Be a Machine
Those who work harder will be more profitable overall. We are not claiming that working “harder” is more advantageous than working “smarter.” You actually need to work harder with more raw man-hours AND work smarter by using evolving Best Practices to maximize your financial gain. Unlike the majority of business strategies, which are mostly theoretical, this is a mathematically sound principle that works virtually every time. The good news is that it applies to everyone and can seemingly work miracles. So if you are trying to evolve your business faster than your competition, one way to produce more, be more efficient and get a critical jump on those competitors is by putting in longer, harder hours of labor.
For example, a person who works eighty hours a week instead of forty is not necessarily twice as profitable proportionally; she’s more than likely three times as profitable due to economies of scale gained from focused work time. In the charitable world, someone who works twice as many hours could help three times as many people compared to their “competitor.” A naturally better worker could be even more than three times effective.
Even though working heavy hours is essential on the path to success, some may feel this particular aspect of business is not worth the sacrifice. Undertaking the responsibility of business management is a personal decision. In this case, and throughout this book, we are simply disclosing methods of those who have been successful. Whether or not it’s a good idea to attempt to follow in their footsteps is up to you.
Aside from a good work ethic, a realistic general plan or a comprehensive written business plan will ultimately facilitate positive results—provided you actually follow it closely. Much of society is already working hard, but if they were to work more hours and apply themselves to a serious plan, they could achieve the lives of their dreams.
Fledgling businesspeople often don’t realize how close they are to a major success. In most cases, success is just around the corner with a few years of hard work applied properly to their industry. Many people may not recognize the weaknesses or complacencies in their competition. They could easily underestimate the size of their global market, or they might not understand that with a couple of extra hours of work per day, they could uncover and develop ideas that would produce large new advances in corporate productivity.
Competitors often work just hard enough to stay on par or barely above the rest. So if your team makes an aggressive push forward in the marketplace, the competition could easily be blindsided and fall behind. Your top business competitors might feel they don’t need to try their hardest because too many other possible competitors, like you, don’t step up to the plate.
The more hours that you work early on, the more money you will be able to put away in order to invest in a new business or provide cash flow for your family. In a new business, you might not be paid for a while, so the padding created from long hours at your last “job” is critical.
Once you are ahead there should be no turning back. Remain at full speed until you exit your market by either selling your company, merging with another company, going public, or letting your underlings take control—or just live on the dividends (distributions of profits) and pass them on to your children. The compounding effects of your efforts will bring you more money faster, thereby creating more leverage and freedom to use how and when you choose for your next charity or business project.
If invested carefully, the extra money you put away year after year from all your overtime labor will compound. Compounding produces a snowball effect because interest earnings grow from an ever-increasing baseline each year as long as you reinvest the distributions and dividends. The effect of compounding is that extra earnings continue to rise each successive year unlike simple interest monies that don’t compound.
Overall, hard work might not be the only disparity separating the rich from the poor, but it certainly enhances any other advantages the average professional brings to the economic table. Lawyers, doctors and other high-end professionals, for example, make more money than most partly because they’ve put in more hours in school and at work.
Working hard isn’t easy by definition, yet understanding the processes that lead to success is right at your fingertips. Pay attention to the ideas that are being offered informally all around you: by mentors, in books and periodicals, on business TV and radio, and especially all over the Internet. However, make sure you filter for just the best information out of the masses. By putting in the time to do proper research you will find most of what you need is freely accessible.
Spending peaceful time contemplating all of your options to see how they fit together and then “gaming” out every possible success scenario will help you make better decisions. Creating flowcharts can be helpful because, in theory, it allows you to understand all your options and their possible respective results, helping you choose your best bets to pursue.
In running your business, doing the actual work involved may entail long hours and some stress. On the other hand, this could also empower you to retire in a third of the amount of time it would normally take—and that could allow for a more relaxing second half of your life. Here’s how: if you are working twice as many hours and gaining the added efficiency that scale offers, you are likely to be three times as productive. Therefore, you should make three times more money in that same period and potentially retire in a third of the time. One successful businessman was quoted as saying, “You get to work half days the rest of your life. Any 12 hours will do.” We think instead you can possibly work half days for just 1/3 of your life.
Being successful in business is not necessarily an easier life for you. In the long run, however, it could be more rewarding and fun. So get to it! Don’t procrastinate on the difficult projects ahead; hopefully, your competitors are doing just that. You will be better prepared for the future if you proactively take hold of the present.
