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i guess these guys also wrote http://www.infusionsoft.com/ebooks
hierarchy of freedoms (like Maslow's hierarchy of needs; listed in order from base to lofty):
here is a long excerpt from the book describing the "chaos" that they are talking about conquering:
" When we first started Infusionsoft, we really had no idea what we wanted to achieve. All we knew for certain was:
But despite these advantages, it didn’t take long before we found ourselves in over our heads and questioning whether we were going to be in business from one month to the next. Naıve as to what was yet to come, we continued to plug away with a glimmer of hope that our budding company would become successful.
The chaos didn’t strike all at once. Business ownership seemed exciting at first. We talked about hiring employees, buying our own office space, and acquiring perks and benefits through the business. Our shelves were lined with books that shared the rules for business success. We let ourselves daydream about the life-altering breakthrough we were sure to experience and the financial freedom we were sure to find.
We were all working together as close friends. Furthermore, we weren’t being tied down by corporate jobs. But the chaos was steadily changing our reality. Within weeks, the amount of work required to run a small business forced all of us to reevaluate our situation. We began spending more and more time at the office, frequently working through the night just to get projects completed. We forgot the meaning of the term “lunch break.” The phrase “9 to 5” dwindled to an ancient and regrettable memory.
It didn’t take long before our only option was to eat, sleep, and breathe our business. But worse than the hours put in at the office were the stress and fear that appeared one day and never subsided. These feelings started as a nagging in the back of our minds and soon developed into a full-blown monster raging in our heads.
We were worried about our product, our clients, and whether or not we’d be able to pay our personal mortgages.
The carefully avoided question was whether or not we could even make this businesswork. As if that question wasn’t taking its toll, we also developed small business paranoia, the gripping fear that causes business owners to feel the business will crumble to the ground like a house of cards if they step away even for a brief moment. We felt like we couldn’t go on vacation, on a date, or to our child’s little league game without jeopardizing the business.
Life had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning. Like every new small business owner, we felt trapped, controlled, and consumed by the business. What had happened to the freedom we were seeking? We were propelled into the age-old fight for survival, and the battle wounds were starting to show.
We rarely saw our families, and even when we were around, the business dominated our concentration. We had less patience and little devotion to the people who meant so much to us. Our minds were busy, our stress levels were increasing, and we completely forgot what it meant to live our lives.
Despite the raging personal battles, and almost miraculously, our company progressed, and we hired a few employees to help us manage the work. But, as we expanded, rather than finding more time, additional business, and helpful solutions, we found ourselves wrapped up in more problems!
Rather than alleviating the chaos, the growth of our company seemed to be perpetuating it. For one thing, in order to keep the company moving forward, we needed more money—a lot more money. Making payroll required a lot of cash. We invested our personal finances into building and growing our company. Multiple mortgages were taken out on homes. Savings accounts were pooled. We replied to all those credit card offers and racked up piles of high-interest personal debt. We leveraged whatever financial resources we had. Still, it wasn’t enough. We were continually panicked about being able to pay the bills.
On a couple of occasions, we had to approach our employees and explain we couldn’t make payroll. To our employees’ credit, they stuck it out and worked hard to help us get through the tough times. Meanwhile, as the co-founders, we often went months without seeing any money, or paying any of our personal bills. For a period of about 10 months, we paid our mortgages 30 days late almost every month, because that was the soonest we had the money to pay it—just in time to avoid a 30-day late rating on our credit reports.
But even as we tried to budget, even as we gave up our own income, the money continued to run out, and the creditors continued to come calling.
Clate felt particular embarrassment one night when his 8-year-old son asked, “Dad, why are you so mad?”
“Because a freakin’ creditor called me on a Sunday!” Clate snapped.
The next question was, “What did he want?”
“He wanted to know why I haven’t paid my bills.”
“Well, Dad, did you tell him it’s because you haven’t made enough sales?”
Clate’s family all had a good laugh and Clate was glad his son understood how important sales are to a small business owner. But that wasn’t much solace. The pain we were all feeling was suffocating.
