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Self-Limiting Businesses or
Hedy and the Angry Poop

Women are conditioned to be modest, to be the helpers and to maybe aim a little lower. We are taught that it is egotistical to shoot for the top and ego is considered unladylike and pushy.

One of the things that women do is that they consistently take lower-paying or administrative type jobs as a way to get their foot in the door, hoping to be moved into management. Men don’t join the secretarial pool. They are either directed to or apply for the management training program and move up.

We do it in the businesses we start too. Women tend to start self-limiting businesses. Let me give you an example because it so starkly contrasts the way that most people think and the way that millionaires think.

I spoke with a very nice woman named Hedy at a meeting and she had a business picking up dog poop. (You can look it up: http://www.Hedyscoopsdogpoop.com.) For $10 a visit she will come out to your house and pick up the dog poop in the yard. More money if you have more dogs. And when I started to do the math I figured about the most she can make (without taking on employees and employees would be hard to find) is about $600 a week if she gets ten jobs a day and works six days a week. Now, for many Americans, $600 a week isn’t bad. That is about $30,000 a year. But Hedy is out in the Florida heat and rain picking up dog poop. I am not putting her down for the work she is doing; she is an animal lover and likes being outside. She also does dog-walking and other pet care work. I also appreciate a dog-poop-free yard. But personally, I think she deserves to make more than that. Hedy isn’t looking for a full-time job or to take on the world. The business works fine for her needs. But her business is a shining example of many entrepreneurial endeavors: she has created a self-limiting business. She will never be able to work more than about 10 jobs per day or make more money than $600.

Time and again, I see entrepreneurs (not just women) make this mistake when they start their business. People think they are going into business when really, they are buying themselves a job. And not just a job, but a job that limits how much money they are able to make.

Most people who go into business want the freedom of working for themselves rather than under the thumb of a boss, they want to make more money than they would as an employee, and they want to be able to take time off when they want.

And yet, when they start a business, they usually end up working more hours making less money and discover they have more of a job than a business.

Here’s the contrast.

My friend Dave Lakhani is the author of Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want (http://www.boldapproach.com). He is an expert in persuasion. Dave was the top salesperson in every company he ever worked in. The same week I met Hedy, Dave spoke at a convention of fertilizer sales people and was paid $30,000 to talk to the group for an hour. Now it was very high-end organic fertilizer, but fertilizer never the less. (He enjoyed the irony.) His job was to get them all revved up and close them, increasing sales to a point way beyond what was expected. Which is what he did because he is very, very good at what he does. Because of Dave the company closed close to a million dollars in sales that night.

Think about this on the most basic level: Hedy and Dave are both dealing in POOP!!!! But Hedy is making $30,000 a year working hard and Dave is making $30,000 an hour to talk.

I asked him about it because I realized that when he decided to become an expert on persuasion, he intentionally put himself in the way of money. People pay big money to be taught how to sell and how to market. Sales training is a huge business but he knew that particular market was over-saturated. So he created a niche that if you did it well, would pay very well. He trains people in persuasion techniques. He also built up persuasion as a market. He said when he started, persuasion wasn’t really a topic or a marketable commodity but it has now been built into something that people know about and want. People want to be more persuasive whether it is in making the sale or getting a date – which is really making a sale, isn’t it?

But here is my point: When you are looking at a business, you need to look at the market potential for that business as well as optimizing your time spent for the money made. When we earn active income, we trade our time for dollars. (Passive income is different, we aren’t talking about that here.) But when you are trading your time for dollars, you need to figure out how to get the most dollars for your time. Efficiency. And you need to figure out how to leverage that in order to make obscene amounts of money for your time. Take a look at the business you are in and figure out if it is self-limiting or if it has the potential to expand.

There are questions you need to ask about your business:

• Does this business give me a healthy return of dollars for my time?
• Am I in an industry that is growing or shrinking?
• What do I do differently and better than anyone else in my industry.
How can I leverage that into making more money?
• What do I want my business to do for me?
• Does this business have the potential to keep paying me if I take a six-month vacation or retire?

If answering the questions leads you to the conclusion that there is a relatively low dollar amount that you can make in a particular industry, or that your industry is shrinking or over-saturated, don’t build your business there. Take the time to analyze your business path before hurtling headlong down it.

How the Red Sox Prepared Me For Dating

I found out a very good friend of mine is a Cleveland Indians fan. Rabid Cleveland Indians fan. As a Red Sox fan, this is on par with finding out your current boyfriend is gay. (“He was always so good about going to Ikea with me…”) We have found our first point of disagreement after a year and a half of friendship. In my state of shock, all I could think was, “Who the hell is a Cleveland Indians fan?” I pictured my buddy and Drew Carey alone in the stands wearing raccoon coats and clutching little Indians pennants. Maybe a little ways from them would be two transplanted Red Sox fans, there to cheer on Trot Nixon. (To his credit, my friend was cheering on the Red Sox for the World Series so he has redeemed himself.)

