The Four Foundational Principles For Dynamic Business Growth with Bill Prater – ep 80

Mostafa Hosseini  00:02

And we’re live Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, your host for the show at daily confidence. We share tips, strategies and actionable advice that you can use and practice to boost your confidence when it comes to running your business on a daily basis. Today, I have a dear friend as my guest, Bill Prater. Welcome, sir.

Bill Prater  00:24

Great to be here, my good friend.

Mostafa Hosseini  00:27

Good to see you. So during this episode, we’re talking about the four foundational principles for dynamic business growth, why you must focus on the vital few and ignore the trivial trivial many, which is my favorite topic, the 8020. I’m just a big fan of that the most important thing a business owner can do to maximize productivity, and how to build the foundation of your business before all else. Now, a few housekeeping items.

This Friday, we’re doing a a training on how to build and create your one page marketing plan for 2022. New Year is just around the corner. And we’re going to run this live workshop, we’re going to be on Zoom. And it’ll be on Friday at 11am. So if you’re interested in creating our strategy for 2020, to take holidays, knowing exactly what you’re going to do. You know, on the first day of January, well, not the first day, probably a second or third day, I’ll give you a day off. And then you can start building your business from there.

So the link is if you’re listening to this is precisely doc.com forward slash simple. There won’t be a replay, show up live. We’re going to have fun. It’ll be interesting. So my guest today is Bill Prater. I have known Bill for a while now let me do the proper bio. And we’re gonna dive into a very interesting conversation. Bill Prater, founder and CEO of business mastery and the creator of scale ology. Scale, ology. And build earned his reputation as America’s business Alchemist by helping business owners and entrepreneurs break free of inertia, inertia and X accelerate into the future they dream up. He loves nothing better than sharing what he has learned by working with those who are dissatisfied with the status quo and eager to transform themselves and their business.

He created scale up scale ology and the business mastery system as the core foundational principles of dynamic and continuous business growth. A typical client client of his sees their economy or company, rising to a position of preeminence and is not satisfied with just getting to the next level. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Prater  02:53

Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you introduce me in that eloquent fashion. Great

Mostafa Hosseini  02:58

to see you my friend. Bill. We’re about are you?

Bill Prater  03:03

I am in Phoenix, Arizona.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:05

And what’s the temperature the like? Fahrenheit

Bill Prater  03:09

right now? It’s about 77 degrees.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:12

Seven days that warm for you guys?

Bill Prater  03:16

No, that’s that is a plus beautiful as centigrade would be a little bit lower number but exactly the same feeling though.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:25

So it’s not cold as I am. No, no,

Bill Prater  03:29

it’s not cold. It’s cold in Calgary, but not cold in Phoenix.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:32

You know, this time this year has been surprisingly warm. For Calgary for this time of year, like it would be like minus 1015 20 degrees Celsius, which is pretty cool. Freezing below zero. But this year, it’s like it was raining today. So we’re waiting for a call to come. I am waiting to go for the lakes to free so I can go skate on him before Christmas.

Bill Prater  03:59

That’s one of my good luck with that. Good luck with that. Yeah, my brother lives right down the road from you and northern Idaho. And he’s told me the same story a little earlier today.

Mostafa Hosseini  04:08

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So we’re talking about the 404 financial principles for dynamic business growth. But before we get into that, Bill, what is your story? How did you get into what you’re doing now?

Bill Prater  04:23

totally by accident. Yeah. So I had founded an investment banking firm, kind of a stupid thing to start from scratch really jump into the deep end of the pool right off the bat, but investment banking, simplistically stated, that’s a store where a business owner goes to get money, and so we raised debt and equity, you know, and typically five to $50 million pieces, ultimately raised about $1,700,000,000 worth of money and then ultimately, after a struggle, which I’m sure we’ll get into in a few seconds, I sold my business in 1999. And then went into my current business, which is business mastery consulting,

Mostafa Hosseini  05:15

you got if you went to our front, you went from investment banking into business consulting, right.

Bill Prater  05:23

And I mentioned that it was by accident. And what had happened is that, as I, as we raised more and more money for our clients, I got more and more frightened, because I realize that our money was at risk in in the hands of people that were, in simple terms, average business owners. And so my money was at risk. And so I was trying to figure out, you know, can I get it back, when I make a return on my investors going to be unhappy, and that I was very agonizing time, Mustapha, and particularly, since I was trying to position my company for selling it, too.

So problems were increasing dramatically. And everybody, all my clients, all the consultants, all business schools, everybody, I turned to said, every business is different. They all run their companies differently. And Bill, you just gotta suck it up and realize that you’re in a mess, because you’re involved in so many businesses. Well, I decided not to buy into that story, I just couldn’t imagine that there would be that much differences, although that’s the way I had grown up. But my degree is in economics. So I’ve been in business since I was 18 years old, a variety of levels. And then one day, I ended up, I guess, bawling to, in a crate show to a competitor.

