LISTEN TO THE LATEST PODCAST EPISODE:

Blow Through the Obstacles on the Road to Success

SUMMARY

In this episode, we continue our journey down the three phases of business life by digging further into Stage 1 of Phase 1 which is the Decide stage. We talk about the obstacles and challenges that may come up and the ways to navigate them:

1. Are you in the right business?

The right business is the one that is driven by your passion and vision. It serves at a greater level helping people shift their lives, and get solutions
for their problems.

2. Financing: “I don’t have the money to start a business”.

There are different ways to access funds like debt, bootstrapping, crowdfunding and angel funding. We need to think about our capital requirements, costs
as well as the legal costs.

3. I have a hard time finding customers.

To find the right customers you have to create loyalty, connection and relationships. Deliver customer promise by connecting with them at an emotional
level. Know where your customers hang out, communicate and understand what they are looking for.

4. When do I quit my day job?

Before you quit your day job, you have to have a sensible plan and the financial foundation to back you and your family during lean times. Make sure that
the cash flowing in from your part-time endeavor is at least 30% of what you’re making.

5. Should I be an entrepreneur?

Being an entrepreneur means being comfortable with psychological obstacles. Every day an entrepreneur needs to stand with one foot in the bank deposit line
and the other in the unemployment line.

6. Obstacles with respect to legal, tax and money management.

Always make sure that you have proper legal advice. Get your taxes paid up front with a system in-place and get educated about book keeping.

7. Imposter syndrome

You get this fear that you’re going to be found out, you’re not good enough, and maybe you shouldn’t be doing this. Don’t suppress this self-doubt but deal
with it and overpower it.

8. How do we deal with staffing? Who do we hire? How do we hire?

Do value based hiring, coaching and if necessary, firing. Make sure you hire people who have the same or similar values.

9. What is your competitive positioning?

Turn around and stand out in the world while avoiding being just another widget. Think about your competitive positioning and remember your customer and
brand promise.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, I am Mel Abraham the author The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy and welcome back to this episode of The
Entrepreneur’s Solution Show. And in this episode, I want us to continue our journey down the three phases of business life. We touched on and we
introduced and started to dig into it a couple of episodes ago and I want to continue this process until we finish the whole process.

And remember that these are the three phases of Think Up, Get Up and Reach Up that allow you to—whether
you’re launching a new product and you’ve been in business a while, or you’re just thinking of launching a new business – this is the process that starts
to minimize the downside and maximize the upside.

So, when we come back after this short introduction, we’re going to start to dig in further into Stage 1 of Phase 1 which is the Decide
element. And we’re going to talk about some of the obstacles and road blocks and challenges that you may come up against, and what is going to take to
navigate those. And then we’ll step into the piece of understanding how to create an elegant solution for your customers.

And by the way, if you’re looking to get the downloadable tools, the resource guides and all of the information, the takeaways: go ahead and text MYLEGACY
to 38470 and you’ll get a text back with the download link page and give you access that way.

So, go ahead and do that and I’ll see you back real soon.

———————————————–

Hey there, I’m Mel Abraham the author of The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a
business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution Show and I’m real excited about this because we’re going to continue our journey going
through the model that I use when I’m trying to launch a business or I’m in business, and I’m taking a product and I want to launch a new product.

It’s the three phases of what I call business life or product life. And as you recall the three phases are: Think Up, this is the time phase 1.
Think up phase is where you are spending the time trying to understand and come up with the ideas and figure out the models and make some choices and
decisions about what is it that you’re trying to do, who you’re trying to do it with and do all of the intellectual research work here.

And then the second phase is the Get Up phase which is about the plan you’re putting in place, the structure, the financing and all of those
elements which we will get to in a later episode.

And then the last phase is the Reach Up phase. That’s when we start to grow it and we start to scale it and start to build it and in fact even
think about the context of how we want to get out of it.

  • Do we want to sell it?
  • Do we want to transition it?
  • Are we just going to let it die?

… And all that.

So, Think Up, Get Up and Reach Up, and in this episode we’re going to focus on think up. And one of the things to really consider always, always is that
every time we’re making these choices, any time we’re looking at business, any time we’re looking at decisions in business; our primary focus is the
customer promise.

So, underlying everything we’re talking about, everything we’re doing is:

  • What is your customer promise?
  • What is your brand promise?

And we spoke about that in an earlier episode and there was a downloadable guide book that kind of helped you draft what is your customer promise and you
can get that from the downloads.

So, when we talk about the Think Up phase, there was things like “Why?”

