a wordpress theme.

Differentiate Your Company

What happens when you want to break into an elitist genre of old dogs and proclaimed experts? You will battle resistance, but it isn’t impossible to overcome it.

When Einstein started out in his career, he consistently encountered resistance. As Walter Isaacson pointed out in “Einstein,” Einstein was unable to get a job in academia or admitted into a doctoral program. However, it didn’t stop him. He worked on his theories while he worked at a patent office and his dedication and uniqueness paid off.

Now if his theories were similar to what was being discussed in academia, he would have probably stayed in that patent office for the rest of his life. After all, who would notice a no-name unqualified scientist in some silly patent office?

So, if you are thinking about starting a blog about blogging, think again. It’s been done and Darren Rowse already owns it. However, if you plan to add a unique spin or twist to the genre, do it to your heart’s content. Michael Martine of Remarkablogger is doing this perfectly. He’s not as big as Darren, but he offers much easier and practical advice than other blogs.

Or, if you’re looking to break into a a snobbish niche with snobbish followers, you should take a look at what Gary Vaynerchuk did to the wine industry. He focused on describing wine to regular people. He would say things like, “this wine has some of that raspberry slim jim action going on” instead of “esters,” “vintage,” and other words I can’t define. Oh, and he last I heard, Gary did over $50 million in sales.

The Success Factors Prescription

You have been introduced to the Success Factors Spotlight in “Why You Should Put All Your Eggs in One Basket.” Now you can see the “Success Factors Prescription,” which is where you can learn how to implement what we talked about into your company.

So, how do you differentiate your company? How can you help your company stand out?

• Make People Feel Great: Many companies claim that their customers are their biggest asset. However, when we call Bank of America’s help line, it takes us more than 30 minutes to talk to a representative. So, make sure you say what you mean and focus on making people feel great. Maybe you should give them a restaurant mint?

• Same Niche, Different Angle: You don’t need to come up with a unique idea. You need to find an idea and improve it slightly. For example, Facebook crushed Myspace by targeting college students. They made a slight change and emphasized it. So, if you enter a crowded niche, make sure you make your differences your main marketing tactics.

• Keep Moving Forward: Einstein’s famous quote “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” applies to business. If you want to maintain or develop your competitive advantage, you need to continuosly improve upon what you have. If you don’t, you’re likely to fall over and crash into the concrete.

• Do Something Quirky: In college I remember a kid we called shades. Nobody knew him, but he always wore sunglasses and a vest 365 days a year. I still remember him to this day because of his quirkiness and I realized you can do this in business. For example, one of Sam Walton’s store managers created the largest display of laundry detergent. It garnered a ton of attention and sales.

• Be Trustworthy: We live in a world where different is no longer different. We have thousands of products and companies to choose from. So, if you want to stand out, make sure you are the most trustworthy person on earth. Don’t do anything you would be ashamed of and people will respect you for it.

What Did I Miss?

Do you have anything to add to this list? Do you have any other great ways to differentiate yourself in the marketplace? Why don’t you write a follow-up blog post or leave a comment?

Related posts:

1. Success Factors
2. How to Learn From Your Competition, Success Factors Day 2
3. Why You Should Put All Your Eggs In One Basket, Success Factors Day 1

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or aspiring athlete, you will benefit from studying your competition.

Don’t believe me? Let me show you two examples.

For the first, lets take a look at one of the worlds best basketball players.

Kobe Bryant studies videos of his opponents on a portable 10″ DVD player. He combs through each video to find advantages which could help him guard his opposition in basketball games. Oh, and did I mention that he does this before every game?

The second example is about the world’s most impressive retail tycoon.

Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, would regularly visit his competitor’s stores. He started doing this as a aspiring business man and continued to do it when his stores were in first place. He believed in learning from everything and he thought his competitors could teach him the most.

But now you must be wondering, “How Can I Learn From My Competition?” In the remaining part of this article I will go over the best ways to study your competition for maximum growth potential. So, lets get started.

Who Are Your Competitors?

You need to find your competition to learn from them. It could be a teammate, a rival business, or it could be yourself, but the bottom line is that there is someone or something out there that you need to compete with. But how do you find them? Who is considered competition and why?

People and businesses compete for limited resources. We compete for sales, customer’s time, or that one promotion, or that one corner office. In short, your competition is anyone who prevents you from getting more of what you want.

You can easily define your competition by looking at your goals. If you want that promotion, your competition is anyone who may receive that promotion over you. If you create video games, your competition is all video game companies or more broadly, any company that demands a person’s “extra” time.

But what if you can’t find your competitors?

You need to define your business and goals on a broad landscape. It will help you spot potential attackers and growth opportunities. For example, if you specialize in 7″ screws, you would not want to compete in the 7″ screw market. You would want to compete in the “we help you build or hang things on the wall” market. If you specialize in iPhone games, you need to compete with “we help you waste time on your phone at work” market.

Okay, but how many competitors should you track?