And she said to me, because she didn’t know anything at all about my agony, but she knew that I was trying to grow my company and or position my company to be sold. And she told me, Hey, Bill, you’re you’re trying to emulate the wrong people in the investment banking industry. Now, she could have said in the, in the in the hospital industry, or she could have said in the consulting industry. Later on, I learned that what she was saying applied to everything. But she said, you’re looking at the right in the wrong places. Bill, you’re looking at things called industry standards and norms and best practices, and so forth.

And instead, you’ve got to look at the the very apex of the industry, where the leaders are and look at what they’re doing. And you’ll find out they don’t not do the same things as the companies in the middle do. And luckily, when I started with her permission, looking at her company, and then others, I started realizing, Oh, actually, I’m not that far away, I can actually read rebuild my business right now. And I was able to do in about two and a half years. Go from the middle of my industry to the near the top, from a from a attractiveness standpoint. And I sold my business in 1999 to a large Wall Street investment bank.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:29

Beautiful, beautiful. So, Bill, what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

Bill Prater  08:37

So I basically serve small and medium sized business owners that are fundamentally in the b2b space. Now over the years, I’ve had a few that have sold directly to consumers. But generally, these are companies selling goods and services to other businesses. And so that’s my core avatar, if you will, or client and but all of them have in common that they’re privately held businesses.

I’ve never been interested in and spend any time with publicly traded companies, size wise. They range from really little sub $100,000 a year in revenue, sometimes, all the way up to some that are from a private company standpoint, quite large, might get into the low, one or $2 billion revenue range. So it’s a huge spectrum, but in common, they’re privately held businesses.

09:41

Got it. Beautiful, beautiful. So

Mostafa Hosseini  09:47

and then again, just just so I’m clear, you helped his businesses with their finances or there’s more to it, and I’m sure there’s more to it.

Bill Prater  09:56

Yeah, there’s basically a lot more to it. And in the end, the core of what I do is first kind of breaking the paradigm that most business owners have about growing a business 90% 95% are trying to grow their business in totally the wrong way. So once I can get them to understand that what they’re doing isn’t working.

And frankly, the more seasoned must offer the company owner is, in other words, by that I mean, the longer they’ve been frustrated with their lack of success, the more likely they are to believe me, when I say discard everything you’ve been told by, by the Free Will the geniuses within your industry, who are telling you to do some things a certain way, the more seasoned somebody is, then they’ve experienced that, and I don’t have to explain it to them. And they say, Okay, I know what I’m doing isn’t working, I got all the events in the world. So that’s kind of a common denominator that they have. It’s like they

Mostafa Hosseini  11:07

have convinced themselves to, to move forward, they’re convinced that their method is not working. They have had enough time.

Bill Prater  11:15

Ideally, they’ve already convinced themselves, because in often what that what has happened is that they’ve actually tried a whole bunch of things, you know, they, they they have certainly, if there are smaller service provider companies, one of the big killers is getting attracted into what’s like what you and I would call the internet marketing space. And so they think well, gee, internet marketing, I’d like to be on the internet.

So I’ll go listen to those people. And I’ll do what they say, Well, maybe. But normally, the experiences most people have is it didn’t work very well for them. And oftentimes, it’s a mismatch with their company, and where they are, and so forth. And once they have realized that the path they’re on isn’t working, then they’re more opening open to something else. Got

Mostafa Hosseini  12:08

1. Now, Bill, what are the four foundational principles that you talked about?

Bill Prater  12:15

Well, it’s an acronym, it’s actually an acronym that that I created. To kind of simplify things for people, because what I discovered is that, for example, business, when you say, somebody says, I’m a business owner, they it’s what I call a container word. So somebody’s idea of what a business is, isn’t the same as somebody else’s idea. And that can go on for a broad spectrum there because there’s zillions of types of businesses, and yet the container word, when somebody hears that they put it into the, into their own experiences. And they say, Well, I know what a business is. It’s a it’s a coaching company.

That’s not a business, but they might think that, so I created an acronym, which I call idea, I D, E, A, and it’s the four foundational principles of the, of the model, which I call it’s an MI company to but the model is called the Business mastery system. I d ay. Ay is basically, to have an A imagination, or a destination, or a vision, but I narrowed down the word and call it an intention. A lot of people will sort of dream up where they want to go. And it’s sort of floats around loosely in their mind. So for example, in some of our listeners may have been looking forward someday to be a princess when they were in kindergarten.

Well, that’s kind of loosely kind of loose and vague. And if you think about that, of all the people that think I’d like to be a princess, only a only a few do that. And the few that, do it end up converting that dream into an intention, meaning simply, I intend to become a princess. And I’ll do whatever it takes along the way to do the things necessary to become a princess. And at the very least, if you weren’t born into royalty, you’ve got to identify a potential Prince. And then you got to figure out how to romance the prince, then you got to figure out how to get the prince to propose to you or vice versa.

