Author – Michael E. Gerber

Why people buy
Marketing for business growth
Management for business growth
Man’s search for himself
E-myth mastery
E-myth manager
e-myth contractor
e-myth physician

What makes people work is an idea worth working for, along with clear understanding of what needs to be done.

→ Only when such an idea becomes firmly integrated into the way you think and operate your business that “how to do it” becomes meaningful.

→ What is MnM’s idea worth working for?: Refer to our motto, mission, vision, goal.

Your business is nothing more than a distinct reflection of who you are.

→ If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy.

→ If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized.

→ If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy.

→ If your information about what needs to be done in your business is limited, your business will reflect that limitation.

→ Who are we & MnM?: Refer to wiki

If your business is to change, you must change first.

→ If you are unwilling to change, your business will never be capable of giving you what you want.

Everybody who goes into business is actually 3-in-one:

The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and the Technician.

The Entrepreneur: The visionary. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change. Without him there would be no innovation. Lives in the future.

The Manager: Craves order. Creates neat, orderly rows of things. The one who runs after the Entrepreneur to clean up the mess. Without him, there could be no business, no society. Lives in the past.

The Technician: The doer. Loves to tinker. Take apart and put back together. Loves the feel of things. Lives in the present.

Businesses, like people, are supposed to grow; and with growth, comes change.

→ Growth happens through reading and learning.

3 phases of a business’s growth: Infancy, Adolescence, Maturity.

Infancy: you are the business.

Infancy ends when the owner realizes that the business cannot continue to run the way it has been; that, in order for it to survive, it will have to change.

When that happens, when the reality sinks in-most businesses fail.

When that happens, most of The Technicians lock their doors behind them and walk away.

The rest go on to Adolescence.

Adolescence: begins when you decide to get technical help.

In Adolescent Survival you’re consumed by the business and the possibility of losing it.

Maturity: best businesses in the world.

Knows how it got to be where it is, and what is must do to get where to wants to go.

Maturity is not an end-result of the first two phases. They start out Mature and different.

If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business-you have a job.

The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people.

→ The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life.: Sales offer Grand Slam Offer

You cannot ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities.

You cannot ignore your future employees’ need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication.

The Technician’s boundary is determined by how much he can do himself.

The Manager’s boundary is defined by how many technicians he can supervise effectively or how many subordinate managers he can organize into a productive effort.

The Entrepreneur is boundary is a function of how many managers he can engage in pursuit of his vision.

Your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.

→ To educate yourself sufficiently so that, as your business grows, the business’s foundation and structure can carry the additional weight.

Ask the right questions:

• Where do I wish to be? → Thailand
• When do I wish to be there? → Before then end of 2024
• How much capital will that take? → $2,000/month
• How many people, doing what work, and how? → 5 projects = 20 people
• What technology will be required? Designer, App dev, Backend dev
• How large a space will be need at Benchmark one, at Benchmark two…

Entrepreneurial Model

→ looks at a business as if it were a product; sitting on a shelf and competing for customer’s attention against a whole shelf of competing businesses.

→ has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done.

→ The commodity isn’t important, the way it’s delivered is.

Without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.

→ Who is the perfect client for MNM?: Refer to wiki

Systems theory looks at the world in terms of interrelatedness of all phenomena, and in this framework an integrated whole whose properties cannot be reduced to those of its parts is called a system – Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point

Business Format Franchise | Turn-key: provides the franchisee with an entire system of doing business.

The true product of a business is not what it sells but how it sells it.

The true product of a business is the business itself.

The launching pad and the secret behind the success of the Business Format Franchise is the Franchise Prototype. It is in the Franchise Prototype that you can find the model you need to make your business work.

The success of the Business Format Franchise is without question the most important news in business.

The system runs the business. The people run the system.

→ People come and go but it is the system that remains.

‘sending him through a rigorous training program before ever being allowed to operate the franchise.’ → to all new incoming employees.

The system isn’t something you bring to the business. It’s something you derive from the process of building the business.

Every great business in the world is a franchise.

The primary purpose of your business is to serve your life.

Your business is not your life.

Pretend that you are going to franchise your business.