The magic number is all of them. Unfortunately, who has the time for that? So, if you are a small business or corporate executive, I would focus on 3 competitors. If you don’t have 3, redefine your business and goals so you have 3. If you have more than 3, redefine your business and goals so you have 3.

You may think 3 is too much or 3 is too little, but it is a very manageable number for a single person. On average, you should spend at least 3 hours per competitor per month and 9 hours isn’t too demanding for one person. If you have the resources and time, you should expand your competitor tracking, but if you don’t, 3 is a great start.

What Are Your Competitors Doing?

Here is where we take some insight from people like Sam Walton and Kobe Bryant. You need to find out what your competitors are doing and why. If you can’t find out why, make sure you know what they are doing so you can use it to improve your business.

When the Holidays started coming around I noticed my local Barnes and Nobles did a few changes. I’m not competing with them, but what they did was interesting. They created a huge table of board games and placed it near the customer service desk. Additionally, they moved their “clearance” items from the back-end of the store to near the customer service desk. I found myself asking, “Why did they do it?”

Well, when the holidays come around many people spend impulsively. A parent comes into a book store to buy their daughter the new Harry Potter book and asks customer service where to find it. While waiting for help, she spots 50% off signs and “great games for children.” Now she leaves with the hottest new game Blokus, some cheap 50% index learning cards, and the latest Harry Potter book.

So, make sure you make note of what your competitors are doing. There is a reason for it and it may help you improve your business.

But how do you do it? How do you find out what your competitors are up to?

Are you ready for the answer? it is going to be very complicated. Get dressed, leave your house, and go look at what they are doing. Look at the products they are selling, Look at their light fixtures, look at their signage, look at their event promotions. Just use your eyes and you will find out what they are up to.

What Are People Saying About Your Competitors?

Why does it matter what people are saying about your competitors? Are there opportunities hiding in conversation?

If you’re reading a blog, I doubt I have to tell you this, but yes there is. There are tons of opportunities.

When you look at what people are saying about your competition, you can find one of two things: 1) a thread of discontent or 2) a success story. Lets talk about both of them.

• A Success Story: When you look at what your competitors are doing, you need to use your judgment to decide whether or not it is positive or negative. When you have a testimonial, you have proof. If you see on Yelp that the local diner received a ton of praise for their simple 15 item menu, you may think about cutting 50 items off of your 100 item menu.

• A Thread of Discontent: If you see people complaining about the pizza place’s customer service, you can position yourself as “the pizza place with the best customer service.” If you see people complaining about a lack of information on a competitors blog, you can provide a ton of information on your blog.

But how can you discover what people are saying about your competitors?

• Ask them: Many people love to give their opinion. So, you might as well use it to your advantage.
• Twitter: By now I’m sure you’re familiar with how much Twitter has grown. You should use Twitter Search to scope out your competitors and market regularly.
• Yelp: If you are a small business, you know about Yelp. You probably dealt with some bad reviews before or good reviews, but you should look at your competition’s bad reviews as well.
• Google Blog Search: Blogging is the source of conversation. You can search brand names, peoples names, or anything you want and you will find someone talking about it. Don’t let this free information go to waste. So, use Google Blog Search.

What Are The Experts Saying About Your Competitors?

If you regularly read Prevential.com, you know how cynical I am about proclaimed “experts.” However, they do have a ton of insight into your competition and your market. So, you should read what the experts are saying.

To start, you want to follow your industry news. You want to see what the independent trade journals and dedicated media outlets are saying. If they’re talking about some new great Point of Sale system or Content Management System, you should probably check it out. If they are talking about a new innovative product, you may want to consider adding something similar.

Why You Should Talk to Your Competitors

Many businessmen and executives hate their competition. They view them as villains who are trying to rob their bank accounts. However, this kind of hostility is not beneficial and will hurt your business.

When you view your competitor as a villain, you assume you are the savior. You think everything you do is right and everything they do is wrong. This kind of mindset will prevent you from doing the right things at the right time. You may not be able to keep an open mind when you see them doing something different because you will assume it is wrong.

Instead, you should talk with your competition regularly. They can be a huge help.

You don’t have to give away your secrets, but you should share certain best practices. This type of stuff will promote good will and respectable competition. You wouldn’t want a hostile competitor throwing a rock through your window or hacking your website right?

Additionally, if small businesses or executives communicate, they may fair much better against larger competitors with thousands of employees. I remember when I started an entertainment blog, the way I grew it was by talking with other entertainment blogs of similar size. We worked together and we eventually caught up to the huge entertainment blogs.

The Bottom Line

So you know what people are saying, you know what your competitors are doing, and you talk to your competitors regularly, but what do you do to differentiate? How can you make sure you and your company beats your competition?

Want to know How To Differentiate From  Your Competition?

Related posts:

1. Four Ways to Take Advantage of Your Competition’s Success
2. Success Factors
3. Why You Should Put All Your Eggs In One Basket, Success Factors Day 1

Remember the old saying, “Never put all your eggs in one basket?” People believed that options were the key to success. Unfortunately, they had it all wrong.