Another time, as Scott sat in the hospital with his wife and brand-new child, he was on the phone, closing a deal. When his irritated wife chided him, he looked down at the newborn baby and said, “You want to be able to afford the hospital bills, right?”
If ever men felt completely overwhelmed and humbled, we were those men. Our entire lives were wrapped up in a love/hate relationship with a draining, consuming company.
The truth is, there were times when we wanted to get out, but we couldn’t because we had so much debt, pride, and fear wrapped up in the business. We found ourselves struggling to balance our dream and vision for our company with harsh realities. The truth was, without Infusionsoft we had no idea what we were going to do.
After a couple of years, we’d invested so much time, money, and effort into the company that failure would have been the ultimate devastation. So every day we trudged through one challenge after another. For the first two and a half years of our business, Infusionsoft was hanging by a very, very thin thread.
In terms of our treadmill analogy, the speed was lightning fast and we were so out of balance that we felt a wipeout on the rubber tread was imminent.
Then finally—finally—the clouds started to break, and we knew Infusionsoft was going to be around for a while. A few favorable circumstances eased the chaos just long enough for us to turn down the speed on the treadmill and achieve a sense of balance. Almost accidental realizations gave us the knowledge to start breaking through the chaos to liberation.
We managed to formulate and perfect our business plan as we went along. We found easier, less time-consuming ways of running the company. We also worked on controlling the chaos in our own heads. Eventually, we moved past the majority of our problems. We were starting to think more clearly and we were starting to recognize there is a better way to run a small business.
" -- http://conquerthechaosbook.com/the-book/chapter-0
http://cdn.infusionsoft.com/site/infusionsoft.com/media/pdf/nd/CTC-2ch-Download.pdf (the first two chapters; the above is part of Chapter 2) goes on to describe the symptoms of "chaos". Also, the picture on page 23 (PDF page 21) is great.
causes of chaos:
"
things to plan:
"
"To get out of the chaos and find your freedom, you have to grow, period. If you don't believe that, then our strategies are not going to help you. But, if you embrace this idea, we can show you not only how to grow your business, but how you will conquer the chaos through that growth. In other words, you win all the way around, more growth and more freedom."
in a business, you must grow or die. if you don't grow:
"
"If you want your business to survive, it must be growing. And in its simplest form, growing your business means getting more customers."
"Growing is the only way to retain any control over your business. You have to fight. You have to get more cusomers. There is no maintaining; there is only growing. Without growth, the world will pass you by."
Why entrepreneurs choose not to grow
we present 6 strategies, 3 mindset and 3 systems
signs ur running low on emotional capital:
"do you jump out of bed, excited about the new day?"
what to do about it:
"the goal is to turn your logical thought into subconscious thoughts. Somehow, you've got to program yourself to believe that you will have a great day. You've got to believe that you can __make__ it a great day. You've got to feel empowered before you can conquer the chaos. You've got to always be the one __proactively__ controlling your mind. Yes, you've got to actively, rather than passively, think your thoughts."
thoughts->words->beliefs; but also "This is where the magic of our mind happens. We believe what we say."
specific techniques:
on cynics: yeah, cynics will think all this emotional stuff is silly. but have they started a business? many cynics stand on the sidelines, "pretending they are smarter than everyone, not emotionally strong enough to commit to the challenge".
"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." -- Jim Stockdale
"a positive mental attitude" (see previous chapter) "is critically important... [but] it is not enough"
"Sometimes, problems happen, people make you mad or let you down, and forces outside of your control combine against you. You know what? That's okay. Life is tough. However, the way you deal with life and those circumstances as they come can make things moer bearable. But that's where blind optimism and disciplined optimism get confused. A blindly optimistic person waits in anticipation of the sunshine. A disciplined optimist says, "You know what? I don't see the sun. But that doesn't mean it won't come out another day. i am going to deal with this issue, and move on."