Franchise game rules:

1. The model will provide consistent value to your clients, employees, suppliers, and lenders, beyond what they expect.
2. The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill. Obviously if yours is a legal firm or medical firm you must have lawyers and doctors. But you don’t need to hire brilliant people. You need to create the very best system through which good developers can be leveraged to produce exquisite results. How can I give my clients the results he wants systematically rather than personally? How can I create a business whose results are systems-dependent rather than people-dependent? Systems-dependent rather than expert-dependent. How can I create an expert system rather than hire one? Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It is literally impossible to produce a consistent result in a business that depends on extraordinary people.
3. The model will stand out as a place of impeccable order. A business that looks orderly says to your client that your people know what they are doing. A business that looks orderly says to your people that you know what you are doing.
4. All work in the model will be documented in Operations Manuals. Documentation says “This is how we do it here.”
5. The model will provide a uniformly predictable service to the client. The business must also act orderly. It must do things in a predictable, uniform way.
6. The model will utilize a uniform color, dress, and facilities code. The colors you show your customer must be scientifically determined and then used throughout your model. In one logo test a triangle produced far fewer sales than a circle, and a crest outproduced both by a significant margin! The shape of your sign, your logo, the type style used on your business cards will have a significant impact on sales whether you care to think about it or not! → research logo design!

Go to work on your business rather than in it:

• How can I get my business to work, but without me?
• How can I get my people to work, but without my constant interference?
• How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be replicated thousands of times so that the 5001th client would run as smoothly as the first?
• How can I own my business, and still be free of it?
• How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do rather than the work I have to do?

Sales

Hi, may I help you? ↔ Hi, have you been in here before?

→ Hi, have you outsourced anything before?

The best sales suit: A navy blue suit, a good, starched white shirt, a tie with red in it(a pin or a scarf with red it in it for women), and highly polished black shoes.

→ It is no wonder that McDonald’s, Disney, Starbucks, and many more extraordinary companies spend so much time and money on determining how they look! It pays! And it pays consistently over and over and over again.

Salespeople should make a point of touching each customer on the elbow, arm, or back some time during the sales process.

Quantification

Begin by quantifying everything related to how you do business. EVERYTHING.

How many clients do you see in person each day? | How many bids do you send each day? | How many in the morning? | In the afternoon? | How many people call your business each day? | How many call to ask for a price? | How many want to purchase anything? | How many product X are sold each day? | At what time of the day are they sold? | Which days are busiest and how busy?

→ How many bids each day | How many scheduled meetings? | Client Details | Project Details

With the numbers, your business will take on a totally new meaning.

Because without numbers you can’t possibly know where you are, let alone where you’re going.

It will come alive with possibilities.

Orchestration:

Once you innovate a process and quantify its impact on your business, once you find something that works better than what preceded it, once you discover how to increase the yes's from your clients, employees, suppliers, lenders, at that point, it’s time to orchestrate the whole thing.

is the elimination of discretion, or choice, at the operating level of your business.

is a habit. A way of doing something habitually.

if you haven’t orchestrated it, you don’t own it!

if you don’t own it, you can’t depend on it.

if you can’t depend on it, you haven’t got a franchise.

without a franchise no business can hope to succeed.

Franchise: your unique way of doing business.

Quality is an empty word if it doesn’t include harmony, balance, passion, intention, and attention.

Imagine that someone will walk through your door with the intention of buying your business.

That is how you build your own franchise.

Your Business Development Program is the vehicle through which you can create your Franchise Prototype: (Your)

1. Primary aim What do I value most? What kind of life do I want? What do I want my life to look like, feel like? Who do I wish to be? When people are at your funeral, what story will they tell? What is your legacy?

What do I wish my life to look like? How do I wish my life to be on a day-to-day basis? What would I like to be able to say I truly know in my life, about my life? How would I like to be with other people in my life-my family, my friends, my business associates, my clients, my employees, my community? How would I like people to think about me? How would I like to be doing two years from now? Ten years? Twenty years? When my life comes to a close? What specifically would I like to learn during my life-spiritually, physically, financially, technically, intellectually? About relationships? How much money will I need to do the things I wish to do? By when will I need it? 2. Strategic objective Your Business Strategy and Plan are a way of communicating to anyone you must communicate to the direction your business is going, how it intends to get there, and the specific benchmarks it will need to hit in order for them to work.

