Rate Your Authority in Your Niche | Stage 2: Specialty

Hi Everyone, this is Carl Gould, author of The 7 Stage Growth Method and your #70secondCEO, just a little over a one-minute investment each day for a lifetime of results. Today's topic is stage 2: the specialty stage.

Alright, here we're judging how much of an expert in your niche you are. How much of an authority? Give yourself a ranking on a scale of 1 to 10. One: nobody knows who I am. Ten, I'm an ABSOLUTE authority in my niche. Here's how you know. Somebody unsolicited comes up to you at an industry conference, or somebody in the industry contacts you and says, "hey, can I can I bug you a little bit can I ask you a few questions? Buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain because you've figured out some things that I just haven't been able to figure out, and you seem to really have that worked out."

So, how often does that happen to you, and how much of an expert are you in your niche? One, you're a Houdini; nobody knows who you are; you're a disappearing act; 10, you're a celebrity in your niche. Put a comment at the bottom let me know what your score is.

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Hi Everybody, Carl Gould here, author of The 7 Stage Growth Method and your #70secondCEO, where you invest a little more than one minute a day for a lifetime of results. Today's topic is: Stage 7, The Succession Stage

We're ranking your business right now. Where are you in this growth trajectory? 1 is, huh? 10 is, we got it! Alright, The Succession Stage: to what degree do you have:

• Management team in place?

• Tight controls?

• Solid operations?

• You're running like a finely tuned machine?

• You have a lead generation machine?

• A sales team that's closing it?

• Are clients happy?

• And you're on the leading edge of product development?

This is rarefied air, folks. We gotta make sure that you're fully there; if not, put a comment at the bottom: what do you need to do to maximize your 7th Stage here? Rank yourself on a scale of 1-10, tell me your score, and where is your area of improvement?

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Build a Better Organizational Chart: Track Your Tasks, Improve Cash Flow & Scale Your Business

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one-minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

You'll notice as you look at the organizational chart, there's you on top, the CEO; you're the CEO of Me Incorporated. And on the left-hand side, as you look at your page, that's all the activities of the business that bring in customers and cash. That's the D and the I side of the organizational chart- anything that brings it in and on the right side is the S and C part of the organizational chart, and that's everything that keeps it in. So the dominant and income side brings it in and the systems and controls size–side. Make sure you keep it in the business and then along the bottom. There's one large box with a bunch of lines in it. Here's the assignment. For the next two weeks. Write down everything you do in brutal detail and be honest with yourself, write down every task that you do, and how long it takes.

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Build a Better Organizational Chart: Track Your Tasks, Improve Cash Flow & Scale Your Business - Pt. 2

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one-minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

This is a surefire way to build your business structure because you will learn which tasks you can delegate and which you cannot, and soon you will start handing them off to other people. We'll organize those tasks later; for now, put them in your journal or notebook over the next two weeks. List those tasks and the time it takes to do them, and let me give you an example. You want to be very specific so I'll use the example of getting the mail you may write getting the mail and it takes 10 minutes, what I'd suggest that you do is write down walking to the post office to get the mail two minutes picking up the mail one minute sorting the mail three minutes handing the mail off to the appropriate person. Two minutes, answering my mail, eight minutes. There are five tasks there; list them separately, and put your name next to each one and how long it takes.

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Build a Better Organizational Chart: Track Your Tasks, Improve Cash Flow & Scale Your Business - Pt. 3

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one-minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

Once you have gone through this exercise, you will have done a number of things. First, you will have created all the job descriptions within the business because you've listed the tasks you went through and put your name next to each one. Soon you will change the name because your goal and your job thereafter, when working with your mirror and your strategic partner, is to fire yourself upward every quarter for the first 18 months. And that will get you to stage four in 18 months or less. It depends on how fast you keep firing yourself upward. Thereafter, fire yourself upward every quarter for another 18 months, and that will bring you to stage seven.

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Build the Right Team: Match People to Their Strengths, Roles & Your Business Vision

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

When you create your organizational chart, you'll match people to their styles. And that's step number one: most people are going to gravitate towards the jobs that they're good at already, and we're gonna, when we talk about attributes, we'll talk about the skills and what they mechanically bring to the table. People gravitate towards certain roles because people like what they're good at. So, when you ask somebody, when you're hiring them, what is it you like about your job, they're going to tell you what they're good at. We tend to like what we're good at, and we tend to be good at what we like. So when building a structure, simply ask the person you hire. Look at the tasks here: which one do you want? Which one looks good to you? Which one do you think you would like? They will choose what they think they're good at in the beginning anyway. So in the beginning, when you're building a structure, and here's the key: before you make your first hire, this is why you have to have your plan, because we do something that we call sharing your vision with others.

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Your Business Mirrors You: How Owner Strengths Create Business Blind Spots

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one-minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

As we've said many times, the business mirrors the owner's personality; it must. In order for this business to get off the ground, it must mirror your personality and your personal strengths. The strengths of the owner become the strength of the business; along with that come the blind spots, and here's one of the ways that you'll know where your strengths lie and where your blind spots lie. So, if you look at the diagram we provided for you on the page, you'll notice that it's a circle; it has four quadrants. Upper right hand corner is the D or direction the dominance, the bottom right hand corner is the I, the income, the influential part of you the bottom left hand corner are the systems, that's the steady nest part of you to support a part of you and the top left hand corner are the controls, not the compliant part of you. If you'll draw–you'll notice there's two diagonal arrows that run from the D to the S and back again and the I and the C and back again. These the four quadrants, the diagonal these are the ones that are somewhat adversarial in these four quadrants are somewhat adversarial in nature and create a blind spot.

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What are the 7 Stages?. Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one-minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

So what are these 7 stages? We've been talking about them a lot already. Let me give you an overview of each of the 7 stages before we get more into it. Stage one is the strategic planning stage. This is where your dream is born; you're going to focus on the direction, the planning of your company; you're going to sell your business first, then you're going to create it. Well, what the heck does that mean? Have you ever heard of a franchise? Ray Kroc, way back when, had the idea of selling businesses to people when they didn't exist, and then creating them later on. He actually had to convince the government that it was not fraudulent. Have you ever bought a home or an apartment just by looking at the building plans when there was nothing but a hole in the ground, and a building was going to be built later on? That builder or that developer sold the business first, created second. A very common practice in this day and age when they build new sports arenas is they sell what's called Personal seat licenses before the venue is ever built. They sell you the right to buy that seat once it's made. In other words, they sold the whole stadium. They sold out the stadium before the stadium was ever built. Have you ever bought a ticket to a performance that has not debuted yet? Have you ever pre-purchased a book or a record album or musical album or DVD or CD? Anyone who pre-sells anything is selling the business first and creating second.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.