And then you’ve got to be able to say yes, get accepted by the Royal Family, and then you become a princess, a dream and do that. Same with business. Just thinking Whatever.

Mostafa Hosseini  15:02

But that would be a hell of a course if you would sell that.

Bill Prater  15:06

Yeah, literally, yeah, just that much. And so so that’s the i Four, I just simply call it intention.

Mostafa Hosseini  15:13

All right. And so what is d stand for? So

Bill Prater  15:16

now, as it turns out, we’ve talked about ordinary companies and ordinary companies, or some some of them, in fact, not all, unfortunately. But, but they can talk to you about part one of this. And that is a marketing plan, the word plan. Very few companies actually have anything like a marketing plan, let alone a business plan. And those that do, you really don’t know what the hell it is.

And so why to use is the term d for design meaning that took to change up your concept of whatever a plan should be, and instead convert it to a blueprint. Or if you will, a game plan a step by step by step blueprint of how you’re going to get from here to there. And on Friday, ladies and gentlemen, Mustapha is going to do his magic, relative to getting all of marketing literally condensed down into one single piece of paper. And so that’s an idea of the converting a plan into a blueprint. And that’s what you’ll he’ll show you on Friday. You

Mostafa Hosseini  16:37

know, I was I was thinking, like, right before we started, I’m like, Why do I like build so much. And, and, and I’m not joking. And I just refreshed in my mind that when we spoke with literally spoke the same language when we were connecting. And so I appreciate that. So D, AI is for imagination, or intention, D is for design. And then what are the E stands for? Well, I

Bill Prater  17:01

is taking imagination and converting it to an intention, D is taking a fuzzy sort of a plan and converting it into a design. So it is very, very vital. Now, unfortunately, almost everybody has been taught the wrong stuff. And so those of us that have employees, and in my case, while I have my investment bank, I did well over 120 of them. It people are taught that if you are busy, that’s equal to being productive, and it’s the furthest thing from it.

So employees love to look busy, because if they, they feel like if they aren’t busy, then their boss is going to say get busy. I remember when I was when I was a little kid, my grandmother lived right next door, wonderful situation, she was right next door. And she used to say me, something would happen, whatever it would be, a cat would put wood claws and furniture and she’d say, Billy, do something about that. And I jump up, and I look around the room and I get all start old and I take some action, completely the wrong thing to do, she should have said something like, Billy, pay attention, notice the environment, think about what’s happening, and see if maybe there might be some thing you could do. So E stands for execution.

It’s completely the opposite of action. I teach my clients to forget about action, we don’t need any action whatsoever, all we need is the result. We need to get things done. If they can get just literally one thing done a day. And if they can get their employees or staff to get just one thing done today, if it’s the right thing, that execution will produce stunningly amazing results. So e is execution, I intention D design, e execution.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:11

And A is so

Bill Prater  19:13

a so most businesses operate in sort of a cycle. So think about, you’ve got a business to $2 million. And at the end of this next year 2022. We’re going to be at two 2 million. We’re gonna go from one to two, get the one to two. And this is another enormous misunderstanding of business owners and all kinds of all people they can do think somehow and other things a business can grow seamlessly. You can start as a solopreneur and you just work at work at work it and then you’re doing seven figures and then you’re doing a and then you’re doing eight 812 12 figures. It doesn’t work like that. All, businesses do not grow seamlessly. If you’re a solopreneur, you’re never going to be doing $2 million. I don’t know anybody. I myself, when I, when I used to run my business by myself, I was a seven figure solopreneur. I’ve got a couple of clients that are, but I don’t know any eights, I’ll get to what you have to do in the meantime.

But the A stands for accelerate. And what that means it’s a time where you need to take a reflection to look at your current situation, determine where you are, at, buckle on to it, where are you intend to get to over the next period of time. And once you’ve gotten that together, it’s time to assemble the resources that you need to get you into the next level.

So intention, design, execute, and then accelerate, which is a time for refreshment, and reorganization in lunching, once again, Friday, you’re going to learn how to put together a one page marketing plan, which is part of the design for the if you will the entire company gameplan. Chris,

Mostafa Hosseini  21:15

you. Thanks for the reminder. So similar to what you just said. Without the imagination that can turn Converse into an intention. It looks like you would hear me say if you don’t have a goal, you want to hear me say it’s impossible to achieve a goal that you don’t have. It’s impossible to achieve a vision or an imagination that you don’t have. So you have to sit down and get your imagination intention straight and make it very clear.