They meant well, but they taught us to divide our free time across several “baskets.” The lack of focus prevented us from developing one basket substantially, which created an army of mediocre people doing mediocre things.

When the great Chinese General, Xiang Yu, burned his own ships the night before a battle with the Qin dynasty, he eliminated the “we could always retreat” basket. In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely notes that Xiang’s troops were scared, but since they were left with no choice, they had to fight. They ended up winning nine consecutive battles against overwhelming odds.

Xiang put his eggs in one basket and his troops accomplished the impossible. Luckily, you can apply this to your life and business without the fire and the blood shed. You need to rewire your brain and realize that options and diversity is not the answer. You need to “put all of your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket” (Andrew Carnegie).

But why do you need to focus on one basket?

10,000 Hours

Have you heard of the 10,000 hour rule (Malcolm Gladwell made it famous in Outliers)? K. Anders Ericsson and his associates found that elite music performers all had one thing in common and that was 10,000 hours of practice. It didn’t matter how “talented” they were, it just mattered how much time they spent practicing.

10,000 hours is a huge amount of time and it will be impossible to accomplish without focus. You simply can’t give 10,000 hours to every opportunity because there is only 24 hours a day.

This rule also applies to business and success.

It takes a long time to perfect a product and a business plan. Without initial focus, your company may struggle with several mediocre products that will never make a difference.

When McDonalds first started, they used to sell several different products. Once they realized that Hamburgers were the key to their success, they eliminated everything else. They focused on their core product and now you can see what happened with McDonalds.

Or, how about the story of Apple? When Steve Jobs resumed as CEO, Apple was floundering. They had tons of products and zero focus. Steve Jobs began canceling entire departments and brought Apple back its profitability and now you all have iTunes and iPhones and iPods.

So ask yourself, are you focusing on your core product or main opportunity? Are you giving one project all of your time and dedication? If not, it is time to reconsider and you may experience breakaway growth.

Deliberate Practice

Now that you know you need 10,000 hours of practice and complete focus, this doesn’t mean you can just start logging hours and expect success. It is possible to log 5,000 hours and have them equal 1 hour of practice.

In “Talent is Overrated,” Geoff Colvin talks about Deliberate Practice. The practice that makes you so tired and exhausted that you can only do it a few hours a day. This is what you need 10,000 hours of. You can’t simply do the same thing day in and day out and expect to get better. You need to push yourself beyond your limits and count those hours.

A friend of mine who is an executive officer at a Fortune 100 company was talking to me about recruiting and how to hire the perfect employee. He said something like, “you need to hire someone with 10 years of experience, not 10 years of the same one year of experience.” Or, in short, you need to hire someone who develops their career because the development shows successful deliberate practice.

From a business perspective, you can’t focus on one product and never make improvements. You need to constantly lower the price, improve usability, or add effectiveness. If you don’t, you may join the ranks of the other floundering companies in this competitive world.

So, if you recently began to focus on one thing and one thing only, what are you doing to ensure that you are pushing yourself to your limits? Are you improving the quality and efficiency of your company and products? Are you expanding your market reach?

Success Factors Spotlight

Throughout the “Success Factors” blog series you will see “Success Factors Spotlight.” This is where you will see real life examples of companies, people, or blogs that will benefit or have benefited from the ideas we talked about in the article.

We talked about Apple and about McDonalds, but what about the small business owners today? Are they carving out their niche by focusing on a single product and developing it relentlessly?

Yes they are.

Have you heard of Chris Pearson? He’s the guy behind the new Wordpress Theme called Thesis. It was released early 2008 and it has been revised and updated no less than 7 times. Most designers create a theme, release it, and forget about it, but not Chris. He continues to support Thesis and now you can see many well known blogs using it.

But do you think his success was an accident? Do you think Thesis became one of the most popular Wordpress themes because Chris got lucky?

Chris built Thesis with a ton of experience under his belt. He created four wildly popular Wordpress themes prior to it (Cutline, Pressrow, Neoclassical, and Copyblogger), so he knew where to start. However, the most important thing contributing to his success was his intent focus on developing the best Wordpress theme on the internet.

In short, Thesis became popular because of Chris Pearson’s single basket. He picked the Wordpress theme basket and put all of his eggs in it. So, if you’re looking to experience breakaway growth, you need to take a page from Chris Pearson’s book and focus on one basket. Then, continue to watch that basket to ensure you continue to do it right over the course of the product’s life.

What Do You Think?

Leave a comment and lets start a discussion.

Related posts:

1. Why Einstein Became Immortal (and how your company can join him), Success Factors Day 3
2. Success Factors
3. How to Improve Your Business With the Kaizen System, Success Factors Day 4

How do people become extraordinarily successful? Is it luck? Talent? Intelligence? Just what does it take to go from good to great?

Whether you are a entrepreneur or a CEO, you’ve got ideas on how to be successful. However, can you list the concrete factors that separate the titans and the peons?

