Can I Call This My Business Growth Secret?

Can I Call This My Business Growth Secret?

Can I Call This My Business Growth Secret?

In 2017, I decided to step down from my business. 

I sold my shares and switched from running an Insurance brokerage to working with a firm where I would focus solely on serving my clients as an Advisor. 

When I joined the firm, one question I got asked often was: 

‘Why do you have a support team when you could operate as a successful, highly-profitable overheads-free one-man-show as an Advisor?’ 

The question threw me off initially. I wondered if I was holding on to some of my ‘entrepreneurial’ ways in this new role. 

But then, we got to the end of the year, and I had my answer. 

The difference between my closed business and the next-best-performing advisor was threefold. I had outstripped the average top-performing Advisor in my space, at my level, by over 3x in revenue. 

I attribute that increased capacity, and the ability to meet loftier goals to having the right team in place. 

My team freed me up to stay in my Unique Ability®. 

What is Unique Ability®?

I first learned about Unique Ability® in the 8 years I spent with Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach. As the name suggests, it is those abilities for which each of us is innately designed. 

Here’s more on my Unique Ability and how finding it transformed my workday completely.

Discovering my Unique Ability® opened a whole new world for me. It made me view every goal, every strategy, and move through the lens of ‘Who Not How’. 

The idea behind ‘Who Not How’ is to shift from ‘How am I going to do this?’ to ‘Who are the right people to help me get this done?’ 

The 80:20 Goal-Getter Rule  

Are you a massive goal-setter? I am. 

And before I learned about Who Not How, I’d set this massive goal and sometimes feel completely overwhelmed at the size of it, at the number of hours, the work it was going to take to achieve it. Some days, the big goals felt impossible. 

But here’s the truth of the matter: You only really need to focus on the 20% of that goal that only YOU can make happen. Leave the 80% to the right ‘who’s – the right team members, the experts, and the resources who will help you get there. 

You’ll find that you can get there quicker, easier and have a much better shot at achieving the goal with the right people by your side. 

Frank Sinatra Didn’t Move Pianos 

Frank Sinatra shows up, plays the piano, sings, moves his audience with his music and then well, he walks out. His crew steps in to do the rest. 

They moved the pianos and got them to the next venue where once again, he showed up and took the mic to do what he is uniquely, wonderfully gifted to do. 

Same for Michael Jordan: He shows up to play his best game. The laundry, dinner, the taxes, everything else gets done by someone else to leave him free to bring his magic to the next basketball court he’s going to step on to. 

That’s just what happens when you find your Unique Ability® and decide to focus solely on thriving in that zone and that zone alone. 

So, here’s a straight shot at my message… 

While I am an Advisor and could possibly operate very comfortably and perhaps more ‘profitably’ (depends on what constitutes profit to you) without a team, I’m always keen on taking on our next new hire. 

And every time I’m making a hire, here is the dialogue that I’ve got going in my head: 

‘Can I do his/her job?’

‘Absolutely’ 

‘Can I do his/her job AND my job?’ 

‘Absolutely not.’

And that’s when I know I’m making the right decision by adding to my growing support team. 

In a future article, I’ll break down the specifics of what my team looks like today, and what ‘scale’ or ‘growth’ means to us. Hint: It does not mean more clients! 

Your turn – what do you think your Unique Ability® is? Are you spending enough time in it, or are other ‘tasks’ and ‘priorities’ constantly pulling you away from staying in this thrive zone?

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