And to the point. Next point, like you need to design a blueprint, like you said, to help you reach that intention and the imagination and the goal. If you don’t have it, which most people don’t, then it’s going to be pretty hard. You know, look, here’s an example people say I want $100,000 Well, how are you gonna get it? Oh, I don’t know. I’m praying on it. I prayed for 40 years. It didn’t get me a hunter grant. Right. But it’s like that the blueprint and this strategy and the step by step profitless process, like you mentioned, that helps us get there.

And again, like you said, we need to execute that designed blueprint. I know a lot of people that have a plan, and do squat with it. It’s like usually sitting somewhere collecting dust, either physical dust or digital dust, and love your your love your acronym would accelerate that at some point, do it you need to accelerate. Bill I heard in a book, saying that people try to accelerate when they reach at the end of a decade in their age, like in their 20s 30s 40s 50s. All of a sudden, they turn, you know, another decade comes to an end. They’re like, oh, I need to accelerate.

Bill Prater  23:12

Right, right. Yeah. So that’s absolutely right. Now, that’s a little long to wait, I recommended that we do this on sort of an annual cycle. This runs the entire idea once once a year or faster if you want to grow faster. I think what happens most often is a lot of solopreneurs will start with solopreneurs a lot of people end up starting out in business that way. There are four things, every business must have their requirements.

If you don’t have these four, you’re just somebody working for somebody else. And number one is you need to have a vehicle, a vehicle to deliver the goods and services to the client. And that includes the marketing and advertising and selling and putting things on trucks or in the Digital Highway and get them to people it’s a vehicle number one gotta have a vehicle. Number two, you’re going to have a driver you’re gonna have somebody that operate the vehicle somebody that day to day knows how to do all that stuff to get this vehicle moving down the if you will, the digital or physical road to deliver the goods and services.

Number three, you’ve got to have a crew you’ve got to have a people that will keep the vehicle running at a fine tuned well oiled smooth running basis so it doesn’t stumble and crash and not get there and in create problems and cast with the customers and so forth. And number four you need an owner you need somebody to own this whole thing. Is a solopreneur you get the the gift of doing all for your the vehicle I mean literally many solopreneurs deliver with just high heels. But some might use a tricycle or a bicycle, but it’s still a single person powered vehicle. And when people say to me, I can’t grow my business, I say to them, you’ve got a single person powered vehicle.

Nobody tells anybody that stuff. Instead, they just, they what I find the biggest mistake made by solopreneurs is investing in this vehicle over and over again, it’s like somebody that’s that that has a perfectly fine bicycle, that will get them from A to B in a pretty good fashion, let’s say 12 miles an hour, but then they’ll get convinced they need fancy wheels to graphite wheels. And it was so many ounces and fewer spokes, and then this great drive train that’s made by Shimano. And it’s fantastic. And then it gives us great saddle and on and on.

And pretty soon, they’ve got a $30,000 bicycle, and they’re still got a human powered vehicle, delivering the goods and services. And then people will say to me, I don’t understand why I can’t grow. And I said, Well, you got a $50,000 bicycle, at least. So but if you’re going to grow, you’ve got to switch out these components.

And step one is you need a new vehicle. And mo for most people, it’s something that I am using is staying in the the vehicle space, then it’s going to be as I don’t deal with some sort, it’s got to be at least broken down Honda, but something that allows you to have a few people with you and it goes a little faster, it may be goes number 100 times 50 times faster than the bicycle, it will deliver. Even if it’s a crappy, ugly, rusted thing, your goods and services five to 10 times better.

So instead of investing in your bicycle, switch to a automobile. So that’s kind of one thing that needs to happen. And we’ve got, you know, get some other, if you will growth stages, but that at least gets I think some of our smaller listeners Mustapha, an idea of why they aren’t able to grow because they haven’t switched their vehicle out.

Mostafa Hosseini  27:37

So for what I gathered, and correct me if I’m wrong, what you just said is people are spending money on bells and whistles. Instead of getting in it an engine for their bike, there you go, which could be could be driving the bicycle. Now they have, like, they have now a bicycle with, let’s say, aluminum rims. Yep, worth $50,000. But you still have to bust your butt and paddle. And someone else just spent 10 grand on an engine and their vehicle is running a lot faster and more efficient. Now I’m still paddling up, you know, uphill, and you’re, you know, sweating and all that. Correct,

Bill Prater  28:19

correct. Yeah. Or or, you know, think about just a little mini coma Vesper, a Vesper scooter, it will get the job done much better than a $50,000. Bicycle, the job meaning deliver the goods and services, that’s the purpose of, of the vehicle. Yeah, absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:36

Give me a give us some tips as to how to figure that out as to here is an essential thing to invest in, versus bells and whistles for business. So like, what are bezels bells and whistles for business? What are some examples? And what is essential to spend money on? Well,

Bill Prater  29:00

so for a look, and you and I have friends that have these sorts of things, colleagues of ours? What will most often I belong to a group of collaborators? And there was a question that came down the road I think was just last week, literally. And somebody asked, and most of them are solopreneurs asked, you know, what’s the best way? What’s the best software to keep track of, of our coaching hours and stuff? I’m thinking, Ah, interesting.