In the “Success Factors” blog series, you will learn how people and companies achieve success. All you need to do is keep and open mind and tune in to Prevential.com daily. I will post a new article each day in January 2009.

What You Will Discover in Success Factors

• Success Stories: Who are some regular people who became extraordinarily successful? You will see how someone was fired from their corporate job and became a rich internet celebrity.

• Success Characteristics: What characteristics do successful people have? You will learn how people and companies like Kobe Bryant and Silicon Valley Startups stay on top of their game.

• Success Opportunities: How do you turn a complete failure into something successful? You will see how a failed to cure heart disease, but became successful anyway.

• Success Mindset: Do successful people think differently than unsuccessful people? You will see how people like Warren Buffett think about success and business.

• Success Book Reviews: What books should you read to become successful? You will receive summaries of books like “Outliers: The Story of Success” and “Talent is Overrated.”

One Success Factors Article Per Day in Jan 2009

• Day 1: Why You Should Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
• Day 2: How to Learn From Your Competition
• Day 3: Why Einstein Became Immortal
• Day 4: How to Improve Your Business With the Kaizen System
  

How Can You Follow Success Factors?

• Subscribe to RSS
• Bookmark this Article (I will update this article with a link to each success factor)
• Follow Me on Twitter (In addition to each success factor, you will receive my random Twitter conversations)

Related posts:

1. Why You Should Put All Your Eggs In One Basket, Success Factors Day 1
2. How to Improve Your Business With the Kaizen System, Success Factors Day 4
3. How to Learn From Your Competition, Success Factors Day 2

Do you know why laughter is powerful? It makes people feel great. After all, who wouldn’t want to walk around with a huge smile on their face?

Earlier this week, I wrote an article detailing how professional comedians make people laugh. In it, I go over three sure-fire joke templates of the pros (Chris Rock, Rodney Dangerfield, etc…). Gyutae Park from Winning the Web was kind enough to publish it on his blog and it has started a decent discussion. However, I wanted to elaborate on the importance of humor in business and blogging.

Humor Makes People Listen

The main challenge in business and blogging is getting people to pay attention to you. They need to take time out of their day and give it to you for a few seconds. To make matters worse, you are competing with everything else that demands people’s attention (advertisements, living, work, etc.).

But do you really know what you’re up against? Not only are you in competition with other people and business, but you are also fighting the human body. People are bombarded with so much noise that they learn how to tune everything out. So, if you want to get noticed, you need to make sure you’re not tuned out.

Humor solves this problem. Bad jokes, good jokes, any jokes. As long as you stray from the norm, people will listen to you because you’re doing something different.

When I was reading Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they talked about a flight attendant who remixed the traditional safety procedure. Instead of going through the very informative safety session, she made it into a stand-up comedy session. She made jokes about disco balls, bright lights, exits, and safety belts. You can bet each passenger listened to her and understood what she was saying.

Just remember people need to listen to you before they buy anything from you. So, you need to make people listen.

Humor is Personal

How many times have you been told that the key to creating a successful business is by being personally involved with your customers? A million times I’m sure.

Humor is a great way to get personal with your customers. Even if your jokes are bad or offensive, it will promote some kind of response. It will create a conversation. It will make people remember you. It will show people that you’re willing to put yourself out there and see what happens. Just take a look at how Gary Vaynerchuk sells. He just puts himself out there and he built a loyal following.

A few months ago a co-worker mentioned to me, “How come people seemingly tell you everything?” I didn’t really know the answer to this question until a few weeks ago. People trust me because I am always putting myself out there with bad jokes, good jokes, boring jokes, and offensive jokes. They feel like they can tell me anything because I tell them anything. I put myself out there and talk about what I think and as a result, they talk about what they think.

By now you can imagine how great this is for business. When people trust you, they are more willing to become die-hard customers. They will be more willing to become part of that 20% that gets you that 80%.

The Humor Bottom Line

I’m not telling you to go overboard with humor. Too much of it can be detrimental to your reputation, but a controlled amount can be the difference between success and failure.

The master playwright Herbert Gardner once said, “once you get people laughing, you can tell them anything” and he could not be more right. This specifically applies to you and me because once you get people laughing, you can also sell them anything.

So what do you think? Do you think humor is a great way to add some “spice” to your business? Do you think it will help you become more successful?

Related posts:

1. How to Improve Your Consulting Business by 327%
2. What You Can Do To Survive A Micromanager

Almost the entire world relies on experts. We listen to experts talking about our economy, our health, our businesses, and everything else. They say what can or can’t be done and why. They give their “expert” opinion and many people change their life because of it. We blindly follow these opinionated experts and I’m here to say it makes no sense.

We cherish the “wisdom” and “insight” of the experts, yet they are usually wrong. Do you remember when the mainstream media experts considered blogging a joke? They considered it unprofessional, biased, and just plain amateur. Now, they’re tripping over themselves to participate in what the novices started.

