• “And it’s working like gangbusters. Check out this video below I just got from one of my star pupils, Tellman Knudson.”

    So yesterday I spent about 30 minutes on the phone swapping stories with an old college buddy, Josh.

    I hadn’t spoken to him in years - but he tracked me down on the internet, sent me an email, and eventually it made it into my personal email box.

    So, I called, we caught up, reminisced about our crazy days, and then the conversation turned serious.

    Josh was currently experiencing hard times in his business. He’d noticed all the mentions of me and the success I’ve created for others while trying to find me. He wondered if I would give him some advice.

    I agreed - and cutting to the chase, he lasered in on this crucial question…

    Rich, you’re successful and you’ve made lots of others successful - is there one thing that all successes have in common that the unsuccessful seem to miss?

    And without even a second of thought I shot back, “Leverage”.

    So what exactly is “leverage”?

    Well, one dictionary defines it as “the mechanical advantage or power gained by using a lever.” Sounds simple enough, but you have to read between the lines
    here.

    Listen, success in all areas really comes down to getting the most out of the least. It’s what Jay Abraham and real-estate investors refer to as “highest and best use”.

    To get the highest and best use – you first must be clear about your objectives.

    An example from my personal life - I want to make sure the time I spend with my daughters is quality time that is memorable, shapes their character, is fun, educational, and deepens the bond between us.

    In my business life I want to positively impact as many entrepreneurs as I can and make the business as successful as possible and I want to do it with the least amount of work possible.

    Now that I’m clear about what I want…

    Q: What’s the fastest way to get the most?

    A: Leverage. Leverage is the backbone of success - because no matter whether we’re talking business or personal life… the amount of leverage you create will determine how much success you achieve and how hard you have to work for it.

    Before we get to Tellman’s video, Here are a few ways to get more leverage in your personal life:

    Maintenance work - I don’t do any. I’m not Mr. Handy anyway. Instead we have a handyman come around each month to take care of those tasks.

    Bills - I don’t spend time at home with bills. The bills come to the office and get paid by our accounting dept. When I was just starting out and didn’t have an accounting dept. I made a deal with my accountant and his bookkeeper to handle it all.

    Chores - like keeping the pool clean, and the grass cut… all offloaded to pros - the pool guy, the gardener, etc…

    Alright, before you jump down my throat - don’t miss my point by telling me you can’t afford to lay off these responsibilities on others, because you can.

    In business you can’t do everything either - so the things you do need to net you the maximum. That’s the whole purpose of strategy - how to allocate your scarce resources to maximize your results. And those decisions always come down to where you get the most leverage for your efforts.

    That’s one of the reasons I created the Business Growth System - to assist entrepreneurs by showing them how they could achieve better results while working far less by leveraging the tools I’ve developed and discovered in my work with businesses. On the operations side, activities like process mapping, project management that works, and standard operating procedures provide time-leverage.

    But one of the most powerful places to apply leverage is Marketing….

    For example, in the Attention Age Doctrine 2, I talk at length about gaining leverage by “piggy backing”. That’s the method where you use another’s fame and celebrity to advance your own business by partnering (or piggy-backing) with their name.

    This is simply one of the fastest and easiest ways to take your product from concept to cash-cow. You do all the work–they let you use their name and/or image for a cut of the profits.

    I’ve done this time and time again in every business I’ve owned. For example…

    • When I was in the hypnosis game, I leveraged the compelling stories of high-profile customers to gain valuable attention from the print media (Case in point: my recent blog post about my former client and current New York Governor David Paterson)
    • When I sold a how-to product for poker, I convinced the biggest names in Texas Hold ‘Em to partner with me on it…and blew everyone else out of the water.
    • When I was in the clothing business, I used Madonna’s name, because she was a frequent shopper, to create a media buzz surrounding my store and deliver thousands of curious customers through the doors.
    • As a marketer, I leveraged the reputations of Jay Abraham and Stephen Pierce to help promote a product we all had partnered on…and made millions.

    And those are just a few examples–I have many more. But the point I’m trying to make is this…

    Whether it’s celebrity or social media or something else of intrinsic value, use it to the fullest potential by attaching it somehow to your business to create leverage.

    I can’t stress this enough, it’s one of the mainstays of my business, and probably the one concept I drive home hardest to the students in my top-tier coaching program.

    And it’s working like gangbusters. Check out this video I just got from one of my star pupils, Tellman Knudson.

    Hear more about leverage and how Tellman has been able to make a tremendous difference in his life, and consequently in other people’s lives and businesses.

    So today–right now—Identify the top 3 areas in your life and in your business that you need to get more leverage. What are they and how will you get that leverage? Leave a comment and share your thoughts with me and everyone else. .

    Don’t leave here without doing it because I want to know your thoughts and who knows, there may be more coming to help you in those areas. But you have to tell me first.

    Now, GO!

    Rich