Business Strategy and Plan: can be reduced to a set of simple and clearly stated standards is just a list of standards.* a tool for measuring your progress toward a specific end. is designed for implementation, not for rationalization. is a template for your business, to make certain that the time you invest in it produces exactly what you want from it. List of standards*:

1. Money: How big is your vision? How big will your company be when it’s finally done? A $100-million company? A billion-dollar company? A How much money do I need to live the way I wish?

Commodity vs Product

Commodity: the thing your client actually walks out with in his hand. Product: what your client feels as he walks out of your business. What he feels about your business, not what he feels about the commodity. Understanding the difference between the two is what creating a great business is all about.

People buy feelings.

→ “Buy Chanel and this fantasy can be yours.”

Who is my client?

Every business has a Central Demographic Model.

The most probable client.

age, sex, income, family status, education, profession, etc.

There is no specific number of standards for the list. Only specific questions:

• When is your Prototype going to be completed? In 6 months? In 1 year?
• Where are you going to be in business? Locally? Internationally?
• How are you going to be in business? Retail? Wholesale?
• What standards are you going to insist upon regarding reporting, cleanliness, clothing, management, hiring, firing, training, and so forth?

1. Organizational strategy

“All organizations are hierarchical. At each level people serve under those above them. An organization is therefore a structured institution. If it is not structured, it is a mob. Mobs do not get things done, they destroy things.” - Management for Business Growth, Theodore Levitt

The Organization Chart can have a more profound impact on a small company than any other single Business Development step.

A Position Contract:

summary of the results to be achieved by each position in the company, the work the occupant of that position is accountable for, a list of standards by which the results are to be evaluated, and a line for the signature of the person who agrees to fulfill those accountabilities. It is a contract, rather than just a description, between the company and an employee, a summary of the rules of the company’s game.

When you go to work in the position, you want to work on the position by implementing the Business Development Process of innovation, quantification, and orchestration:

What would best serve our client here?

How could I most easily give the client what he wants while also maximizing profits for the company?

How could I give the person responsible for that work the best possible experience?

Innovation. Continue to find better ways of doing what you do. Quantification. Once that is achieved, quantify the impact of these improvements on your business. Orchestration. Once these improvements are verified, orchestrate this better way of running your business so that it becomes your standard, to be repeated time and again.

1. Sales Operations Manual contains the exact scripts for:

   handling incoming calls

   outgoing calls

   meeting the client at the door

   exact responses to clients’:

   inquiries

   complaints

   concerns

2. Management strategy

“The System is the Solution.” - AT&T

Management System designed into your Prototype to produce marketing results. Not a management tool; it’s a marketing tool.

The more automatic your management system is, the more effective your Franchise Prototype will be.

3. People strategy

‘The work we do is a reflection of who we are. If we’re sloppy at it, it’s because we’re sloppy inside. If we’re late at it, it’s because we’re late inside. If we’re bored by it, it’s because we’re bored inside, with ourselves, not with the work. The most menial work can be a piece of art when done by an artist. So the job here is not outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves. How we do our work becomes a mirror of how we are inside.’

Make sure they understand the idea behind the work they’re being asked to do.

The client is not always right, but whether he is or not, it is our job to make him feel that way.

Everyone who works here is expected to work toward being the best he can possibly be at the tasks he’s accountable for. When he can’t do that, he should act like he is until he gets around to it. And if he’s unwilling to act like it, he should leave.

The business is a place where everything we know how to do is tested by what we don’t know how to do, and that the conflict between the two is what creates growth, what creates meaning.