Novices are changing the world and the old-school experts don’t know what to do about it. So, are you ready to join us on the fringes?

Novices and New Success

Novices are becoming more successful and have more influence. They are going to further change traditional business and there is nothing people can do about it. The internet and blogging gives everyone a voice and if you’re not participating, good! They don’t want to use your success for their gain anyway.

Now, change every “they” above to “we” because we are going to fuel this change and become the new success.

We change the way people think because we have innovative / non-conventional ideas. While we don’t have years of experience, we don’t have what Chip and Dan Heath call the “curse of knowledge.” We are not stuck in our ways and we are dying to find new ways of doing business.

But what can we do to become successful novices? How can we join the revolution?

Challenge the Experts

If you are looking to become successful, you need to do exactly what the experts say can’t be done. Just find out what they think is impossible and do it.

Seth Godin, Chris Sharma, and Rock Climbing

When I was reading Seth Godin’s Tribes, he talked about rock climbing. The right way to climb rocks was by keeping two limbs on the wall at anytime. It was safe, accepted, and supposedly the right way to do it.

At least that’s what all the experts said.

Then, a man named Chris Sharma changed the way people climbed rocks. Instead of holding onto the wall, he jumps. Impossible rock formations became possible. Just imagine if he listened to the experts.

Comic Books and Business Plans

One of my friends had to write a business plan for a college class. He chose to write one for a comic shop and presented it to a panel of experts. They said it would never work.

Take a guess what happened.

He used the business plan, started the comic book shop, and has ran it for the past 15 years. Just imagine if he listened to the experts.

Blogging and My Success

When I started blogging, I came across opposition from many family members. They didn’t understand the internet or blogging and pushed for me to “get a real job.” They thought I was avoiding reality, but let me tell you that they sure are kicking themselves right now.

Almost everything I have right now I attribute to blogging. I bought a nice co-op with blogging money, I pay my bills with blogging money, and pretty much everything I own is a result of blogging money. Just imagine if I listened to the experts. I would have nothing.

The point is that once you get used to challenging the experts, there is nothing that can stop you. It does not matter what you do because you will be looking at the impossible and trying to solve it. You may fail along the way, but at least you’re trying and if you keep trying, you will join the newly successful.

Accept Novice Fear

Doing something new can be frightening, but it is essential to join the newly successful.

Worst Case Scenario

Just think about the worst case scenario. What would happen if you challenge what people believe to be true? What would happen if you take a stance and hold your ground? Do you really risk anything other than being guilty of expressing what you believe?

Absolutely not.

You can only wear another man’s costume for so long before you want to break free and express yourself. So, why torture yourself?

Best Case Scenario

Now, just think about the best case scenario. How would you feel if you change the world? How would you deal with the success associated with proving the impossible possible?

In a world where we have billions of people there are others who feel the same way you do. Luckily, we have the internet and you can find these people. If you are putting yourself out there and working to change the accepted norms, you will build a following. This applies to business owners, large corporations, and people since it does not matter if you’re writing a blog, selling cars, or drudging away in an office because if you are doing what you feel, you will be happy and other people will find you.

So, what I am trying to say is, you have nothing to be scared of. There are people out there just like you, or, who think the same way you do and will absolutely love what you have to say, sell, or do.

Do Something (anything)

If you aren’t doing anything, you might as well be doing nothing. If you’re not looking for a way to change or differentiate, you are sitting on a growth plateau and you will remain there forever. If you want to join the new success you need to be doing something new and making it your life.

Don’t get me wrong. You can keep a corporate job and still do something new. There are 24 hours in a day and you really don’t have to watch the news or American Idol. You need to use your time wisely and accomplish something. You need to stop being busy and start being productive.

But what can you start doing?

• You can start a blog
• You can start recording videos to Youtube
• You can start reading books
• You can start writing books
• You can start reading blogs
• You can start commenting on blogs
• You can start selling your junk on eBay
• You can start tutoring people
• You can start teaching people
• You can start learning to do your job better
• You can start reading Prevential.com regularly
• You can e-mail your favorite writers

The bottom line is you can do anything. Just start doing it, commit yourself to it, and adapt along the way because your big ideas are meaningless without action.

Start Today

You are extremely lucky to be reading this article because that means you are part of the minority. You are here looking up how to join the newly successful, which means you’re 100 steps ahead of the rest of the population. As a matter of fact, I am so happy that you are here reading this that you should e-mail me right now because I will help you get started today.

Just remember, you can’t start Step 2 until you complete Step 1. So, get to it.

Related posts:

1. Why Einstein Became Immortal (and how your company can join him), Success Factors Day 3
2. What Does It Take To Become A Successful Blogger?
3. When Companies Stop Growing, What Do They Do?

Have you read Chris Brogan’s “You’re Racing - I’m Improving” blog post yet? He admits that he keeps score against a few other blogs, but he emphasizes that his main goal is to improve himself and his business. Unfortunately, if you’re not keeping score, you will miss crucial growth opportunities.

