Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

 

Moving Beyond Me, Myself & I

Author: Charlie Cook   |   June 14th, 2010

After not watching hockey on TV since I was fourteen when I played for the Yale Pee Wee hockey team, this past week I’ve been glued to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Why am I paying attention to a winter sport in the summer?

It could be looking at all that ice while it’s hitting 80 or higher outside has a cooling effect I enjoy but the biggest fun factor is the dazzling display of teamwork.

It’s true, on occasion one player has slammed off a shot on his own and scored, but it’s rare. More often, the goals have been the result of three to four even five players passing the puck back and outsourcing tipsforth, totally confusing the goalie in the process, to set up the final shot that scores.

Your business is the same. Just like a game of hockey, things change rapidly and it’s rare that any one person can keep it running by him or herself.

Yet, that’s the exact mistake I see the majority of entrepreneurs making. Their business is, “Me, Myself and I.” And they are trying to play all positions at once with the result they’re having a tough time increasing their scores, e.g. closing more and more sales each month.

In your business, just as on the ice for the Chicago Blackhawks and Philly Flyers, it’s the best team that wins.

This past year I had the pleasure of coaching two women, both who came to me and were struggling to focus their marketing and grow their businesses.  Each week I met with both with completely different results.

Ann wanted to grow her online business to supplement and eventually replace her offline business, an adult family home. And while she had a staff, she always seemed to be jumping in to cover all the bases, with the result that she was perpetually overwhelmed, and after six months her profits were the same.

In contrast, Molly immediately realized, as we talked about scaling her business, that she was going to need to expand her team. Within weeks of getting started, she’d hired on part-time help and within the same six months had doubled the size of her corporate communications business.

To build your business – you first need to build your team. Of course, just like any professional sports team, having a coach helps.

For years, I was a “Me, Myself, and I” kind of business. I kept trying to do everything on my own, and for years it kept holding me back. The biggest breakthrough for my business came as a result of building my team – the people who have made it possible for me to scale up my business, much less spend so much time hitting the ski slopes in the winter or out sailing in the summer.

As I write this, my virtual business team includes 11 people.  How about your business?

Ready to scale it, grow it by two to ten times?

Do you already have a viable business and want help ramping it up?

Contact me to talk further >>

Charlie


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