The rules of the people game:

1. Never figure out what you want your people to do and then try to create a game out of it. It it’s to be seen serious, the game has to come first; what your people do, second.
2. Never create a game for your people you’re unwilling to play yourself. They’ll find you out and never let you forget it.
3. Make sure there are specific ways to winning the game without ending it. The game can never end because the end will take the life right out of your business. But unless there are victories in the process, your people will grow weary. Hence, the value of victories now and then. They keep people in the game and make the game appealing, even when it’s not.
4. Change the game from time to time-the tactics, not the strategy. The strategy is its ethic, the moral underpinning of your game’s logic. This must remain sacrosanct, for it is the foundation of you and your people’s commitment to each other. But change is necessary. For any game can become ordinary, no matter how exhilarating it may be at the beginning. To know when change is called for, watch your people. Their results will tell you when the game’s all but over. The trick is to anticipate the end before anyone else does and to change it by executive action. You’ll know if you’ve pulled it off by watching how everyone responds to the change. Not at first, however. You can expect some resistance at first. But persist. Your persistence will move them through their resistance into your new and more enlivening game.
5. Never expect the game to be self-sustaining. People need to be reminded of it constantly. At least once a week, create a special meeting about the game. At least once a day, make some kind of issue about an exception to the way the game has been played, and make certain that everyone knows about it. Remember,, in and of itself the game doesn’t exist. It is alive to the degree that people make it so. But people have the unerring ability to forget everything they start and be distracted by trivia. Most great games are lost that way. To make certain yours isn’t, don’t expect your people to be something they’re not. Remind them, time after time, of the game they’re playing with you. You can’t remind them too often.
6. The game has to make sense. An illogical game will abort before it ever gets going. The best games are built on universally verifiable truths. Everyone should be able to see them if they’re to be sufficiently attractive. A game with muddy beginnings will get you nowhere. Know the ground you stand on and then assemble your armament. Sooner or later you’ll need it. For a game that isn’t tested isn’t a game at all. But remember, you can have the best reasons in the world for your game and still end up with a loser if the logic is not supported by a strong emotional commitment. All the logic does is give your people the rational armament to support their emotional commitment. If their commitment wanes, it means that they, and most likely you, have forgotten the logic. So wheel out the logic often. Make sure everyone remembers the game’s raison d’être.
7. The game needs to be fun from time to time. Note that I said, time to time. No game needs to be fun all the time. In fact, a game is often no fun at all. That’s part of the thrill of playing a game well: learning how to deal with the ‘no fun’ part as to retain your dignity while falling on your face. At the same time, fun needs to be planned into your game. but make certain that the fun you plan is fun. Fun needs to be defined by your people. If it’s fun to them, it will work. But not too often, maybe once every six months. Something to look forward to, and something to forget.
8. If you can’t think of a good game, steal one. Anyone’s ideas are as good as your own. But once you steal somebody else’s game, learn it by heart. There’s nothing worse than pretending to play a game.

Hiring process:

1. A scripted presentation communicating the Boss’s idea in a group meeting to all the applicants at the same time. This presentation described not only the idea but also the business’s history and experience in successfully implementing that idea, and the attributes required of the successful candidate for the position in question.
2. Meeting with each applicant individually to discuss his reactions to and feelings about the idea, as well as his background and experience. At this meeting, each applicant was also asked why he felt he was superbly appropriate for the role the position was to play in implementing the Boss’s idea.
3. Notification of the successful candidate by telephone. Again, a scripted presentation.
4. Notification of the unsuccessful applicants, thanking each for his interest. A standard letter, signed by the interviewer.
5. First day of training to include the following activities for both the Boss and the new employee:

• Reviewing the Boss’s idea.
• Summarizing the system through which the entire business brings the idea to reality.
• Taking the new employee on a tour of the facilities, highlighting people at work and system at work to demonstrate the interdependence of the systems on people and the people on systems
• Answering clearly and fully all the employee’s questions.
• Issuing the employee his uniform and his Operations Manual
• Reviewing the Operations Manual, including the Strategic Objective, the Organizational Strategy, and the Position Contract of the employee’s position.
• Completing the employment papers.

