I started reading this book The Millionaires Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. I was asked to review from chapters 7 to the end.
Book Review by Diane Shawe
1. Strengths • Clear and concise • Easy to understand • Tells you, explains and summarise what was said • Acronyms are used to in-print important topics and subject matters
2. Weaknesses • I think the book draws too much of a negative comparisons between the Driver and Hitchhiker. For instance in my opinion Entrepreneur’s or Leaders cannot expand their business, products or services without followers.
3. Summary of the book
The chapters I have read so far I have found refreshing and stimulating.
This book is full of clear guidelines and ideas. The section that resonates with my understanding and belief as to how an entrepreneur should do business is:
To Attract Money Is to Forget About Money
Want to make big bucks? Then start attracting money instead of chasing it.
Money is like a mischievous cat; if you chase it around the neighbourhood, it eludes you. It hides up a tree, behind the rose bush, or in the garden. However, if you ignore it and focus on what attracts the cat, it comes to you and sits in your lap.
Money isn’t attracted to selfish people.
It is attracted to businesses that solve problems. It’s attracted to people who fill needs and add value. Solve needs massively
Help them solve a problem.
=> Educate them. => Make them look better (health, nutrition, clothing, makeup). => Give them security (housing, safety, health). => Raise a positive emotion (love, happiness, laughter, self-confidence). => Satisfy appetites, from basic (food) => Make things easier.
Blown Away
This section blew my mind and I employ any and all businesses to digest and impliment the following SUCS strategy.
Lots of small businesses fear complaints, but this book encourages you to flip the script by implementing SUCS. In every complaint is an opportunity.
Superior Unexpected Customer Service event. It is a transformation from customer service that naturally sucks, to SUCS.
✓- Complaints of change are difficult to decipher and often require additional data to validate or invalidate. ✓- Complaints of expectation expose operational problems in either your business, or in your marketing strategy. ✓- Complaints of void expose unmet needs, raise the value of your product or service, and expose new revenue opportunities. ✓- Great customer service is as simple as violating your customer’s low expectation in the positive. ✓- Poor service gaps are Fastlane opportunities. ✓- Satisfied customers can be human resource systems who promote your business for free. ✓- Satisfied customers have a dual residual effect: Repeat business and new business via discipleship. ✓- Your customer’s satisfaction holds the key to everything you selfishly want. ✓- Looking big but acting small sets up customer service expectation violations in the positive. ✓- Looking big can scare away potential competitors. Another interesting point is to truly look at the laws of Scale, Magnitude, and Source. If you can’t serve millions, you won’t make millions. => Can this business impact millions? Or does it impact hundreds? Is its customer pool the world or a small community in the city? => Can this business be replicated and expanded beyond the local trading area by franchising, chaining, or additional units? => Best-case scenario, what is the units-sold potential? One hundred or one hundred million?
Another snippets I found interesting is what drivers do:
1)The Commandment of Control 2)The Commandment of Entry 3)The Commandment of Need 4)The Commandment of Time 5)The Commandment of Scale”
Control Fastlane drivers retain control. Those who violate the commandment do not. In general: ✓- Drivers create MLM companies; they don’t join them. ✓- Drivers sell franchises; they don’t buy them. ✓- Drivers offer affiliate programs; they don’t join them. ✓- Drivers run hedge funds; they don’t invest in them. ✓- Drivers sell stock; they don’t buy stock. ✓- Drivers offer drop-shipping; they don’t use drop-shipping. ✓- Drivers offer employment; they don’t get employed. Drivers accept rents and royalties; they don’t pay rents and royalties. ✓- Drivers sell licenses; they don’t buy them. ✓- Drivers sell IPO shares; they don’t buy them. ✓- Drivers don’t join the hottest trend, they serve the hottest trend.
Invest in Your Brand Only! Whose money tree are you growing? Are you investing in your brand or in someone else’s? When yhou invest into someone else’s brand you become part of the marketing plan.
Hitchhiking a Fastlane is an epidemic that deceives many would-be entrepreneurs. I say “would-be” because hitchhiking isn’t entrepreneurial, because at the heart of entrepreneurship is creation and innovation. Hitchhikers aren’t pioneers; they don’t create or innovate. They sell, operate, and manage.
C – (Entry)– N – T – S The Commandment of Entry states that as entry barriers to any business road fall, or lessen, the effectiveness of that road declines while competition in that field subsequently strengthens. Higher entry barriers equate to stronger, more powerful roads with less competition and need for exceptionality. Low-barrier-entry businesses are weak roads because easy entry creates high competition and high traffic, all of which share the same pie. And where there is traffic, there is no movement.
The MLM founder doesn’t need to climb the pyramid, because he built the pyramid! You can be a pyramid builder or a pyramid climber. You can be the sheep or the sheepherder.
Entry Is a Process, Not an Event Want to know if your business violates entry? The answer is simple: Is getting into business an event or a process? Real business startups are processes, not events. If you’re suddenly in business because you bought a distributor kit, or completed an online form, you’re violating entry. If you’re suddenly in business because you took one or two actions, you violate entry.
C – E – (Need) – T – S When you build a business on a flawed foundation, it will fail. Sand foundations crumble houses. Businesses which violate the Commandment of Need enter the 90% failure category or masquerade as a job. The winning business premise is a simple and often forgotten concept that should be ridiculously obvious, but it isn’t. Businesses that solve needs and provide value win.
So what do people care about?
People care about what your business can do for them.
How will it help them?
What’s in it for them?
Will it solve their problem?
Make their life easier?
Provide them with shelter?
Save them money?
Educate them? Make them feel something?
Tell me, why on God’s green Earth should I give your business money?
What value are you adding to my life?
Reflect back to our producer/consumer dichotomy.
Consumers are selfish. They demand to know is “what’s in it for me!” To succeed as a producer, surrender your own selfishness and address the selfishness of others.
If you have not read this book, its about time you did.