That’s a good example of a bell and whistle. Now, if you happen to have a company that has yourself and five or six other coaches, something like that would be if using Mustafa’s turn, be like an engine, it’s something pretty vital, but if you’re a solopreneur I think you can get by with an index card. But But when unfortunately, the people Selling, those kinds of software’s do it really well.

And so they end up converting what would work great for somebody with a vehicle, or with an automobile, but works terrible with a with, if you will the bicycle. So that’s one example. And if you look at I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to I don’t know if you remember the questions, were asking me stuff or not. But but if you look at those answers, you’ll see that they’re just a big bunch of lists of bells and whistles.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:27

Oh, yeah. Okay. Another thing I had popped in my mind is I saw a guy working on the design of his business card, spending hours and days, so much money on it. I’m like, I don’t even have a business card anymore. If you want me search me on Google or on LinkedIn, let’s connect and chat. I’ll send you a my calendar link. But But yeah, sorry, Christophe luck. I could have a very simple business card and it will do the job.

Bill Prater  31:02

Precisely, accurately, I saw somebody that that showed a logo. It was on LinkedIn, I saw this and somebody said, Hey, then they’d spend $100, on Fiverr, and they had this logo. And then what do you what do you think of the logo? And I’m thinking, Okay, I mean, it’s a logo, I don’t know, I can’t imagine that logo design is going to be something on your business on your marketing plan for Friday it if it’s okay to have it, but it will not make a difference at all.

 And but unfortunately, you know, there in that case, was only $50. But it could have been 500, or 1000, or 5000. And Mostafa, you and I see this stuff all the time, but people are totally miss investing. And, and they’ve got to realize that there are there are four things you have to have as a business owner, which is specifically the vehicle, the driver, the crew and the owner. And if you’re a solopreneur, you are all four.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, some of the plants I have have moved what I’ll call the to the, if you will the top phase, they have an entirely different business, it’s got nothing to do with revenue, none of that stuff. It’s just the way the business is owned. And I liken that to having a Formula One racecar. If you’ve got a Formula One racecar, believe me, that thing is much more capable of delivering the goods and services really quick, really quick. However, you’d be crazy, if you thought you were going to be the driver, you need to have a Formula One driver instead. So when people get to that point, it dawns on them, I shouldn’t be driving this thing. I need a CEO or Chief Operating Officer and various things like that, because I don’t want to touch this this thing.

Also, if they when people get to that point, they realize they can’t go to the local mechanics. If he went to local schools auto shop and get a crew for the Formula One car, then work, you’ve got to get a world class crew that can service that vehicle and in 14.7 seconds and get it back on the track that is an A a crew as an A player. And then finally, people with that kind of a situation realize their job is only to be the owner, not to be the crew, not to be the driver, and certainly not to be the vehicle with the high heeled shoes.

Mostafa Hosseini  33:50

Absolutely, as you were just saying to Formula One example. I’ve seen a lot of people that make some money. And there are video videos of supercar failures, where they buy some Lamborghini or Ferrari and they’re not a Lamborghini driver, they get behind the will. And within I’ve seen examples of the same day car crashes like they take over today and a crash a $200,000 car a half million dollar car the same day you come back crying, oh my god, like a five year old boy.

Bill Prater  34:21

In fact, Mustapha carrying with the same idea, one of my clients, a few years back, a soul, Italian sportscars so Maseratis and Ferraris and things like that. So I asked him, I said he, David. David, what percentage of the people that buy cars from you can actually drive them and he knew what I meant by drive them is just what you just said. Not turn them on and drive 100 yards, but drive them and he said, less than one and 50.

 Wow, less than one in four. And then people say to me, Bill, How is it? How is it that people that have a $500 million company still still come to you and say, Hey, Bill, I need we need your help to double, triple 10x. Our company, what did they do that they already have all this gone? Well, the truth is they’ve got they’ve got something wobbling in their vehicle, or their crew. I mean, they’ve got maybe 3000 employees. But if you look at them, from a critical standpoint, maybe three or 4% are legitimate A players, the rest of them are just cannon fodder.

And they’re, they’re just filling up slots. But if you look at a company that’s at the apex, you’re oops, I see something goofy didn’t know.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:48

What happened there? Well,

Bill Prater  35:51

a piece of software on my end froze. So we’re going to do this and see if it works. Otherwise, I’m gonna switch cameras.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:59

Pro webcam, connect your camera. That’s, that’s,

Bill Prater  36:02

that’s a piece of software on my end, it should it should resolve I’ve never had that happen ever before. If

Mostafa Hosseini  36:09

you click on that, Cam, or cam and mic option, it should give you an option to switch it.