‘And the rules of the game, what a job it’s going to be to create them. Rules about dress. Rules about comportment. Rules about the tools we use and how we use them. Rules about the floor and the walls and the counterspace, how we clean them every night and every morning, how we give them their final touch so that they absolutely glow! Rules about the pie tins and about the cupboards in which we store things. Rules about glass, rules about silver, rules about tin. Rules about oven, how they’re heated, how they’re opened and closed, how they’re cleaned. Rules about opening up, and closing up. Rules about money, about keeping the books, about balancing at the end of each day. Rules about hair, about fingernails!’

make a game and make the rules, rules, rules, and rules to fill them. How do we we things here at MnM?

You need people to want to play your game.

Once having created these rules, having created this game, you need to invent a way to manage it.

Never delegate your accountabilities. Delegating your accountabilities is abdication.

You must set the standard.

You must establish a Management System through which all managers, and all those who would become managers in your company, are expected to produce results.

The System produces the results; your people manage the system.

Hierarchy of Systems:

1. 1. How we do it here.
   2. How we recruit, hire, and train people to do it here.
   3. How we manage it here.
   4. How we change it here.

 4. Marketing strategy

‘In a TV commercial, the sale is made or lost in the first 3~4 seconds. In a print ad, 75% of buying decisions are made at the headline alone. In a sales presentation, sales is made or lost in the first three minutes.

Demographics and Psychographics are two essential pillars supporting a successful marking campaign.

→ If you know who your clients is(demographics) you can determine why he buys(psychographics).

Research shows that the navy suit is perhaps the most powerful suit a person can wear in business. Instant impact.

1. Women of a certain age, with a certain amount of education, with a certain size family, living in a certain geography, buy for every specific psychographic reasons that can differ from another group of women of different demographics.

   The strategic work rather than the tactical work. The CEO of the business must start out by asking marketing questions. The COO must continue to ask marketing questions. The CMO must is absolutely accountable for asking marketing questions. There isn’t a function or position within the company that is free of asking marketing questions. If by marketing we mean ‘what must our business be in the mind of our clients in order for them to choose us over everyone else? Seen from the appropriate perspective, the entire business process by which your company does what it does is a marketing process.

   It starts with the promise you make to attract them to your door. It continues with the sale you make once they get there. And it ends with the delivery of the promise before they leave your door. In some companies that process is called Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, Client Fulfillment. For some businesses, it’s called Marketing, Sales, and Operations.

   And it is how well-integrated that process is, how totally and completely connected each part of the process appears in relation to the rest of the process, that will determine how successful you are at getting them to come back for more. And it is getting them to come back for more that is the Primary Aim of every business.

   The business process of Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, and Client Fulfillment is so critical to the growth of your business. And that’s what marketing is. The whole process. Not just a part of it but the entire thing.

   And the place where they join each other is at the position of COO. The COO is the driver of all this. The COO connects each part of the business process. The COO maintains the integrity of the whole by acting as the arbiter of the Strategic Objective he is accountable for fulfilling, of the rules of the game he is accountable for maintaining, of the game the business has chosen to play.

5. Systems strategy

A system is a set of things, actions, ideas, and information that interact with each other, and in so doing, alter other systems.

3 kinds of systems: Hard Systems, Soft Systems, and Information Systems

Hard Systems: inanimate, unliving things. ex: computer

Soft Systems: either animate, living, or ideas. ex: human, books

Information Systems: information about the interaction between the other two. ex: inventory control, cash flow forecasting, sales activity report

make a list of each inside hard = visuals soft = idea if = sales data

Selling System

Fully orchestrated interaction between the client: Power Point Selling System

1. Identification of the specific Benchmarks or client decision points in your selling process.
2. The literal scripting of the words that will get you to each one successfully.
3. The creation of the various materials to be used with each script.
4. The memorization of each Benchmark’s script.
5. The delivery of each script by your salespeople in identical fashion.
6. Leaving your people to communicate more effectively, by articulating, watching, listening, hearing, acknowledging, understanding, and engaging each and every prospect as fully as he needs to be.

The Power Point Selling System is composed of two parts: Structure & Substance. Structure: all of the predetermined elements of the Process, and includes exactly what you say, the materials you use when you say it, and what you wear. Substance: what you, the salesperson bring to the Process, and includes how you say it, how you use it when you say it, and how you are when you say it.