One of the most important decisions we talked about that in an earlier episode, one of the most important decision that you can make as an entrepreneur is
the fact that you want to be an entrepreneur—that you’re not standing one foot in, one foot out. But that you truly take on the identity of an
entrepreneur.

That way you start to do the things that entrepreneurs do and anticipate and do the things that entrepreneurs do in the context of

  • The choices you make,
  • How you live your life, and
  • The dynamics that you bring to your life.

We talked a bit about the core strengths and how to refine and define and mine what your core strengths are and how to those can relate to creating
distinction in the marketplace.

And so, now I want to kind of touch on the kind of obstacles, the things that might get in the way because as we go through this we’re going to have
decisions to make—as these obstacles come up. And some of them are truly real obstacles that we’re going to need to navigate and persist and with
determination really drive these things home so we can bust through some of these obstacles as we move forward.

So, what are some of the obstacles that I see working with entrepreneurs and working with business owners and working with businesses.

And one is, probably one of the most important ones is, Are you in the right business?

So many times we get an idea and we think about it and we want to run full-fledged into it but, “Are you truly in the right business?”

Remember, Starbucks at one point shut down all of their facilities and all of their retail shops to re-train all of the employees back to what their core
business was. So, one of the questions really is, “Are you in the right business?” and many times when you’re not in the right business, this becomes a
tremendous obstacle.

Well, what is the right business?

1. It’s going to be driven by your passion.

2. It’s going to be driven by a vision and it’s going to be a test.

We’re going to talk deeper about that in other episodes. But let’s just talk about it practically speaking from a market standpoint.

1. It needs to help, it needs to be something:

  • That serves at a greater level,
  • That shifts people’s lives,
  • That affects a problem,
  • That gives them a solution.

And it’s not a solution that you see but it’s a solution that they see that is valuable to them. That they are willing to have a transaction—they’re
willing to pay money for it.

We may come up with some phenomenal solutions. I had someone that came to me that wanted to, well he had this fascination with jelly fish and so, he came
up with these special jelly fish fish-tanks that you could get jelly fish and have them in these fish tanks.

But he never looked at:

  • Is it creating a solution?
  • Is it something that is desirable in the marketplace?

And the biggest thing is—he had no supply of jelly fish, he couldn’t get jelly fish. It was no place to get them or get them legally that would allow him
to supply the market even if there was demand.

So, ask yourself

  • Is this the right business?
  • Am I giving a solution to a market need in a market
  • That they’re willing to pay for it?
  • That they see value in it as you move forward?
  • That it is something that truly helps them and that you’re serving those needs?

So, right is the first obstacle. The second obstacle is financing and I hear this a lot, “I don’t have the money to start business”.

The cool thing is that there’s a whole host of access to funds.

  • Some of it is debt,
  • Some of it is bootstrapping,
  • Some of it is crowdfunding,
  • Some of it is angel funding.

And in fact in one of the previous episodes, I answered the question about, “What is Angel Funding and how do you get access to it?” and I gave a
downloadable guide about angel funding including the 12 elements that you need to have on a good pitch to an angel funding group.

So, financing is an obstacle and we need to think through:

  • What is it going to take from a financing prospective?
  • Am I going to need capital or cash for building a prototype?
  • Where am I going to get the prototype built?
  • How much is it going to cost?
  • What’s the additional funds necessary to adjust and tweak the prototype once we’ve tested?
  • Am I’m going to need funding for legal costs?
  • Things like trademarks, copyrights, patents that I need to go through. Those are all going to cost me money. Where does that come from?

Truly an obstacle but the key is to start, and this is why it’s in the Think Up stage, to not just run full forced into something without having
alternatives, options and those things available to you. We’re going to spend a bit more time in this financing arena in a later episode as we move
forward.

The third obstacle that you may find is—or I hear it all the time is—I just, I have a hard time finding customers.

Now remember this whole concept of customers and your customer promise is customers, it’s not about sales; it’s about connecting. It’s about connecting
with them at a level that is an emotional level. That connects with them emotionally and allows them to justify the purchase logically.

There’s this concept that used to be taught in sales that was the ABCs of sales. Always be closing, always be closing. Well, that’s a fallacy. I don’t
believe in it. If you’re constantly trying to use tactical-technical, somewhat manipulative tactics to get someone to buy something from you

  • You’re not creating loyalty,
  • You’re not creating connection,
  • You’re not creating a relationship.

And that’s what our markets are starved for—is to create a connection.