Bill Prater  36:16

I’m going to here we go. We have now switched.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:23

Alright, you’re back.

Bill Prater  36:24

I’m back. I’m back in a little different. Hopefully, I’m squared away.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:28

No, you’re looking good.

Bill Prater  36:31

Okay, that was that was fun. So how long does How long did that happen for?

Mostafa Hosseini  36:35

Probably just a few seconds. Okay, good.

Bill Prater  36:38

We’re fine.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:39

So we talked about companies, you were talking about massive companies that say 500 million to you help and people were asking, What’s their problem? What is what is it that they want or need that they don’t have?

Bill Prater  36:54

Right? Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, they may have, for example, gone beyond I mean, they’ve realized that they shouldn’t be using a bicycle, or even a motorcycle, and they’ve got some sort of vehicle, but many of them. You know, the biggest problem I see when people finally graduate to that point, is that they insist on being the driver.

So when you insist on being the driver, you’re the one that’s behind the wheel, you’re the one determining the speed, you’re the one making all the decision to sign and go left, right, and so forth, and so on. The rest of your company is sitting in the vehicle with you, you’re dragging them along, they’re, they’re dependent on you. And the truth of matter is, and the best way I can put this is even if this vehicles bus, there’s a limit to how much really you can you can do with that situation. So at least what we need to do is I need to teach people how to extract themselves out of the driver’s seat and put somebody else in that is more capable, when they are able to do that they are starting to gravitate towards being a an owner sent an owner business, which is Team centric.

So when somebody is in that position, Mustapha, I call that a, a boss centric business, everything goes through the boss. And that’s just another example of a of a barrier of a limit to people, and they get there, and they don’t understand it. Because we’ve been over this couple of times. All of us were taught maybe intentionally, that the path to success is to work harder and harder and struggle and try and expand your eight hours to 10 hours to 12. Why stop at 12 Go to 24. And why stopping five days go to seven. And then people written in they do that and they realize all they’ve done is worth themselves out and have not gotten any place.

That’s why I keep saying seasoned people understand and come to me and pay me 1000s of dollars a month to help them because they realize that they’ve gotten to some place where they are stuck. Maybe it’s 10 million a year, maybe it’s 100,000 a year, but there’s always a reason. So figure out the reason. Change out modified replace whatever’s necessary. And that kind of goes through this acceleration phase that I talked about. I’m really I’m typically the person that’s identifying that and resetting all the dials and getting people launched on a new path.

And that applies to little Bitsy micro companies solopreneurs all the way up to people with 1000s of employees, but it’s always the same thing and that is I D E. Once we get those identified and operating smoothly on an ongoing basis. There’s no limit how fast people can grow. Literally now I’ve got a handful of private clients, all of my private clients 100% had record years last year, some of you may remember, we had pandemic last year, many people shut down everything, almost every government shutdown everything.

Many people have been taught to, to play the hand, you’re dealt, play the hand, you’re dealt, deal with the circumstances, I reject all that stuff. I reject, frankly, almost everything that’s taught to business owners, by business rules, goals, consultants, business books, all of that, because it’s all designed for the middle. If you think about, you know, I talked about these pennies, shiny pennies and things like that. Those are sold to people in the middle of the industry.

No, no, nobody with it with a company in the top one 2%. Even though even a somebody that’s a solopreneur. And they’re making a million dollars, they don’t buy those kinds of things. They don’t invest in logos and business cards.

Mostafa Hosseini  41:04

Absolutely. Absolutely. So speaking of growing during the pandemic, and how fast people could grow, what is what are some of the most important things that business owners can do and must focus on to maximize their productivity?

Bill Prater  41:22

So actually, you can mention that earlier, when you said focus on the vital few and ignore the trivial many. And a lot of people really have difficulty with that. Because, because it’s easy to say, oh, yeah, I understand the 8020 rule. I understand that, well, that’s almost a container word. Some people don’t know what it is. But what it is it says that it’s proven over and over and over and over again, that 20% of the inputs produce 80% of the output.

So if you can figure out what the 20% of the inputs are, let’s call that effort or work or goals or whatever. In focus your time there, you’ll get 80% of the output. Now, nothing wrong with 80%, you can you can you can double, triple 10x, your business pretty well, getting 80% of the stuff done all the time. But I take it a couple levels further. Now, so I embrace the 8020 rule, but the best thing you can do is take what I call Pareto to the third power.

Now Pareto didn’t invent the 8020 rule, he had a different thing a guy named Joseph Duran invented that deal. But Pareto to the third power simply says, do 8022 more times 20% equals 80 presented, but if we do it again, and I’d say to people, what’s most people can do this math? What’s 20% of 22 times two is four, right? 4% of the input produces? Okay, let’s do it over here. 80%. So let’s take 80% of 80, or eight times eight, that’s 64, telling us that 4% of our inputs effort, produces 64. Output.

