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Beware… The 5 minute experts are circling.

I’m sure you’ve experienced it, as there are so many business mentors, business coaches, many different people coaching and consultants out there today and some of them are very good at what they do.

However if you dig a little deeper with most to see if they have any substance behind them, experience or runs on the board, in most cases they fall dramatically short.

It reminds me of a business group I was once involved in for a few months, there were so many 5 minute experts getting around in this group spruiking how good they were and funny thing was they were so full of their own manufactured importance they would only talk to certain people…

And the most interesting part of it all was that most of these people had attended a couple of business seminars, read a couple of business books or completed a 2 week business coaching program and BINGO, they were the new expert on the block!

…And not scared to let everyone know about it I might add. 

5 minute experts are present in every industry, I’m sure you’ve seen them… right?

The crucial thing for us budding entrepreneurs is that we don’t fall victim to 5 minute experts… Can you imagine what could happen to your business and personal life if you took advice from one of them… Ouch!! Scary stuff.

I remember a small example for myself falling victim to an accountant who was playing out of his depth. It was only a small deal I took to him about 7 years ago and it cost me a little over $10,000 for his totally useless, totally wrong advice… And to rub salt into the wounds I paid him for his wrong advice. How embarrassing!!

The thing that we all need to take on board is that if you get the wrong advice for your business it will cost you big time!! Possibly even bankrupt you.

So beware and do your recon when consulting an expert to ensure they have the goods to get you your desired result. Look at what they’ve helped others achieve, their experience, credentials and what they’ve personally achieved.

A lot of business owners and entrepreneurs fall victim to their own “5 minute expert” thinking… I’ve seen it too many times where as soon as someone goes into business for themselves, they know everything there is to know about business.

Interesting thinking when you look at the most successful entrepreneurs in the world like Henry Ford, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, etc… They surround themselves with a team of experts.

I do the same myself and have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in my own education and continue doing so today… It doesn’t matter who you are you can’t achieve great things by going it alone!!

Quite often I see employees falling into their own “5 minute expert” coma, as they see what the boss is doing and think they know better… Most don’t have the guts to take the entrepreneurship path and the ones that do quickly learn it’s not as easy as it looked when they were spectating.

Bottom line anyone can all fall for the “5 minute expert” thinking, but beware if you want to play a bigger game and go to a whole new level faster than you ever thought possible, you must seek the right advice, coaching and support.

A Press Release About Us You May Be Interested In…

International award winning entrepreneur Aaron Parsons is gearing up for a major assault on Australia and New Zealand with a series of powerful workshops that will arm attendees with the secret weapons they need to rapidly grow their business and personal wealth.

Aaron, a successful entrepreneur with more than 20 years of business experience and a former member of Australia’s elite Special Forces, will be running six free two-hour Cashflow Commando workshops in October as part of his new book launch, starting in Adelaide on Tuesday, October 13.

“The Cashflow Commando workshops are intensive and aimed at small business owners and entrepreneurs - people who are serious about building their business, whether it be online or offline, and creating wealth to live the lifestyle they choose,” says Aaron.

“A lot of business owners are not taking the right approach, and because of that they’re in a position of weakness and at the mercy of somebody else or the economy for their future.

“A smarter way is to arm yourself with a Cashflow Commando education for life, so that you’re in total control.”

Workshop attendees will learn:

• The power secrets to get everything you want, faster than you ever thought possible.
• The Number 1 reason why 95% of business owners and entrepreneurs fail and will continue to struggle if they continue down the same path.
• How to build a profitable lead generation system to attract more business than you can handle.
• How to make money while you sleep with the internet.
• The three simple steps to grow your business profits by 61.75% within the next 30 days
• How to build a wildly successful offline or online business that works without you to live your dream lifestyle now, not some distant date in the future.

Aaron, who later this year will be launching his new book entitled “Cashflow Commando: How To Escape The 9 To 5 Prison Camp And Join The New Rich”, says the workshops will focus on the three keys to win in business today.