So, where are your customers and we’ll talk about something that I call market sifting in a later episode but finding your customers:

  • Where do they hang out?
  • Do they hang out on the internet?
  • Can you find them on Facebook?
  • Are they on Instagram?
  • Are they on Pinterest?
  • Are they on LinkedIn?
  • Where do your customers hang out where you can go and communicate with them?
  • What forums do they maybe belong to?
  • Where are they looking for things?
  • Where do they typically look for these things?

And then enter into that conversation, not from a sales standpoint but remember from a service standpoint to serve them at a higher level. So, enter into
their world, into their conversation. So finding customers is about finding where they’re hanging out and where they look for things that you have to
offer.

And it can be online, it can be bricks and mortar, it can be through direct mail, it can be through catalogs, it can be through a lot of different things.
But we need to understand

  • Who our customers are,
  • Where they hang out,
  • How they like to be communicated with.

And then create that relationship, the relational capital if you will and connection with them at a level that you now have a dialogue with them and it’s
not some broadcast of some promotion, some sales thing but actually having a conversation with your customers—that’s the key.

Then another obstacle is this concept of, especially for those that are just starting into this entrepreneurial space is, when do I quit my day job?

You know it’s this concept of burning the boats and now I’ve had a number of entrepreneurs that have sent me emails or have reached out to be and said,
“Well, I’m thinking of just quitting my job and going full force in this, so I’m committed”.

What I’d like you to consider is that there is a difference between committed and being reckless. And if you’re going to move forward with your business,
with your product, with your idea, I want you to be committed, but I don’t want you to be reckless.

So, before you start to think about quitting a day job or doing anything like that, let’s go through the steps to see that we’ve minimized the downside
risk, maximized the upside potential and that we’ve got a plan in place that makes sense and that you have a financial foundation that is there to support
you during the lean times, during the process.

And if you have a family, if you have children, if you have a husband or a wife; you have responsibilities and I get it you may look at it and say, “This
is what I want to do. This is my dream.” And I get that. But at the same time, you have responsibilities and there is a responsible way to go after that
dream and it’s not to put your family, it’s not to put your spouse, your significant other or anyone in jeopardy. And, something that we don’t think about:
not to put your health in jeopardy.

So, when you talk about this concept of burning the boats or quitting your day job, we want to be responsible about it.

  • Do you have enough cash put away?
  • Do you have access to capital to carry on during the lean times?
  • How is it going to affect your family life?
  • How is it going to affect your relationships?
  • How might it affect your health?

Before we start to go on this journey and many times we don’t think through that. Many times we’re so caught up in the dream and the vibrancy, and the
energy of the dream we just go chasing it and all of a sudden we’re hitting rocks and we’re wondering,

  • What’s happening?
  • Why is this all of a sudden happening?
  • Why is it a struggle?
  • Why is my relationship challenged?
  • Why am I not sleeping at night?

… And all that. So and I’m not saying that it’s all going to be pixies and roses but it’s going to, we can minimize that by being smart about it.

So, what I will say is that you can, in some cases if you’re just starting out; start to try and build that business while keeping the financial side of
you. If I don’t have a good financial store well keep the day job and work this as it starts to build. And when all of a sudden:

  1. You want to have proof of concept,
  2. You start getting cash flow in,
  3. You see a growth level, and
  4. The cash level coming in from this part-time endeavor as you’re building it is at least 30% of what you’re making.

Then you can start thinking and having a discussion about quitting your day job because it’s important to be responsible.

Now, if you’re all alone and you don’t have a lot at risk, then maybe it’s ok. But it’s going to be specific for each and every one of you out there as to
when’s the right time, what’s appropriate and what you should be doing.

This is something that will put a tremendous amount of undue stress on you, unnecessary stress on you if done incorrectly. So, think it through, plan it
out, make sure you have some alternatives, make sure you have some cushion and make sure that you move forward.

Now, there’s one other thing that I want to really be clear on—because I’ve have this happen before where someone says, “Well I want to cash out my
retirement now.”

As many may even know, I’m a CPA by education and I still have my CPA firm. So, my belief is that—that retirement is about peace of mind. It’s about your
future, do not touch it. Aside from the fact that at least currently, as of the filming of this; the tax rules in the United States when
you draw out from your retirement account pre-mature, before you’re allowed to draw it out, they’re going to penalize you. And by the time you’re through
with the penalties which is minimum; at least, currently it’s 10%, and then the states have penalties. Like for instance California it’s two and a half
percent.