Yep. So that’s pretty cool. That’s not if you can figure out the 4%, then you’ll get 64% of stuff done. That’s almost two thirds, and then Pareto to the third power. So let’s do it one more time. People have hard with it. With this 24%. If you take if you take 20% of four, it’s point eight, oh, let’s round it up. It’s one. So 1% of your effort produces 80% of 64. So 80% 6014. So when you crunch crunch, crunch, it’s about 52 point something.

So let’s call it 50%. So one, input produces half the output. So the best thing that people can do is figure out the most vital thing to do every single day and do it, you’ll get half the stuff you intended to get done. Candidly, if that’s all you didn’t go home, and you get half your work done. Okay, that’s a pretty good deal. So I work very hard and teaching my clients, whether they’re private clients, or what some of the ones I’ve identified or people that are in my community, the people in the community, I teach them, let’s figure out the 1% and get that done on Friday.

That’s exactly what people say how in the world can Mostafa get them whole marketing plan one piece of paper because he’s running that exercise and getting it all distilled down. So he’s got these little, little, super valuable things on that list and getting those things done? Believe me, business cards won’t make the cut list logos won’t make the cut. Investing in Infusionsoft when you’re a solopreneur won’t make the cut.

Having a CRM when you’re a solopreneur won’t make the cut. All those things are complete ly wonderfully attractive and work well. If you’ve got a list an automobile or a Formula One car, but not when you’re solopreneur. So don’t keep investing in your little business. Switch it out. Switch it out. Add, as Mostafa just told us add an engine.

Mostafa Hosseini  45:30

I appreciate the shout out the 8020 principle changed my life for the better. Yeah, I actually I actually created a course on how to apply it. Because I come across people I’m like, do you know 8020? They’re all like, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I know it. Like have you applied it? I think only 1% of people that know the 8020 actually apply. So very interesting. Very interesting. Very great.

Bill Prater  46:02

I caught Pareto to the third power. By the way, I do it every single day. So I’ll give people little a little insight. And I know we’re wrapping up in about nine minutes to go here. So a little insight is this. Every day I go through this exercise, it’s easy to do I recommend you do it, you simply say you want to look at today or yesterday, you can even do it in the morning or the evening. So let’s pretend we’re do it in the evening.

So based on everything that I did today, everything that I did today, am I closer to or further away from my intention? aka my vision? Am I closer to? And the answer is binary, don’t beat yourself up is no value in that just simply answer it? Because the next question is the most vital. And that is what is the most vital thing I can do tomorrow. That takes me the furthest way down the road towards my intention, which began as a vision.

And every day I do that. So every single day, I know. Absolutely. The one thing that is the most vital thing to do now, do I always get it done? No. Does something get in my way? Sometimes? Yeah, I just go through the same exercise. Am I closer to or farther away? Okay, I got it. What’s the most vital next day and I have that pattern going on? And on and on? I used to have all of my employees do the same thing.

And I would ask them when I see them. What’s the most vital thing for you today? And they better have an answer that had an impact of at least half of the stuff they need to get done that day. That because we’ve just been through purrito third power, one thing is worth half the stuff you’re going to do tomorrow. So get that one thing done. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:53

And I asked that question as well. The one question, right. Some days my answer is nothing today. What do you what do you say to that?

Bill Prater  48:08

Oh, I love that nothing today. In fact, one of the one of my stuff is thanks for the she’s setting me up. So he knows that one of my graduation ceremony, people said, Well, how do people ever graduate with you? Yeah, sometimes people wouldn’t be for 10 years or more. Yes, that’s true. But what’s the graduation ceremony, I call it make the coffee management. It’s it’s at the point when the company looks at you and they say, Hey, Alice, what brings you here today?

And you say, I’m here to make the coffee. And so that’s the same thing that Mostafa just told us, and that is, yeah, doing nothing at all, is a super vital thing. And so I have a client, he’s 42 years old. He’s got a $15 million dollar business. And here we are in December. He’s going on his fourth rally rally meaning he and a bunch of crazy people are driving in his case Porsches on on a 500 mile trip called a rally.

Why can he do that? Because he’s decided as Mostafa just said, There’s nothing vital for him to do in the business today. His company, his employees are doing fantastic. They’re all a players. They’re all producing, they’re all executing. They’re all producing results. That’s time to if you will, he’s not going to sell his business yet. He’s only 42 years old, but it’s time to Okay, nothing more. I’ve done it all. I’ve got this thing set up at Taman I’m the owner, I can do what I want. And

Mostafa Hosseini  49:43

sometimes it could be like taking a break giving myself some space to for my brain to open up interest of it or you have set it up so beautifully that you will do everyone a favor by just stepping out. I’m sure you know most of the time we need to get the owner I Out of the way so the business could actually grow. Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you just sit there do nothing and let us do the job and grow the business. So Bill, tell us about your gift to

Bill Prater  50:15

the CEO. We’ve got it teed up on the on the screen there. It’s a long path to get there. But, but really, it’s a two stage gift. So I mentioned earlier that the vast majority of my clients are in my community called CEO Alliance.