Now, intellectually I know that the Indians and the Rockies are both great teams and deserve every fan they have. But I am a Red Sox fan. That long-standing tradition of baseball suffering and angst is just not possible for Denver (the team hasn’t been around long enough to be long-suffering) and angst is just not part of the fabric of Cleveland. (Please note that I am not making a mean, incredibly easy joke on fabric and Cleveland. I have my standards. So insert your own Cleveland/polyester joke here. I won’t since they came close to whipping my Sox’s butts.) In true Red Sox war cry fashion, I have to say, “At least it isn’t the Yankees.” And this is the attitude, this is the tradition that has prepared me for the dating world.

Face it, unless you married the guy who asked you to the junior and senior prom, you are probably going to have some bad dating experiences. But if you grew up as a Red Sox fan, you can handle it.

Most years, the season starts off like most relationships. The Red Sox are looking good, looking strong, really impressing us. Right up to the All Star Break. About three and a half months. And if you compare the time tables, most relationships look good the first couple of months. But then there is that slight slip up, a bobble, an error that brings what could have been a lovely evening to an inauspicious close. You start having second thoughts. You really do have a headache.

You can handle this because you have invested just a short period of time in this illusion called hope. You are not totally emotionally invested. (Note: You are lying to yourself.) You have seen them slip and recover before. You know that men need to be forgiven for the things they do that are just, well, guy things. It was a one-time aberration. So it might still be okay. This guy might still be the one. We still have a shot at going all the way. And while you would never voice that hope out loud to anyone, it is clanging in the back of your mind, every time he brings flowers; every time Ortiz slams one home. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Unconsciously, you dial your commitment level back a couple of notches; you turtle back into survival mode. You may check in on the man and the team from time to time, allowing chances at redemption but they are both slipping in the standings. You are already aware that No, he is not the one and No, this is not the year. You just aren’t ready to admit it to yourself yet. That will come at the beginning of September.

But every so often, you have a summer that is everything you could ever hope for. The boys are making plays that are as finely choreographed as a ballet; they are knocking in runs, they can do no wrong. Your dating relationship looks like the montage from every chick flick ever made where the guy is funny and charming and so there for you. You are collectively upbeat and full of life and you are a part of the upsurge of excitement and hope. Everything looks like you are heading towards that golden moment, you are ready to make that commitment in front of God and everyone: “I think we are going to make it this year. I think we can win the Series.”

You hold your breath, waiting for the implosion. They will blow a lead so badly you have to wonder if it is intentional. He will do something unbelievably, unforgivably stupid. It will be the deal breaker. It will be the colossal error that ruins everything. It is the self-sabotage that will tell you “No, this is not the guy for you. This is not the year.” They will fall further and further behind. You will wonder what you saw in him in the first place. You are prepared to be bitter because you have played the fool once again.

You stock your woman-cave with Godiva chocolate and quarts of Haagen-Daaz for the coming crash (after all, you have been here before) and you are prepared to spend the winter recovering from the dreams of what could have been.

You hold your breath, your muscles tense waiting for the fall. And a miracle happens. Incredibly, inexplicably, he comes out of a tailspin and soars like a hawk on a thermal. They sweep the series and sweep you off your feet. That flame of hope that you were prepared to let die catches fire and you are glad that you took a chance on looking foolish. It was worth sticking your neck out, it was worth crawling out on that shaky, straggly limb of hope. Because when it comes to love and the Red Sox, anything is possible.

Several of my girlfriends and I get together once a month or so just to have a talk-fest and keep our friendships vibrant and on-track. It usually starts with a phone call from one of us (there are usually five of us who get together) saying we need a “girls’ night”. Now we are all grown women but we are secure enough not to bristle at the word girls. If you are having trouble with it, get over it.

We get together and eat food that is bad for us and drink champagne and wine in good stemware and just talk. We talk for anywhere from seven to nine hours (we may have gone ten hours one night – we don’t really keep track). And by and large we talk about business. Although last night a good fifteen minutes was spent on hair removal techniques. Hey, we’re girls.

Our common ground is real estate investing. We met each other through our local real estate investors association and we have formed an alliance that sometimes includes doing real estate transactions with each other but more often does not. We did not come together to form a business alliance – an old girls’ network as opposed to an old boys’ network. We work well with men on a daily basis and some of us are partnered in business with men. But what we have done is form a friendship that has become a brain trust of sorts, a small band of smart businesswomen who came together for social reasons and evolved into a mastermind group.