“Some of the components covered include, navigating from where you are now to where you want to be, exploding your profits with the ultimate cash flow formula and staying two steps ahead of the pack so that you’re constantly evolving and moving forward. In addition, the workshops are about optimisation, using the systems you’ve already put in place to get the maximum benefit out of the least effort.

“These events are about bringing the commando principles into business,” Aaron says. “If you continue operating like everyone else you’re effectively like a chicken, picking the scraps off the ground. Successful entrepreneurs apply the Henry Ford principle, sitting in the driver’s seat and pulling the levers so you’re in total control of your business. That’s the key for complete personal and financial freedom, so you don’t get sucked into the business and become a slave.”

The Cashflow Commando workshops will also be held in Perth (October 14^th), Melbourne (October 15^th), Brisbane (October 20^th), Sydney (October 21^st) and Auckland (October 22^nd).

To register, or for more information, go to www.CashflowCommando.com
(use promo code “Blog” to secure your FREE ticket)

I find it amazing how fast a lot of people are jumping on the recession band wagon. A business owner just the other day was sharing with me how tough things were and how it was going to get worse and on and on…
When he asked me how I’m finding it at the moment, I didn’t want to tell him that business is booming for us, so I tamed it down and shared with him that if he wasn’t getting his desired results maybe he should try doing things a little different…
He snapped, I don’t care what anyone says there’s nothing you can do to make someone walk through that door. I felt sorry for this person, but until he’s prepared to remove the blinkers and have an open mind, he’s un-coachable.
On the flip side I hope you can see why I keep going on about the massive opportunity’s out there in the market place for those who invest in themselves first, learn how to play the game of business and the world is your oyster!!

Here’s a great example about a shoe salesman focusing on opportunity … (more…)

Retaining team members in the 21st century is a large problem for a lot of businesses. Business owners are required to be more entrepreneurial in this area and embrace out of the square creative thinking to retaining team members and maintain an entrepreneurial culture.

In this segment we will cover some keys to retaining and attracting quality team members. It really comes down to marketing, but on an internal basis, rather than an external basis as the case with clients.

Start with the basics:

• What are your target markets (teams) needs and wants?
• How do they currently feel about the organisation?
• What can the organisation offer them?
• How can the organisation translate what they have to offer into benefits for team members?
  And finally the big one…
• What is your team marketing USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? – Why are team members going to want to work for you rather than someone else?

Richard Branson’s Virgin Blue are a great example of what we are talking about (at the time of writing). Generally Qantas staff get paid substantially more than Virgin staff, however Virgin have created a fun and happy environment to work in, that people want to be a part of and are happy to be paid less to be a part of that culture.

The truly great Entrepreneurial organisations satisfy the 3 key attributes to attract and maintain team members, which is summarised as GEL;

GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES – Growth is one of the 6 human needs, hence their must be growth opportunities for team members within your organisation to keep them happy. Everyone wants to grow in one way or another.

ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURE – Team members want to work in a fun, happy and healthy work environment with good conditions and be a part of an entrepreneurial culture.

LEADERS CHARISMA – Team members want to work for charismatic leaders. If team members respect and like who they are working for, they are more productive. The days of the army sergeant major type of leadership are long gone.
Make some notes on how you can improve in making your business the work place of choice for team members.

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons
http:/www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com

It’s all in your head.

Every person on the planet has a part of their brain that acts as a centre of arousal and motivation.

This powerful part of your brain is called your reticular activating system (RAS) and it works by filtering the barrage of information supplied by all your senses and passing on only what is believed to be the important stuff.

The great news for you and all of us is that it can be trained…

In just the same way that you can hear your name spoken in a crowded, noisy room, you can train your RAS to be receptive to whatever you choose. Good or bad, failure or success. (more…)

Doing Everything Yourself…

An ongoing challenge I see with business owners and entrepreneurs is that their businesses have stopped growing because they are not making enough time to work ON it!

Too many fall into this deadly trap trying to do too much themselves and finished up being so busy running their business that they’re not working ON their business. Essentially working flat out and getting nowhere!!

Are You Spending All Your Time on the Trivial Stuff?

