I cannot overemphasize how powerful, how life-changing a single question can be.
Some may think I’m beating a dead horse by bringing up the ONE THING again (after bringing it up a few hundred times last year…) but it literally changed the nature of my business. That question, in case you’ve forgotten is:
What is the ONE THING you can do, such that by doing it
everything else would be easier or unnecessary?
For me, the answer involved building my home studio so that I could create fabulous, stand-alone courses to replace a lot of live events I was doing. I just released the first one two weeks ago (“How to Catch a Whale“) and sales have exceeded anything I could have imagined. The next course is coming in just a few weeks.
Then I read a guru who insisted we should not stop with one question, but should go further and commit to just ONE WORD, the word that was most important to us in 2020. Consistent with the leverage I’m seeking through online courses, my ONE WORD is “Scale.” It’s the lone word that remains on my white board even when I erase everything else.
But I really think the question that is going to have the greatest impact on my business and life over the next few years is the one offered by Russell Brunson. Russell is the founder and CEO of Clickfunnels, a software company that has grown from 1 to 400 employees in less than five years. The question Russell says that we must ask is, “Who not what.”
He says that entrepreneurs are always thinking about what to do next, whether it’s a marketing campaign, a new software program, a new office or a new skill. But Russell says that we will never grow our firms until we start asking “Who?” For example:
- WHO can design and implement that marketing plan instead of you?
- WHO can operate that new software program?
- WHO can find or manage or setup your new office?
- WHO can provide that new skill on a freelance basis?
I’ve done this and what surprises me is how fast it had an impact and how easy it was. I primarily used the site Upwork.com to post my needs because I like the fact you can filter for US-based freelancers. I’ve found this to be a huge advantage…even though one I hired is based in London.
So, almost overnight I had:
- A videographer to help set up the lighting, audio, and camera settings in my new home studio
- An executive assistant to manage emails and the growing online school (she’s the one in London)
- A CRM guru to manage all of my emails, tagging, open rates, filters, etc., something that used to take hours
- A Facebook guru to manage all ads for the new courses
I email these group members as team members and make sure they communicate with each other as well. I make them feel a part of it when we reach certain goals. And they respond by helping me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
I’ve been at this a while and I am one to say that I have no regrets. But…I do sometimes wonder “what if?” when I see how fast my business is growing by starting to rely on others. In other words, what if if I had started asking “Who?” instead of “What? many years ago.
Oh yes, the picture on this post is of my other employee, Sammy, our 2 1/2 year-old chocolate Lab. He’s a great help when I need a break, though this picture shows the moment HE decided to take a break when he got tired of fetching the tennis ball. I like independent thinking, even in my canine friends!