However, you can’t obsess over your competition and their success. You need to keep score for a reason. You need to find out why your competition is becoming successful and look for ways to duplicate that success in your business.

For example, while I absolutely hate the AWEBER pop-up subscription boxes, many people helped their bottom line substantially with this tactic. If they weren’t keeping score, they would have missed this chance.

Additionally, the now deceased billionaire Sam Walton visited variety stores competing with Wal-Mart regularly. He would walk around his competition and find best-practices that he could immediately implement to help his bottom line and I’m sure you know how successful he turned out.

But how can you use the competition to improve your business?

1. Look for Explanations

Did you stumble across one of your competitors that experienced a surge in growth, whereas you didn’t? Well, the absolute worst thing you can become is envious. Instead, you need to learn from their success. You need to find out what caused their growth and try to implement that best-practice in your business.

Oh, and guess what, if you’re a blogger and your competition is a blogger, you don’t need to look for an explanation. You could probably ask and they would tell you.

2. Ride Their Wave

One of the best things about a competitor who experiences a surge in growth is that you can use it to your advantage. You can actually take out your surfboard and ride their wave to the top.

I remember when some major news broke and a blogger I knew ranked #1 in Google for it. They were receiving around 3,000,000 hits per day for a week. Do you know what the best part was? They were still selling Blogads for $45 dollars a week. So, I bought a few and received millions of impressions for practically nothing.

3. Be The Antagonist

Did one of your competitors see a surge in growth because they nailed their colors to the flag pole? Well, you should nail a different color to the flagpole and claim yours is better. Even if you don’t build a huge following, you will find some supporters to support you simply because you’re the antagonist.

4. Build Off Their Success

If one of your competitors launched a successful new product, you should launch a peripheral product that builds off their success. While your sales may be limited to their niche, it is a great way to get exposure

Want a perfect example of this? Think about iPhone peripherals. There are tons of people making a ton of money off of iPhone apps, iPhone cases, iPhone headphones, and the like. These companies use a successful product to launch their products and it works.

The Bottom Line

Time spent in admiration is time wasted. So, if you’re going to look at your competitors success, make sure you’re doing it for a specific reason that will help your business. Make sure you’re looking for specific action plans that you can immediately implement today so you don’t miss any opportunities.

Related posts:

1. How to Learn From Your Competition, Success Factors Day 2
2. When Companies Stop Growing, What Do They Do?
3. 5 Easy Ways To Start Developing Your Online Reputation

Have you reached a growth plateau? A place where everything you do no longer yields results? A place where your hard work goes unrewarded and unrecognized?

You are not alone.

From fitness enthusiasts trying to break their bench-press record to bloggers looking to grow their website traffic, a plateau means they achieved some level of success, but can’t seem to take it to the next level.

How terrible. Right?

People and businesses like us need to grow! We need to improve.

A growth plateau may make you feel like you reached your limit, but you know inaction is the main cause of failure, and you refuse to sit down and accept stagnant growth. To make matters worse, you may find yourself on several plateaus, which can be demoralizing and demotivating. After all, if you’re not improving, nothing else matters.

Luckily, I learned that a plateau is a temporary challenge. It is one more opportunity for you to show that you will remain incredible and overcome any obstacle. It is one more way for you to find additional ways to grow your company.

In short, how you handle the growth plateau is the only way to ensure long-term success.

Plateaus and Long-term Success

If you try to grow your business year-over-year, you will encounter several plateaus. They are the indicator that times are changing and its time for your business to follow. You could ignore them, but you need to overcome them for long-term success.

Unfortunately, this is not intuitive.

Just think how many businesses encounter a plateau and remain there for years. They ignore their plateaus because they convince themselves “what worked in the past will work in the future.” In reality, these companies are sitting in an open field while their competitors take effortless shots at their company.

So, ask yourself, has your business reached a plateau? If so, are you ready to confront it with full-force so you can improve your business?

The Plateau Energizes Growth

Some companies know that conquering a plateau will lead to long-term success and market dominance. They make growth their number one initiative and do everything in their power to sustain it. And you know what? There are some companies who execute this perfectly.

Two entrepreneurs, Stewart and Lynda Rae Resnick, bought farmland in 1987 that came with a 100-acre Pomegranate grove. Despite experts suggesting they chop down the Pomegranate trees and replace them with pistachios, they decided to “just see what happens.” They saw the plateau of opportunity.

POM Wonderful is what happened. They confronted the stagnant Pomegranate market with marketing prowess and innovation. They funded research that showed the health benefits of pomegranate juice, created original double bubble Pomegranate juice bottles, and found celebrity enthusiasts. Their plateau started to look much more like exponential growth.

In short, Stewart and Lynda Rae Resnick broke through the Pomegranate plateau by selling Pomegranate juice. It was a huge success (Newsweek reported that their sales rose from $12 million in 2003 to $91 million in 2006). They now enjoy significant market dominance and a bright international future.

