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Five Ideas To Save You Fifty Grand
The original concept for starting EC was to help people. I'm not sure if I've ever told you but a personal goal is, over my lifetime, to reach one million people with a message about using personal athletics to change the direction of their life (one article at a time). In wanting to help people, I need constant reminders that making things "easy" isn't a help! Most of the money that I have wasted so far (I'm sure that more mistakes are to come) is due to a misunderstanding of human nature. #1 – Cash flow determines financial success Coming back to the mission to help people, it is easier to help people (coaches, team members, blog readers) from a stable financial base. My early mistakes nearly blew the entire gig and I'm not out of the woods yet. #2 – Focus technical spend on personal productivity and customer satisfaction Get yourself up and running as quick as possible then listen to your team. #3 – Overheads limit freedom To lower the financial risk in my life I consider my monthly expenses and how I might be able to turn the line items into income. Some examples:
Most of the pressure in my life comes from choices that I’ve made which increased my fixed costs. These choices are NOT necessary for my personal happiness. The items that make me happy are independent of my fixed costs (and I know it). You will notice that the moments where you are most happy are the moments where you feel free. #4 – We rise to expectations, not compensation A story! There has been talk in triathlon circles about the recent change to the prize money and Kona qualification rules. In case you haven’t heard, there is a new requirement to be within a certain %age of the winner for prize money and a Kona slot. Let’s consider the practical implication of the changes:
Back to EC, the quickest way to change results was to adjust the incentive structure and expectations within the business. I suspect that the WTC’s change will have a similar impact – some people will leave and other people will improve. In my prize money example, a lack of communication probably hurt a few feelings. I need to do a better job with communication as well. When you write about your business, be careful and remember that we read with our own voice, not the author’s. #5 – Add value I need to continually focus on adding value to the team. The trip to Noosa was enjoyable but there was a cost from being on the opposite side of the world from all but six of our team. I have been trying to figure out how we leverage the experience base of our team and alumni. I receive tremendous benefit from being the “hub” but the team’s ability to leverage off each other is under-exploited. If we can crack this issue and host a group of friends then that would create value and stickiness. When I ran my Tri Forum (a public message board), there was a large amount of sharing, and connections, between the members. I wonder if the lack of connection is scale. I thought that a private board would generate a higher participation rate but, perhaps, there is a minimum number of participants required to get things flowing. I've been asking folks for ideas so we will see what's possible to increase the connections. We are training together in Tucson this week and over half of the camp has trained with me before. The greatest complement an athlete can pay us is coming back for a second, or third, or fourth, or fifth... camp! Back next week,
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April 1st will mark the third birthday of Endurance Corner LLC. This week I’m going to outline the decisions that cost us the most money in our start up phase. These themes pop up in many areas of my life so, I hope, you can learn from our experience.