This is a wonderful interview for Entrepreneurs and Want to be Entrepreneurs. Many things in this interview are so crucial for a business owner and are mostly missed due to overwhelm and too much caring. If I had this knowledge or insight when I started my first business, things could have been very different. Darren does a great job of extracting the essence of business success.
Darren Hardy Interviews Christine Comaford
Without a high school diploma & a college degree, Christine is a 5 times CEO and company founder. Advisor to over 36 startups and invested in over 200 startups, consulted with white house and is the author of best-selling “Rules for Renegades”. Now out with a new book Smart Tribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
Learning Lessons from the Interview: (as interpreted & understood by me)
After being a “Wannapreneur” i.e. wanted to be an entrepreneur, Christine “woke up” one day and started thinking about starting a business that did not her all the time. She interviewed and asked a lot of successful business leaders to see how they did it.
The “System” is the only difference between an entrepreneur who is a success and one who is a failure.
- Being smart does not matter – actually sometimes it hinders
- There is no magic bullet
- You earn your money when you choose your business model.
After this knowledge she took her business to over 1 million dollars in less than 2 years and was able to retire at age 40.
NO LONGER WORK ”IN” THE BUSINESS BUT “ON” IT!
Being too smart can become a hinderance as many people who are smart get stuck up in their heads and do not know what they don’t know and do not ask Mentors or others for help.
Hardest part about building a business:
Loneliness, Overwhelm, exhaustion – all this comes without a clear plan. You need a mentor who has been there and can help.
Mistakes that entrepreneurs make that block them from making multi-million dollar businesses:
Caring – Most business owners spend too much time caring about how the business looks, how twitter feeds look etc. instead of giving it to someone else to do it. 99.9% of business owners control issues are disguised in caring.
Leverage – Take off your least valuable activities and give to someone else. That is leverage. Spend lot less time getting lot more results! Revenue results, MVP (Most valuable person) results and more. Having a healthy dose of Internal and External MVP’s who can take care of things in which you are not so good is crucial. You can be the CEO and not the business owner. As the CEO you can build and grow the business.
Seven Figure Business Formula
If you have a strong enough “WHY” the how will take care of itself: You need to figure out what your deepest desire is and what is your outcome with business.
Develop to sell it for profit or for revenue stream. i.e. Need to know “Why I am doing this”.
Overwhelm – No focus as out of “Momentum” –
Must identify three results when achieved will change everything in business
- Target
- Minimum
- Mindblower
Striving & struggling is then over
BUSINESS MODEL
This is the foundation of your business
3 P’s
- Perfect Market – (Target Market) What solution is that they (your customers) are looking for. Find your perfect market.
- Product Path – Free Gifts, Social Media. You need to see what product path your clients are choosing for their first sale, their second sale etc. Also where do people get into the product path
- Plan – Ongoing promotion plan
Business models do change and evolve.
MENTORS – Never ask for favors from your mentors’ only advice.
Christine used to ask for five minutes of advice and in turn would give five hours of her time to their favorite Non Profit.
NETWORKING
- Palm Up Networking – Not asking what is in for me, but finding out what someone needs and helping them get it
- Rolodex dipping – Using Outlook at random pick out names and then just call and network and say “was thinking about you” and if there is anything they need.
- Daily Appreciation – Appreciate a handful of people every single day.
Giving back – Wants to make a difference in humanity.
Inner wealth is more important than outer wealth.
Doing Volunteer work – Being a warm and a generous human being.
5 comments for “Darren Hardy Interviews Christine Comaford”