Last night turned into a kind of “hot seat” workshop where one by one we discussed the problems facing us and our businesses and got input from each other as to what direction we should take. The downturn in the real estate market created some tight situations for us and we discussed the various exit strategies for a few loser properties as well as ways to capitalize on the current market.

Several of us do internet marketing. Usually our talks on that center around driving traffic to our sites. (That seems to be the uncrackable egg in internet marketing, doesn’t it? No matter what anyone promises in their sales letters.) Last night we focused on offline methods of generating additional revenue from our clients, from putting advertisements for other related vendors in our packages to referral messages to capitalizing on local festivals. These are all methods that people in business know that they should be employing. There is no rocket science going on here. But even though we know we should be doing certain things in business, especially things like following up with current clients for retention and up-selling purposes, we don’t always get to it. A session with the girls where steps are laid out for you to implement will be followed up at the next session with the question, “Did you implement those steps?”

But the beautiful thing about being reminded of what you need to do is that it usually comes with an offer of help. For instance, I need to book some speaking engagements. My friend Ayla, who is in touch with hundreds of groups, has offered to help me get the word out. In concrete ways. She does this for another speaker and she has the skill to do it. I am working a tradeshow booth for her next month because she has an event going on in another location. But the tradeshow booth I am working will also benefit me because it will put me in front of more real estate investors. My friend Bobbie, who imports goods from Germany (www.mydirndl.com) will be working an Oktoberfest next month. A couple of us will pitch in for a few hours to help her get everything organized and man the booth (okay, woman the booth). Allison doesn’t know it yet, but I will be tapping her to help out with an Auction Event of a house I will be doing in her town. The fifth member of our group, Nancy, who couldn’t make it last night, is a wall of positive reinforcement. Whenever one of us feels like we are the world’s biggest screw up, we talk to Nancy and she pumps us up with her complete and utter belief that we will all be huge successes. And she is right.

Women love to talk and we love to discuss problems and situations ad nauseum. However, if you can find yourself a group of friends who will chew on a subject and use it as a jumping off point for brainstorming and out-of-the-box thinking, you will be light-years ahead of your competition. Not just because of the ideas that will come to light, but because you will have a group of friends who will help you with your project and who will kick your butt if you slack off.

I am very fortunate to have a group of friends who want to discuss concrete ways of making our lives and businesses better. Most importantly, they are willing to act on their ideas. Who do you have in your life who helps motivate you to achieve more? Who do you know that is actively working towards success by attending seminars, reading books, trying new ways to market or hatching new ideas to increase the bottom line? If you want to live an extraordinary life, you need to seek out these people and actively make them a part of your life. They are out there. And they are looking for you, too.

Chatting with a friend today we were discussing a mutual acquaintance who seemed to have gone from one controlling relationship to another. Worse, the guy who was controlling her was a loser. Perhaps, by definition, any guy who needs to control a woman to feel good about himself is a loser. We couldn’t figure out what a bright, pretty, talented woman was doing relying on a guy for advice who obvious was not up to her level. But, I thought, maybe it is all relative. If you grow up in a trailer park and you live in an old single wide, you meet a guy with a double-wide with a washer dryer and his own car, maybe you think he knows what he is doing. You don’t think maybe I should find a guy with a string of houses and apartments to learn from. Because you have never experienced people with a string of houses and apartments. Or it may be a step up for a woman to date the construction foreman instead of one of the workers. If you have never met a developer, the foreman looks good to you. There’s nothing wrong with living in a double-wide or dating a construction foreman. What is wrong is that women go after the guy or what he has instead of working out a way to earn it for themselves. I get so frustrated with women who want to date the guy doing stuff instead of wanting to do the stuff themselves. Which is why I wrote Don’t Make Me Slap You.

Don’t Make Me Slap You is a workbook for women to help them define what they want and lay out a logical plan to get what they want. Without manipulating and/or using some guy to get it. Seems simple. And it is. But it is not effortless. It is not a “read this and feel better about yourself immediately” kind of book. The reason that quickie self-esteem builders don’t work is because deep down people know that they have done nothing to warrant feeling better about themselves. Lying to yourself won’t get you there.

The goal is to move women from the current atmosphere of male bashing (a backlash that does not contribute to moving us forward) to a new level of cooperation and true teamwork with men. A true equality. Not better. Not worse. Equal. We may have different strengths and weaknesses, but by joining together instead of engaging in petty competition, we can leverage each others strengths and alleviate our weaknesses. But don’t worry — we will always have better taste in shoes.