Prepare To Be Pummeled With a Perfuse Population of P’s
Are you a fan of vegetables? You know, those multi-colored bits of agony that all of us had to endure as a child in order to get to the ice cream portion of dinner. I would assume that if you are an adult reading this business coaching articles that does not like vegetables, you at least understand the value that vegetables have when included in your daily diet. If you are in fact a child that happened to stumble upon this article you’re probably thinking, “Of course I don’t like vegetables… Also, how in the world did I end up reading blogs about business coaching?”. If you’re wondering where all of this is going, just sit tight. I promise it’ll make sense soon. Now, let’s do a quick exercise. Close your eyes and picture in your mind’s eye your single favorite vegetable. Okay now open your eyes. Did you go with the safe route and choose carrots? Or are you the more adventurous and decided to go with something like baby bok choy or broccolini? Regardless, I highly doubt any of you out their chose the vastly underrated pea to be considered your favorite. Where am I going with this? Well mi amigos, we’re going to be getting into a whole lot of p’s in this week’s installment. We’re going to be breaking down the difference between passion and profits, as well as doing a deep dive into how alliteration has been proven to improve a business. This whole article is a result of something Clay said in one of our meetings last week, “Your passion will almost never lead to your profit”. I know that seems harsh to come to terms with at first, but as we break this idea down further you’ll begin to fully understand as I have.
Let’s Be Honest About What “Passion” Really Means For Your Business
When Clay says that your passion will almost never make you money, he’s not saying to pursue the things that you are passionate about. What he means on a deeper level is that it’s much harder to monetize passion projects such as vlogs, podcasts, youtube channels, and other similar hobbies. While these avenues can certainly add value to your brand, not all of them are scalable. What I took away from this particular conversation with Clay was that passion is definitely important to one’s business, but it is extremely important to be passionate about the right things, or the most scalable things.
The Three P’s of Success
So let’s begin shifting that passion in the right direction. Clay introduced me early on in my business coaching career to the idea of the 3 P’s back when I was still a manager of his men’s grooming lounges. He said that in order for a business to be truly successful, it has to have the following 3 P’s in place:
- People
- Product
- Profit
Let’s start with the people portion. How do people factor in having a successful business? Well in order for your business to succeed it has to employ good people. Now unless you want to be the only business owner that functions as the sole employee for the business, this is incredibly important. Remember, the business exists to serve you, so unless you want to spend every waking hour within the business rather than helping to work on it, you’re going to need to employ somebody else. However, having employees is only part of the battle. The next step is to ensure that these people that will become the contact point between your business and its customers actually fit into the company culture. Having the right people in the right places will ensure that your customers are wowed and will want to come back.
The second P we need to break down is the product. Everybody on the planet could realistically sell some sort of product, but the ones that actually sell and do so regularly are the products that stand out. You want to have a product or service that you’re proud enough to sell to your own mother.
The third and final p in the trifecta is none other than profit. You want to scale out what your margins need to be in order to be profitable. Nobody wants to get into business just to break even every single year. This means finding every way to get costs as low as possible within your business while also offering your products or services at a rate that will ensure your profits as well as stay competitive price-wise.
“Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.”
Now, Who’s Ready For Some Alliteration?
The final of P’s that personally blew my business coaching mind has to be the 6 P’s theory. This is by far one of my favorite ideas I’ve learned from Clay. It was an idea that I actually learned way back when we were recording the Matthew Slater podcast. The 6 P’s that Matthew referred to was, “Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”. Isn’t that one of the most poetic things you’ve ever read? If you haven’t experienced this idea before, that could possibly be due to the fact that it is known by many names as well. In the military, they are actually referred to as the 7 P’s, while some others refer to them as the 6 P’s and drop one of the corresponding words. No matter which way you look at it, the idea is to focus on the main P, PREPARATION.
Keep in mind that on the journey to becoming a super entrepreneur there will be plenty of opportunities to look back and make sure your bases are covered, but what I’ve learned is that the truly successful take the opportunity to plan for these things in advance.
