You Smell Odd!

Image being a caveman for a month. Stick with me on this…you will learn how to grow your business.

Cavemen didn’t have a lot of the luxuries that we take for granted today. With that being said, as you imagine yourself donning the latest fashion in loin cloth accessories, I would like you to also image that:

• Your hair is nasty. It’s chuck full of mud, burrs, bugs, and a host of other despicable things.
• Your teeth have gone slightly green. Don’t as why – just imagine with me. This also leads to bad breath by the way.
• Your house is not a house. It's more like a hole that's just big enough to protect you and your family from the storms, and of course, the ferocious dinosaurs. Gasp!
• When you go to work, you only have one skillset – clubbing things over the head with a stick.
• You eat what you kill. If you don’t kill, you and your family get to savor some grass tonight. Yummm.
• Fire for you is an elusive creature. You’ve seen it before and you know how to make it, but it’s a serious pain in the back side. To do so requires two sticks and the ability to rub them together for long periods of time without any immediate reward. I can hear the conversation now. “What are you doing tonight honey?” To which the husband caveman says “Oh I think I’ll spend the next several hours rubbing sticks together.”

So what’s with the caveman imagery you ask? Last night I went running with one of my buddies and we got talking about how “modern” the world has become. Nothing about our current lifestyle resembles that of the caveman. We drive fancy cars, have water plumbed right into our homes, and we can even go to the market to get food that someone else has killed for us. How convenient is that? I would be a terrible caveman.

Today, we create fire instantly and we can do it in so many different ways. Think about it…we have lighters, gas stoves, blow torches, glowing lanterns, matches, and on and on. We even have people that eat fire like this guy below! I wonder if he has any eyebrows left? That actually reminds me of a story from my childhood...maybe I'll share it another time.

My question to you is this…why did we improve?

Somewhere along the line, someone changed his or her mindset. They said to themselves, “Hey…trying to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together for hours really sucks. I’m fed up with this.” And then they said the magic words:

There Must Be a Better Way

And so the entrepreneur was born.

Here is another interesting question… “How long did it take before someone asked that question?” Have you noticed that our society has gotten better and better at asking it? I would dare say that the first time around, it took thousands of years before someone asked the question about how to create fire more efficiently. Now that we know the power of that question, we ask it all the time. Come to think of it, humans are constantly inventing new and better ways to master the element of heat.

I have noticed over the years that the businesses who succeed in creating explosive growth are very good at asking the question of “How can we do this better?”

[box_dark]So here is your homework:[/box_dark]

Take a 30 minute walk and focus on how to grow your business. Get out of your office and get some fresh air. As you go, try to keep your mind focused on the following questions:

1. Why do people buy from me? What is the real reason? For example...people don't come to us for a better bookkeeping service (that is just a factor of what they get.) They come to Ignite Spot because they are tired of being tired. They spend too much time dealing with their bookkeeping or the incorrect work of their current bookkeeper. So for us, we are in the business of taking weight off of your shoulders and giving your the ability to run your business without all the paperwork, nightmares, and frustrations that come with getting behind on the books.
2. How can I do that better? This is the crux - the grand poobah of questions. How can you provide your service or product better? How can you do it in a way that provides a greater solution to your customers problem? Once you know that, your business will prosper.

I would love to hear about your business in the comments below. What do you do and how are you going to do it better?