We know that POM Wonderful is a great success story, but what are you doing to revolutionize your business? What are you doing to differentiate?

The Plateau Assassinates Business

Do you believe the old way is the only way? Do you ignore the tell-tale signs of the fast-approaching cliff because you are blinded by arrogance and your past success? Well, I’m here to tell you that as you approach this cliff, your protective ego and pride will fade and Chapter 11 may hit you upside the head.

Luckily, “you” doesn’t really mean “you.” It really means “them.” You’re here reading Prevential, so you obviously know better.

By now I’m sure you know how Microsoft faces upcoming rigorous competition from Apple. You also know how they hit a growth plateau and failed to overcome it. Instead of attacking it head-on, they have been trying to copy-cat their way out of it. And guess what, its not working. Apple’s computer market share has steadily gained on Microsoft and it shows no evidence of slowing.

Microsoft tried to coast by on their market dominance and now it is being challenged. Sure, not all large companies will fail, but like Microsoft, many of them are heading down the wrong path and any one of them can be the next Circuit City, Bear Stearns, or Lehman Brothers.

Do you currently enjoy a decent sized market share in your niche? What are you doing different than your competitors to maintain this? Are you still innovating your way out of your growth plateaus?

The Skill of Conquering Plateaus

Conquering a plateau is a skill. It can be learned, taught, and repeated. The more plateaus you conquer, the faster and more efficient you can conquer additional plateaus.

Your ability to conquer plateaus improves because you learn how to think the right way. You don’t use the same plan or process that worked for you in the past, you use your experience to develop a new plan. A plan that fits your current needs.

Have you noticed that with every new Olympics, the old world records fail to hold up? Do you think this is a coincidence? The old world records were plateaus and athletes found ways to overcome them. Some train harder, some train longer, and some find completely new ways to train. The bottom line is they take a plateau and they beat it through diligent hard work.

Or, from a blogging standpoint, have you noticed how many of the top bloggers keep getting bigger? Not only do they have the brand value, they are consistently looking for new ways to increase their readership. I remember when people like Darren Rowse and Copyblogger were hovering around 12,000 Feedburner subscribers. Now, they’ve broke through that plateau and have been hovering around 70,000 and 45,000 respectively. It wasn’t an accident. They launched new features and new programs to help them achieve this success. Going forward, they will remain at this plateau until they launch additional features and programs.

Have you been on a plateau for an extended period of time? What specific action plans do you have in place that will help you break through it? For a blogger, do you plan on writing more? Guest Posting? For a businessman, do you plan on making additional sales calls? Building a website? Or, less specifically, what are you doing to help your business?

Why Do Companies Remain on The Plateau?

If conquering plateaus is a skill, you may be wondering why successful companies seemingly ignore the overwhelming evidence of failure and success. Well, join the club because it is perplexing. However, I do have four theories why companies fail to break out of their plateau.

Some large companies view the plateau as temporary. They blame the external environment for their lack-luster growth and use prior performance as reassurance for future growth. Or, to put this more simply, these companies don’t take accountability for their situation and assume its out of their control. (Take a look at almost every large company)

Other companies embrace new technology and new ways to do business, but they still reach a growth plateau. They most likely understand the problem and know they need to fix it, but they don’t know how to kick-start their break-away growth. (The Myspace giant is falling fast. They have the technology, but they are doing nothing).

Some companies believe they have no reason to change because of their past success. They reject new ideas and innovation because they assume they know best and continue doing their business model their way. (who feels bad for the recording industry? Not me!)

Finally, there are some companies with multiple product lines and multiple businesses on a plateau. Since each product and business is unique, they can’t use the same plan to spark exponential growth. Additionally, they can’t focus on all of their product lines because resources are limited. So, these companies sit there frozen and do nothing. (Hello, Yahoo).

Whatever the reasons, many companies rationalize their situation and shirk the responsibility. They fail to confront the plateau with full-force and they remain stranded in an open field while their competitors take shots at their company.

Are you guilty? Now is the time to figure out why and fix it.

How Do You Overcome The Growth Plateau?

Now there are the select few companies who “get it.” They are led by success-driven people, like me and you, and they’re looking to revolutionize their industry every single year. They may hate the sound of “plateau,” but they welcome it. They know that within every plateau lies hidden opportunity and they look for it.

But how do you overcome a plateau? How can you start improving your business so you can experience break-away growth?

There is no sure-fire formula, but here are some things to consider:

Seek Outside Consultation

Raise your hand if you are familiar with the “Curse of Knowledge.”

For those of you who kept their hand down, Chip and Dan Heath talk about the “Curse of Knowledge” in “Made to Stick.” Extensive research shows that when people know something, it is impossible for them to imagine not knowing it. In short, this phenomenon makes communication difficult.

Unfortunately, this adversely affects companies seeking growth as well.

Many companies are accustomed to the way they do business, which makes it hard for them to imagine doing it any other way.

Luckily, outside consultants solve this problem. They may not be experts at running your company your way, but they do provide valuable opinions on how you can take your company to the next level.