Benchmarks:

1. The Appointment Presentation
2. The Needs Analysis Presentation
3. The Solutions Presentation
4. Appointment Presentation: to make an appointment. → It is a series of words, delivered on the telephone or in person, that engage the prospect’s unconscious by speaking primarily about the product you have to sell rather than the commodity. ‘Hi, Mr. Client. I am John Jones with MNM. Have you see the remarkable new things that are being done to control money these days? What new things? Well that’s exactly why I called. My I have a moment of your time?’ → The product? Financial control.
5. Needs Analysis Presentation: reestablish the emotional commitment. ‘Remember, Mr. Client when we first talked I mentioned that some remarkable new things were going on in the world to control money?’
6. Tell the client how you would like to proceed to fulfill your promise to them. ‘Well, what I’d like to do is to tell you about those things. At the same time, I’d like to show you some incredibly effective ways my firm, MNM, has developed to help you to control money here in your business. Sound fair?’
7. Establish your credibility in the client’s mind by communicating two things: 1: your company’s expertise 2: your personal willingness to do whatever is necessary to utilize that expertise on his behalf ‘Let me tell you why we created our company, Mr. Client. We’ve found that people like yourself are continually frustrated by not being able to get the most out of their money. Frustrated by paying higher interest rates than they have to. By working with financial experts who don’t seem to know what they’re doing. By banking with a bank that doesn’t seem to have their best interest at heart.. Do these things ever frustrate you, Mr. Client? Of course they do. And that’s why MNM has created a XYZ commodity that makes it possible for you to get the most preferential treatment in the financial arena while paying the least for it. Now I know that sounds too good to be true. But let me explain how we propose to go about doing that for you…’
8. Describe the MNM’s commodity or system and why it works so well. Not what it does but the impact it will have on the client: ’The MNM system/commodity is designed to do 3 things, Mr. Client. First, it enables us to know what specifically bothers you about controlling your money. Because we know that controlling money must be personally tailored to each and every one of our clients. In order to do that we’ve created what we call at MNM a Money Management Questionnaire. By asking you these particular questions, we’re well on our way to helping you get what you want. Before I leave today, I’ll review the Questionnaire with you. Once the Questionnaire is completed, we return it to our Financial Systems Group. This is a group of financial specialists who review your Questionnaire to make certain that it has been completed accurately. If it has, they enter the information into our Money-Controlling System that has been designed to analyze this information and compare it with the broad spectrum of data we’ve assembled over the years. Once having analyzed the information, the System will then create personally tailored solutions just for you, Mr. Jackson. Ways to secure the kind of preferential treatment we talked about earlier, but at the lowest possible cost. Ways of controlling your money and using it to your advantage, not someone else’s. These solutions will then be prepared in the form of a Financial Report that I’ll deliver to you personally and review with you at that time. Should any of our solutions make sense to you, we’ll be more than happy to help you implement them. If not, then at least we’ll have started the process of becoming better acquainted so that we may be of assistance to you some other time. In any case, the Financial Report is yours—at absolutely no cost whatsoever. It’s our way of saying we’re serious about what we do, and would be happy to work with you, whether now or in the future. So let’s review the Questionnaire together, and when we’re done I’ll provide you with a summary of some of the remarkable new things that are happening in the world to control money. And then I’ll take your information back so we can prepare your Financial Report. Does that sound fair?’
9. Complete the Money Management Questionnaire
10. Provide the client with the information he promised and show him how relevant it is to the Financial Report he will be preparing for him.
11. Make an appointment with the client to return with the Financial Report. Remind him that salesman will have some valuable solution for him, at no cost! and that salesman will take whatever time is necessary to help the prospective client understand those solution, whether he decides to implement them or not!Needs Analysis Presentation opens up the prospective client to a deeper experience of his frustration and to the opportunities available to him by going through the questioning process with you. You now have something to give him.
12. The Solutions Presentation: provide the rational armament for the emotional commitment.Here, the salesman brings the client up-to-date by reviewing everything he said and did during the Needs Analysis Presentation. Then, the salesman reviews in great, patient, and earnest detail every last word, comma, and number in his prospective customer’s Financial Report. He asks questions to make certain that the prospect feels that this is his Financial Report, not MNM’s. After reviewing everything: ‘Of all the options we’ve suggest here, Mr. Client, which do you feel would best serve you right now?’ And then wait for the answer! Because the next person who speaks is going to make a purchase.

