If I could give you three key points to remember that would help you succeed, based on the success I’ve seen recently, what would they be? How can you work less and have fun doing it while making more money? Join me, Chris Miles, as I share with you three key principles that have changed how I do business, allowed me to have more free time and money, and LOVE what I do! Listen now!
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Chris Miles Bio
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
3 Keys To Succeed And Love Your Business
It’s another week and another wonderful way for me to be able to serve you. As a reminder, if you’ve got questions or podcast ideas and topics for me to cover, email me at Chris@MoneyRipples.com. If you’ve got questions for me, things you want to chat about for your own stuff, let me know as well. I want to talk about something that I shared at a networking group. It was the last time I was going to this group. It was a farewell parting words. I give their business tip every month. I was thinking about what I would share with them.
I was thinking about this too, and don’t worry, this is not my parting words for you. This is more my parting words for them. I was trying to figure out, “What would be a great thing for them to remember? What’s been changing in my business and in my life, and with my money and everything else, that’s allowed me to be happier, to enjoy life more and to feel greater success in my business and in my life?”
This is what I want to share with you as well. There are three keys that I came up with here that I thought were absolutely essential. In fact, these are the things that actually shifted and changed in the last year that have made all the difference.
Know Your Market
Number one is to know your market. Number two is to remember who you are. Number three is to forget about yourself. Let’s talk about knowing your market. It’s amazing, I’ve been watching the TV show, The Profit. It’s Marcus Lemonis. He goes in and helps struggling companies, try to save companies, try to help save employees’ jobs and everything else, and at the same time, partners that don’t make a lot of money. It’s like Shark Tank but with a lot more getting down and dirty. He is helping those businesses that are about to fail. He’s trying to help pull them out of that.
I’ve noticed a lot of times that he’ll keep saying, “Who’s the real market here? Who are you trying to serve?” In many cases, those companies, even the successful ones, have a pretty good idea, but they can always get better. Do you know who you’re serving? I remember sitting in a meeting about three years ago about Money Ripples. I was sitting with a financial consultant or a business consultant. I was telling him about entrepreneurs and people I served.
You have to know your market, what they're asking, and what they want. Even if you know who you're serving, you have to know what's on their minds. Click To TweetHe’s like, “Chris, do you have the ability to help everybody?” I said, “No, I don’t have the manpower to do that.” “Chris, what you’re teaching, could that help everyone?” I said, “Of course.” He’s like, “Chris, can you help everyone?” “No, of course, I can’t.” “There you go, Chris. We’ve got to find out who it is you’re serving. Who are those few people that you can actually help with your efforts in your own time?”
We can serve everybody. We can help everybody. With what I teach, I know I can help anybody with money and even their business, but I know I can’t help everyone. I’ve had to get clear over the last six months to a year. I’ve gotten very clear about who I’m serving. I know it can even get clearer than that. I can even get narrower. You’ve heard me probably say time and time again that the people I serve are people that primarily ask one or both of these questions, or maybe they’ll say these phrases. They’ll say, “I’m making more money, but where is it all going? I made more money in my business, but I don’t feel like it’s coming home. I don’t feel like I’m any freer than I thought I would be.”
The other question or thing they would say is, “I’ve made good money. I’ve got money, but I want my money to start working for me so I’m not always working for my money. I feel like I just keep working and working and wondering when it’s going to end. I’d love it if my money could work for me. I’m working in my business because I love it, not because I have to own a job or I need it.”
Those are the people that are perfect for me, the people that have worked great. It doesn’t mean I can’t help everybody else. It doesn’t mean I can’t help people that are brand new in business. It doesn’t mean I can’t help people that aren’t even in business. I’ve helped people that have normal jobs as well, and they’ve had retirement accounts sitting around not knowing what to do with it. I’ve helped with some of those people too.
The people I’ve helped the most, the people that are the ones that are making more money but are not coming in or they want their money to start working for them finally. They’ve actually saved some money but they’re not seeing that money creating much cashflow for them. As I’ve worked with those people, I’ve been happier. They’ve been happier and it’s fun. I love when I get to tell people, “You’re easy. You’re an easy situation for me. This is easy for me to resolve and help you out with.” They’re thinking, “Good, because I’m not sure if I see it. If it’s easy for you, even better.”
Those are the people that are the most fun. That has actually re-energized my business. It has allowed me to have more fun and enjoy my business, versus people where my heart can step in sometimes and sometimes get in the way. I tried to take on some really hard, tough situations that take a lot more time than what they would hope it would. There are people for them, but I may not be the person for those people. That’s where I have a lot of fun.