So, I have a twelve and a half percent penalty for taking out of my retirement account plus I have to pay the tax. So, what ends up happening is that the
majority of the time if you draw money out of your retirement account, to try and use into your business, you’re going to lose 50% of it to taxes and
penalties before you’re get a chance to use it.

So, here’s the thing to watch out for. I’ve watched people do this. They don’t think about the taxes and then can’t pay the tax bill when it comes due. So,
under no circumstances and there isn’t a lot of absolutes but this to me is something you do not do. You don’t draw out of your retirement account
prematurely so you can go start a business. There’s other ways to look out at. Don’t burn the boats until you’re ready and you have a plan.

Then understand this, and a lot of people come to me and say, “Should I be an entrepreneur?” “Should I do this?”

And I look at them and I say, “There’s what I call, The Deposit Employment Shuffle”. And every day of an entrepreneur’s life, we spend
standing with one foot in the bank deposit line and the other foot in the unemployment line. And we need to get comfortable with that.

It’s not necessarily an obstacle but it’s an obstacle psychologically that we need to be comfortable with the fact that in entrepreneurship, it’s not just
a straight up trajectory. It is going to have ebbs-and-flows; it’s going to have peaks-and-valleys.

This is why I talk about using the 50% rule in creating your life so you can navigate those peaks-and-valleys and you can build something for the future as
you grow.

So, understanding that you’ve always got one foot in the bank deposit line and another foot on unemployment line; getting comfortable with that, being okay
with that becomes really, really important as you move forward.

And then, there’s challenges and obstacles with respect to legal, tax and money management.

So, many entrepreneurs are idea people. I’ve got products, I got ideas and I want to go out, and I want to make money and I want to go do it. Well they go
out and they create products and they create ideas, but they never tend to the house. They never necessarily consider:

  • What’s my legal structure?
  • What are the things I need to do to make sure that I’m covered?
  • How do I do these things with contracts?

They go into partnerships or joint ventures without agreements in-place and these things are ticking time bombs that would absolutely destroy a business or
destroy the value of a product if it goes wrong.

So, make sure that you have proper legal advice. Make sure that you’ve good legal counsel. You may not need them right away but get yourself a relationship
with someone that you can get on the phone with, that you can write an email to and say, “What about this?”

So, you want to make sure that you’re legally covered and you want to get that in place. But you want to do it at the right time. I wouldn’t go spending a
ton of legal costs to get everything all set up when your idea hasn’t proved out first—I’ve seen that happen repeatedly too.

You want to make sure that you have your tax gain properly set up. No matter what country you’re in, what state you’re in, there may be different rules but
there’s still taxes and we need to think it through. Whether you like it or not, if you’re in the United States, Uncle Sam the government is a partner in
your business and they’re going to be sharing in the business to the tune of anywhere from 20 to 40 percent

So, getting that piece of it structured right and understanding that is important because 40 cents in a dollar could be going the wrong way. So, we want to
make sure that you cover the taxes and here’s something that has driven businesses into the ground in the past is ignoring taxes: “I’ll pay the taxes
later”.

Get your taxes paid up front. Get your taxes taken care of. Make sure that you have a process and a system in-place to make sure that they are funded and
paid for, and you’re not borrowing from your taxes to pay other things because at least the government here—the state government and the federal
governments in the United States and most of the foreign countries Australia, Canada are the same. They’re very aggressive and they have rights to take
property away from you that you and I wouldn’t have ordinarily.

So, make sure you have that in place and then get your accounting system in place.

  • What kind of accounting system?
  • What kind of people do you have to look over the books? And
  • How are you going to look over the books?

Don’t just trust someone and hands off, “Oh I’ve got an accountant, a book keeper that’s taking care of it.”

You want to make sure that you have enough information to manage your business and to know that nothing is going out the door and that everything makes
sense.

Yeah, that means that may be you’re going to have to get a little bit more educated about the financial and the accounting elements which I know seems a
little boring but it’s important and you’ll thank me as you go down the road and you can look at things and understand them.

Then this is a big one that is not obsolete. Again, this is a mind trap; it’s something that we deal with and it’s self-doubt or what I call the imposter syndrome or what’s been called the imposter syndrome.

It’s this fear that you’re going to be found out or that you’re not real or that you’re not good enough or maybe you shouldn’t be doing this and it’s going
to creep and I have an been an entrepreneur for decades and I still struggle with it from time to time. It happens.