Most salespeople think that selling is “_closing_”. It’s not. Selling is opening.

If the Process is to work for you, you must be willing to go through it the same way every single time. Using the same words the same way every time. Reviewing the Financial Report the same way every time.

And by doing it the same way every single time, you will not have a selling person but a selling system.

→ soft system

For an information system to interact with the soft system it should provide you the following information:

• how many calls were made
• how many prospects were reached
• how many appointments were scheduled
• how many appointments were confirmed
• how many appointments were held
• how many Needs Analysis Presentations were scheduled
• confirmed
• completed
• how many Solutions Presentations were scheduled
• confirmed
• completed
• how many solutions were sold
• what was the average dollar value

Hard, soft, info systems = things, actions, ideas, information.

It is absolutely essential that you begin to think of your business as a fully integrated system.

Hard systems: all the visual elements of the business and the way they all fit together.

The sign on the the shop, the floors, the walls, the display cases, the portfolio, the tables, the website, the logo, the people’s uniforms, etc.

Information systems: the ability to extract from the day-to-day operations.

how many sold, how many clients, and every single little detail of data that can be measured

Soft Systems: the soft skills and scripted interactions to communicate value

‘Hi, have you been in here before?’ vs ‘Hi, can I help you?’

What’s MnM’s version of it?

Game worth playing & the recruitment process the Manager used at the hotel

What’s MnM’s version of it?

the script the manager used when he told the story about the Boss’s game

What’s MnM’s version of it?

the hotel’s checklists and the Management System that defined them

What’s MnM’s version of it?

If this new path, if living with your spirit, means anything to you at all, if you truly care about it, then guard it with your life. Because Comfort overtakes us all when we’re least prepared for it. Comfort makes cowards of us all.

→Keep the curtain up.

→The curtain is your Comfort zone.

→Open your ears, eyes, and mind.

This book is not simply a prescription for success; it’s a calls to arms.

But this call to arms is not a call to do battle. It’s a call to learning.

How to think, feel, and act differently and more productively, more humanly than our existing skills and understanding allow.

Now is the time to learn. Now is the time to change.

We are simply running out of time.

A dojo is a miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves—our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully. It is a place where we can learn a great deal in a short time about who we are and how we react in the world. The conflicts that take place inside the dojo help us handle conflicts that take place outside. The total concentration and discipline required to study martial arts carries over to daily life. The activity in the dojo calls on us to constantly attempt new things, so it is also a source of learning—in Zen terminology, a source of self-enlightenment.

And that is exactly what a small business is! A small business is a place that responds instantly to any action we take. A place where we can practice implementing ideas in a way that changes lives. A place where we can begin to test all of the assumptions we have about ourselves. It is a place where questions are at least as important as answers, if not more so. It is a place where generalizations must give way to specifics. It is a place that demands our attention. A place where rules must be followed and order preserved. A place that is practical, not idealistic. But a place where idealism must be present for the practical to serve. It is a place where the world is reduced to manageable size. Small enough to be responsive, but big enough to test everything we have. A true practice hall. A world of our own.

We can only change our lives and create a world of our own if we first understand how such a world is constructed, how it works, and the rules of the game. And that means we have to study the world and how we are in it. And in order to do that we need a world small enough in scope and complexity to study. A small business is just such a world. And a Business Development Program can be a means to study it most effectively. And the Franchise Prototype can provide our study with the discipline it needs to succeed. Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration become the practice that brings us and our opponent—whoever that may be—to the discovery of our limits, our weaknesses, our strengths.

Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration provide the belief system of our business, the philosophical bedrock of our interaction with the world. They become our source for learning, for creating, for expanding beyond our self-imposed limits.

You must analyze your business as it is today, decide what it must look like when you’ve finally got it just like you want it, and then determine the gap between where you are and where you need to be in order to make your dream a reality.

And what you’ll discover when you look at your business through your E-Myth eyes is that the gap is always created by the absence of systems.