Implement a Process

Variable work schedules are hard to maintain and improve. Without process, it could take years to find out what you’re doing wrong. With a process, it can take less than an hour.

When I started blogging on the internet, I would spend hours on the computer and always feel like I got nothing done. To solve this, I did a 7 day study where I logged everything in an excel worksheet. It was tedious writing “7:30 a.m: washed my face and 8:15am: tied my shoe,” but it provided me some data and I was able to find out where I wasted most of my time.

In business, you want to capture all the things you need to do on a “To-Do” list and create a process for each one of them. It’s going to be tedious and boring, but are you going to turn down the chance to improve your business?

Find an Expert

Use this tip sparingly and with caution.

Experts know a great deal about their respective field, but I would never ask them for specific action plans to improve your company. Instead, you should use them as a resource to find out what other companies are doing right and then decide for yourself if it applies to your business.

Take Some Risks

Companies end up on the never-ending plateau because they stop taking risks. They do what’s safe, or what they call a “sure-thing.” Unfortunately, the only thing about a “sure-thing” is that you can guarantee yourself mediocre or below average results.

I’m not telling you to take risks to the extreme, but instead, you need to implement a process that manages some risk. You need to be doing something risky if you want to break out of your plateau.

Find Growth Opportunities

You know the importance of planning, but you don’t know how to find growth opportunities. Well, one of the easiest ways to do this is by creating Competitor Swipe Files.

Find 10 of your biggest competitors and create a one page summary about their business and their features. I don’t suggest you copy their features, but I do expect you to use them as a starting point for innovation.

Scale Business Down

Do you currently operate in too many businesses? If so, this may be your chance to scale it down and become specialized. This is your chance to focus on the 20% of your business that produces 80% of your sales. This is your chance to focus on your strengths.

When Steve Jobs took the CEO reigns at Apple again he came into a complete mess. Apple operated in too many businesses and they weren’t the market leaders in any of them. So, Steve Jobs started cutting products until they were left with the bare minimum. Then, he made Apple known for media and the iPod was a huge success.

Just remember, sometimes you need to minimize to maximize.

The Growth Plateau

I developed a love-hate relationship with the growth plateau. On the one hand, I’m frustrated that I stalled on my journey towards achieving my goals, but on the other hand, I’m glad to receive early warning signs of potential failure.

When you hit the growth plateau, you know exactly what you need to do and that is change. You need to change or innovate your way out of it or you might end up with a company with dwindling profit and sales.

So if you take away anything from this huge article I want you to realize that you need to treat every growth plateau as an opportunity. You need to treat every growth plateau as one more chance to differentiate yourself from the competition. Or, just one more way to completely overthrow your competition.

If only everything else could be so clear…

What Do You Think?

I want to know what you think. I also want you to tell me what you did to overcome any of your growth plateaus. Send me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Related posts:

1. How to Be a Novice and Join the Newly Successful
2. Why You Should Put All Your Eggs In One Basket, Success Factors Day 1
3. Why Einstein Became Immortal (and how your company can join him), Success Factors Day 3

Many entrepreneurs see people like John Chow and Shoemoney making tons of money on the internet, so they assume they can too. They write blogs and form consulting companies. They try to improve their SEO, buy the best logo, and spam comment on every blog they see. Additionally, they submit their articles to Digg and Stumbleupon and hope for the best.

Unfortunately for them, most of them fail and I’m going to tell you why.

• Search Engine Optimization is GREAT when you have over 500 pages in your archive worth indexing.
• Commenting is GREAT when you have something to leave other than your homepage link.

In short, they are doing the right things at the wrong time. So, lets review the right things for new bloggers.

Same Niche, Different Day

You could spend hours looking for the perfect niche, but by now, every niche is taken. So, you need to pick the same niche, and absolutely destroy it with incredible content. Your content has to be so awesome that you would be willing to tattoo it on your face.

Tip: For each one of your articles, ask yourself, would I be willing to etch this into my body and live with it the rest of my life? If you answered anything other than “heck yes,” you need to rewrite your article.

Focus on the Product

Just imagine how awesome your computer would be if it automatically updated with the latest hardware and software every single day. It would be fast and have all the latest features of all your favorite programs. It would be great, but unrealistic.

However, with blogging, you can distribute new features and functionality daily to your die-hard readers. You can start delivering the only product in the world that updates every single day of the week. It’s cheap (free) and worthwhile (valuable).

Tip: Have you heard the traditional saying that “your blog is your brand?” Well, scrap it. Instead, you need to realize that your blog is your product and you can release new features daily.

The Bottom Line

You may notice this list is short, but this short little list is complete. You could focus on the the 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content, but without my two important things, it just won’t matter. So, what are you going to do about it?

Related posts:

1. Why You Should Put All Your Eggs In One Basket, Success Factors Day 1
2. Four Online Reputation Management Myths
3. When Companies Stop Growing, What Do They Do?