Any time I’m launching a new thing, “Should I be doing this?” “Is this the right thing?” That self-doubt and this is something that you want to create and
make sure that you have the tools at your disposal to deal with this psychological demon called Self-Doubt. This psychological demon called the Imposter Syndrome.

To not necessarily suppress it but let’s get ready to deal with it and overpower it to make sure that – one, you’re making good decisions, rational decisions that are planned out, thought out systematically and that’ that best way to fight it. If you just-on
sure part suppress it, then it may be not be enough. Deal with it by making sure that whatever that doubt is you’ve taken care of it, that you’ve done
things to mitigate that doubt because it may be telling you something.

But what it’s not telling you is that you’re not good enough—because you are good enough. You’ve got a lot going on, you’ve got a lot of capacity and
capability and potential and possibility and our own mind gets in the way. So, dealing with that Imposter Syndrome and self-doubt becomes important.

And then as we start to scale, we need to think about the concept of staffing. How do we deal with staffing? Who do we hire? How do we hire?

And I’ll spend more time on that but in a nutshell it’s, I believe in value based hiring, value based coaching and value based firing; if it comes down to
it. In other words, I want people that are going to work with me—contractor or employee doesn’t matter—that have the same or similar values that I do.
That’s going to raise and keep the standard at a high level. That’s going to create a culture and an image out in the space, in the marketplace and in all
of my dealings that’s consistent, and that comes from a value based approach to things.

And so, there’s staffing things that will come into play, again there’s legal issues and employment issues that get involved with that. You want to make
sure that you’re informed with it and I’m not expecting you to know all of the rules but I’m expecting you to research enough and know where to go to get
that.

And I’ll give you some resources as we move through some of these episodes where you can find some of this information but it becomes you as the
entrepreneur, as the business owner—your responsibility ultimately. It all flows up to you, so it’s going to be on your shoulders and you can’t put your
hands and go, “I didn’t know any better”.

Then, the last obstacle that I want you to think about is: What is your competitive positioning?

We talked about how do you create distinction through your strengths and that’s part of the aspect of saying, “How do I create my distinction?”, when I’m
successful in creating distinction through my strengths, through strategic strengths.

Now, all of a sudden, my competitive positioning becomes a little easier in that process. But if I’m simply going out there to be another widget out in the
world, then I’m going to be lost in the sea of sameness.

How do I turn around and stand out?

Let’s take a great example like Apple.

When Apple came out with the iPod, when you think about the iPod; the iPod is simply mp3 player. And at the time that they released the iPod, there was 70+
other companies that had mp3 players out on the marketplace.

But they created a market distinction by creating, and they did it part of it through advertising, by creating a cult like feeling of wanting to belong to
the cool crowd, having this really cool thing thousand songs in your pocket.

In that context, they created a position that really in-effect quashed and squashed all the competition along the way. The majority of us have our music on
our iPod or our iPhone, or if you’re Android, may be an Android device and most of the mp3 players that were around when the iPod was first introduced are
gone. They’ve fallen by the wayside because it was just another mp3.

So, think about what is your competitive positioning that you’re going to bring to the place and remember over-arching and the foundation of all of this is

What’s your customer promise? What’s your brand promise?

So, I hope that this helped you understand some of the obstacles that you might run into. Some you may not run into, the point of this is to make sure that
you understand that you’re not alone. All of us entrepreneurs, many of us will run into many of these obstacles—they’re out there.

And we need to just navigate through. The cool thing is that you know that it’s been done before; we just got to do it again.

And so, if you have questions, if you have challenges with any of these obstacles, let me know and I’ll be certain to try and help you through it, I’ll try
to answer your questions and help you give you guidance as you move through it.

Remember, it’s about me trying to be your entrepreneurial mentor through this show and to give you the tools, the tactics and the strategies to allow you
to grow, to allow you to build your business, to live to your potential.

If you have a specific question, why don’t you go to AskMelNow.com and you can leave me a message like many of the
community is leaving me with your question and I’ll use it on one of the shows and make sure that we get it answered for you so we can serve you at the
highest level.

And if you want to get some of the downloadable tools, the takeaways from this session go ahead and go to MelAbraham.com/session011.

And by the way again, if you’re in your car or you are at the gym listening to this and you can’t write down the link, just go ahead and text to 38470
MYLEGACY one-word M-Y-L-E-G-A-C-Y to 38470 and we’ll get that link to you so you can get the downloads.

And until we get a chance to see each other in the next episode,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon, keep living in possibility!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel

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Mel is one of the smartest business people I know. I don't make any decisions without him! "

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#1 New York Times
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