And fundamentally what that’s all about is helping business owners of all shapes and sizes, most of them are solopreneurs, or what I call solopreneurs. With staff, one or two people, and what we do there, I act as like the general practitioner, think about, you know, if you woke up in the morning had all kinds of aches and pains, you’re unlikely to want to go to a proctologist just in case you guessed right, you’d likely go to general practitioner with a family doctor, if you will, and say, I got aches and pains, what do you think I should do? Well, that’s the role I formed inside the Alliance for our members, helping them figure out what the next tactical thing to do is inside the Alliance.

So what the gift is, is it’s actually two gifts one, so the alliance is $1,500 a year or 150 a month. So gift one is, if you decide it’s good for you, then you’re gonna get a 40% discount compliments of Mustapha and two, you’re gonna get two weeks free to decide if it’s for you or not. So gift one is two weeks free, take a look around if you like it, a gift cash and gift gift to which is a 40% discount, by the way that discount lasts a lifetime. long as you’re a member of the alliance, you get the 40% discount. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:53

Love it, love it. Love it. So gang, if you’re in and built, can you elaborate a little more on what the COI is actually does?

Bill Prater  52:04

Yeah, so. So it’s a it’s an alliance envision a met a mastermind group. And it’s composed of of small to medium sized business owners together with subject matter experts, people that have capabilities to help you, at any point in time, solve the most pressing vital business problems. So that’s what the alliance is. To get that all done. We do have a variety of things. It’s a five day a week, kind of open 24/7. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we’ve got something happening.

For example, one of the things people are just amazed that one of my colleagues has a service called Read It For Me It’s a $500 annual product, and we get it for free. So everybody inside the Alliance gets that same thing. $500 value for free. I think that comes out on Tuesdays. And Thursdays we have a live event one of our subject matter experts, sometimes it’s me, we talk about a topic, whatever the topic may be for the week, we do that 52 times a year.

Every Wednesday, I introduced a mini course it’s a short course about a certain topical thing, some of which we touched on today for example, and then inside just kind of a magical thing. There are actually small mastermind groups with in the overall CEO alliance for example, if your current emphasis is on let’s say on copywriting there’s a there’s a roundtable inside to help you become a better writer of marketing copy in copying so it’s a very feature rich membership

Mostafa Hosseini  54:00

miss nothing so this is a CEO alliances a mastermind membership where gang you would get a two week free trial and you get a 40% discount Bill absolutely knows what he does. I I back up and I’m along with every thought that he has with running a business essentialism at 20. He gets the the what was the determine we use the earlier tribal. Trivial few, okay,

Bill Prater  54:33

yeah. So So So simplifying, the Pareto third power is this focus on the vital few and ignore the trivial many, amazing how valuable ignoring the BS noise, for example, ignore the fact that there’s a pandemic going on. If you let that get in your way, you’re not going to double triple your business this year.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:58

Yeah, absolutely. So hanging out with like minded entrepreneurs who are working and focused on growing their business is vital. If you’re hanging out with your cousin and your brother in law and people who have absolutely no clue what you’re doing, they don’t they’re not business people. It will slow you down by hanging out with amazing people like Bill and his crew, will you it’s like when you hang out with those people you have no, no, no, nothing else to do but becoming smart.

And I’m not joking. I’m serious. Like you hang out with smart people. Eventually you become smarter, smarter, even if you’re trying to ignore everybody. Our mutual friend Jay Fiset says the environment always wins. If you’re in a good environment, the environment will win. So go out there and get access to that and try it out. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed now. I know we’re pressed for time but

Bill Prater  56:01

I have a I have a client banging on my door right now. All right, well, digital door.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:07

I really appreciate you your time. Thank you very much, and gang. I appreciate your joining us if you’re watching or listening make sure you claim Bill’s gift. The COI NS hanging out with him and his crew. And you know reach out if you have questions. The guy has years and years of knowledge, expertise, wisdom and rest of it so you can be confident that he will help you in a good way.

And again, the training the complimentary masterclass on how to create your one page marketing plan is coming up this Friday at 11am. Go to link preside comm forward slash simple sign up and we’ll see you there tiny thank you for joining us. And as usual, make sure to like and subscribe to the show on whichever channel you are watching.

If you have any questions for me or Bill, put them in the chat in the comments and tag a friend who could benefit from the conversation that we just had. Thank you. Have a great day and we will see you later. Thank you Bill.