Let’s face it, you generally wear a lot of hats when you own your own business, however you don’t have to wear them all yourself. Most business owners who are struggling to keep their head above water have fallen into the doing everything themselves trap, event he tasks that they know they’re not good at… Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Those who continue in this doom loop end up like a person stuck out in the middle of the ocean continually treading water until they eventually get tired, sink and drown.

Pretty soon the passion they had when they started their business rapidly disappears and their desire drowns in a flood of behind-the-scenes work. Eventually they wake up one morning feeling burnt out with a negative mindset and stuck in a massive rut.

I am speaking from experience here, as I fell into the ‘do it all myself’ trap myself and it was not a pleasant place to be ‘stuck’ in at all. And you know I hear quite often in society you are told that you must work hard… Why? Is it because everyone else is stuck in a doom loop?

I certainly learned the hard way that it’s not necessarily about working hard, but more about working SMART! In fact if you find yourself working hard you’re likely to be doing something wrong. After all we are all on this planet for only a limited time, so doesn’t it make sense to enjoy our time here. It all starts with working smarter and here’s where it begins…

Thank god I found out about virtual assistants (VA’s). A virtual assistant is a free lancer who takes care of all that “busy work” for you. And because virtual assistants work independently themselves, they work on demand when you need them and save you the costs of hiring someone full-time.

Thanks to technology your virtual assistant can live down the road from you or on the other side of the planet… It’s up to you. (For more on outsourcing, grab yourself a copy of my Ultimate Outsourcing Manuscript at www.TheBusinessCommandos.com )

Moving forward, before you dive in to any task in your business STOP, and ask yourself “Is this the best possible use of my time?” If not outsource it to your virtual assistant.

For the next week, keep a journal of all your activities and sit down and review it at the end of the week. Identify which activities you really need to do and which you can delegate.

Your virtual assistant will both save you and make you a fortune as your valuable time gets freed up to work on the higher value tasks like marketing, innovating and growing your business.

You will get back to thinking big and quickly regain your creative energy you had when you first started your business in next to no time at all.

Take massive action now and get your life back!

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons.

P.S. If you haven’t joined www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com yet, head over and check it out now whilst all of the awesome bonuses are still available. And don’t forget to tell all of your friends!

I find it alarming today the number of businesses who aren’t focusing on building a database and taking advantage of the ‘Back-End’.

There are countless examples of the value in building a database, including Google buying Youtube for $1.6 Billion. It is imperative to maintain and update your client data base to keep them informed of what is going on with your business and about any special offerings or promotions they may be interested in and keep that all important ‘top-of-mind-awareness’.

Having a database of clients that you have formed a good relationship with is one of the most valuable assets you can have in business today.

All of the money is generally made in the ‘Back-End’ of a business, not the ‘Front-End’ where most business owners focus on.

Your database allows you to market to your clients for life, offering new products from your product range to make their life easier and further grow your business. It’s simply a process of continuing to add value to your clients to help them get more and more of what they want.

It’s extremely important to know your metrics, to take full advantage of the ‘Back-End’ business strategy…

For example one of my mentors in the States used to manage a leading car dealership and they would buy Toyota Camry’s for $18,399 and sell them for $17,999, which was a $400 loss on the ‘Front-End’, whilst their closest competitor was selling Camry’s for $18,999 making a $600 profit on the ‘Front-End’.All of the competitors were complaining to the factory that my mentor’s dealership must have been getting the cars cheaper than they were and they were loosing all of their customers.

Here’s how it was possible, my mentors dealership knew their metrics and understood the business ‘Back-End’ strategy and they knew that on average every new car they sold people would spend on average an extra $1,400 in extras, so what looked like a $400 loss was in reality a $1,000 profit.

See the other key strategy they employed was to offer a value package with every vehicle, which would include things like, security system, insurance, sports add-ons, etc, which was made up of high margin items, so the retail price of the package was say $3,000 and customers could get it for $1,400 if they purchased now, plus if they took the value pack option they would get their finance for 4% instead of 6% making it an absolute no-brainer of a deal.

This is just one example of the power of knowing your metrics and ‘Back-End’.

Join the successful minority today, build your database and focus on your Back-End!!

Aaron Parsons.