"A customer called Clate on the phone and complained about our software. Clate listened to her rant for a few minutes. Several times during the conversation, Clate found himself getting a little hot under the collar. But deep down inside, he knew the cusomer wanted the software to work for her and he wanted the same thing. So, after she simmered down a bit, Clate told her they both wanted the same thing. Clate apologized that it wasn't working and thanked her for kringing it to his attention so that he could make things right for her __and__ help future customers avoid the same frustrations... Customers like to be thanked. They like to be part of the solution. They like to be told so, and they like to know that we, as entrepreneurs, are determined to improve our solutions for them and the rest of the customers."
tips to cultivate disciplined optimism:
"disciplined optimism and passion":
"As an entrepreneur, you need to let your passion shine. Passion has an almost magical ability to attract good things to your business and propel you toward your goals. So you want to do all you can to build and project your passion.
Of course, running a business is tiring, time-consuming, and often frustrating. It's not uncommin for the Entrepreneurial Light to burn out. However, if you're not excited about your products or services, no one else is going to be. Who wants to buy products and services even the business owner doesn't care about?
Whatever you have to do, take the time to rekindle the entrepreneurial fire. Reignite your entusiasm for your customers, products and business. Your customers and prospects are looking for someone to build a relationship with. What they don't want is someone who is quite obviously tired and who only dwells on the negative. In addition to picking yourself up every day, you've got to project confidence and passion to those you interact with each day. .... (story about older brother projecting confidence to younger siblings even when he was scared inside, too) .... Your customers and prospects are looking for you to do the same thing. They don't want to see the panic in your eyes.... You've got to be able to immediately summon your optimistic outlook, and you need to constantly remember to be passionate about your business."
take advice with a grain of salt
if you are successful, some of your friends and family may become jealous
experts don't know your specific situation
neighbors, employees, vendors, and other businesspeople really care about you, but they have a different perspective than you "they don't have to deal with the consequences of decisions you make. and it's possible they have a vested interest..."
you have to make your own decisions. sometimes, someone will give you advice and you won't take it and you will be wrong and they'll say, "well, i told you so.". this won't feel good. sometime, people's feelings will be hurt when you don't take their advice -- sometimes, two people will even give you contradictory advice and both of them will get their feelings hurt if you don't take it. this won't feel good.
"there won't always be time to be diplomatic and make sure everyone knows you appreciate their advice and opinions."
to achieve independence:
you can't avoid conflict -- when someone gives you advice you won't take, be kind, but be firm
you may need to sever emotional dependencies to people whose advice you always used to take
you need CRM software. if you have a bunch of different spreadsheets and semi-automatic convertors between them, sooner or later you will make an error; also, it just takes longes to do everything.
example: a guy named Reed had a bunch of databases of people. one day he accidentally sent a half-off promotion to previous customers as well as prospects. the customers were mad.
you need integrated software, not a bunch of isolated software that you have to manually mediate between. e.g. manny businesspeople have:
in that scenario, if you want to send emails to interested contacts and then see if they bought anything, you may have to merge data from your contact program, your email marketing program, and your shopping cart program. similarly if you want to send a thank-you email to people who recently purchased, sending a different email to new customers and existing customers. similiarly if you want to see "how many people are late on their payments, what communication ((you've)) had with them and what products they've purchased"
businesses end up not sending communications because it is too much trouble, not targeting them narrowly, and making mistakes. and, if you get sick or go on vacation, others have a hard time taking over because you were manually mediating between these systems.
spend time to maintain your CRM database -- you may be tempted to focus on your backend, but your database is more valuable
follow up with prospects, customers!
send follow up emails and/or schedule followup calls for you to make with cold customers to warm them up
this made a huge difference in our business. most sales don't close until at least the fifth contact. but most salespeople quit before the fifth contact.
don't spend all of your time following hot leads. you need to followup with cold leads too, to warm them up
(on page 144)
your CRM system should automate followup
((unsurprisingly, the authors of the book send a CRM system with automated followup))
some more tasks:
some ways to get leads:
more tasks:
more long-term tasks:
