Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say something about someone’s superpowers. Whether we’re interviewing a new team member, or someone is pitching me on LinkedIn they make reference to these superpowers.
It makes sense to look for mystical secrets to performance or superpowers. We are, after all, a society increasingly raised on gaming and magic. That’s not exclusive to us. King Arthur had his Excalibur, and so it goes since time immemorial.
The good news for aspiring entrepreneurs is there are no superpowers. The secret in my experience to successful entrepreneurship and scaling with your money intact is using more of your human powers, more often.
“More” is the word I most see associated with the entrepreneurs I interview and hang out with. There are no “super” meetings, there are more meetings. There are no “super” hours of performance, there are more hours put in. Entrepreneurs give 10% to 50% more than their nearest counterparts, and that is usually enough to either get you over the hump or help you survive the next battle in your growth.
When it comes to your money and scale, more translates as follows:
- Do one more revision on your scale plan with a plan B or C in it. Your business plan and reality almost always diverge at some point and being flexible can mean the difference between success and failure.
- Ask one more time what else you can be doing to support a client. Or, better yet, tell the client one more time the additional ways you can help them.
- Ask one more time, to change the terms of billing from Net 45 or Net 60 to Net 30 or even Net 10. Do not underestimate how important this is to cash flow.
- Ask one more time what the status of payment is.
- Ask your team one more time what they need to do their job better or more efficiently.
Some people ask about how to get more hours in the day, while entrepreneurs just put them in. These hours may be in the middle of the night, or they may be hours that others discard like lunch or dinner time.
Will there be magic or something superhuman that occurs from all this “doing more?” Yes, magic does happen, and it typically comes in the form of putting the right people together on our team.
However, you can’t build or scale on magic. You must build and scale on your vision and ability to replicate successful performance.
Find the way to do one more smart thing. You’ll have time to do less in retirement. Of course, I don’t know many entrepreneurs that talk about retirement, they talk about “what’s next.” There’s that “more” creeping in again. What more can you do today?