The more you get to know your market and the people you serve, and I’ve served a lot of chiropractors and dentists, so I get them as well. If they happen to fit even those questions and they own that profession, even better. Even network marketing leaders, I’ve been able to help network marketing leaders. Some of them retired their spouses and such. That’s been fun too. Those are the kind of people that I have a lot of fun serving.
As I get to know that market more and more, it becomes play rather than just work. The great thing is you make more money doing it. You’ve got to know your market, know what they’re asking. Know what they want. Even if you know who you’re serving, you’ve got to know what’s on their mind. You’ve got to be able to speak it even before they say it. They’ll say, “You just described everything I’ve been thinking. You just said it even in a better way than I did or I could.” That’s when you know your market. That’s when you know that they will become a raving fan of yours.
Remember Who You Are
Number two is remember who you are. You’ve got to remember who you truly are. What are you about? What lights you up? What are you passionate about? I was talking to someone the other day where they said, “I know these people want this. I feel like I’m serving too many people,” their market got too wide, “They keep asking this question, but I don’t want to answer that question, or I’m not very good or qualified to answer that question.” My thing is, “What questions can you answer? What could you do?” They say, “I get excited about these topics. I get excited about teaching them this.” “I can see a lot of people get excited about that too. In fact, the more excited you are, the more excited they become.”
Focus on your strengths instead of trying to focus on your weaknesses. Farm it out or refer to somebody who is suitable to answer that question, or bring them into your business somehow, or someone who will allow them to partner up with you. Then you can solve someone’s problems that you want to solve even if you’re not the person to do it.
Stop worrying about your problems and issues. Stand in the power of who you are and say you can serve people. Click To TweetIt’s so much easier to do business that way. That’s why I have a whole team of people around me. That’s why I don’t do the taxes myself. I’m not doing the accounting. I’ve got CPAs to do that. I’ve got attorneys to do the legal work. I’ve got people that do investments and insurances and doing mortgages and merchant account services and financing, or whatever it might be. I am happy to be in the cashflow part of it. I’m happy to be focused there. I’m happy to be focused on doing what I do best where I see the overall strategy and the game plan. Where a lot of them don’t see the big picture, I can see how it all works together, how to do it step-by-step, and create a plan. That’s why I have fun. If it’s like, “How can we pay off these debts the right way?” “We could do this and this.”
Somebody the other week, we were able to do a mortgage refinance and we’re able to save her $4,163 a month with her and her husband. It’s huge. That’s like $50,000 a year almost that they’re able to have back in their life. They’re like, “We’ve got more money than we even imagined that would even happen.” That’s awesome. You’re happy. I’m happy. We’re both elated. Knowing who, what and where I am and where I light up, and then other things I’m not so much, that’s where I could refer them out. I’m like, “You saved $13,000 a year on your taxes.” I’m glad that I can connect you with the right people to do that.
If you know who you are, you know your strengths, and you know where your weaknesses are, and you can acknowledge that and be okay with that, and have other people come in and help you with those weaknesses, and on top of that, being able to know what you’re passionate about, and stay focused there, knowing who you are at the core and staying with that, and knowing how you should work. Not everybody should be working the same way. That’s why I get tired of blanket advice that’s given, because not everyone will be working the same way. The way I work is not necessarily the way you should work. It’s not necessarily the way that the next person should work. Your spouse is probably very different than you are, and you should be doing things differently. Let them be in that space. There are lots of unique ways to do that, but you’ve got to know who you are.
Forget About Yourself
The third thing is forget about yourself. Forget about it. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were saying, “It’s so hard because I really feel like I have to justify my services or justify that I’m valuable because I am so young.” I’ve had a couple of people say that to me in the last week, they’re roughly about their low to mid-twenties. They’re like, “I want people to take me seriously.” I thought about that and I remember I used to think that same thing when I was in my twenties. A lot of people didn’t take me seriously.
There was a time in my twenties when people did. That was when I stopped worrying about it. When I stopped worrying about, “Was I qualified enough? Was I old enough?” In some cases, some people wonder if they’re too old. There are excuses about, “Do I know enough or am I enough?” A lot of it is about enough. Sometimes, people will use counterfeit things. They’ll try to buy things. I remember I bought my Mercedes to try to flash to people and show them that I was awesome. When in reality, I was already awesome being who I was.
This goes with remembering who you are, but also don’t forget about your own problems and issues. If you’ve had abuse in the past, don’t let that limit you. Don’t let your gender limit you. Don’t let your religion, your race, your nationality, or anything limit you from believing that people will hold that against you. If you have some challenge, don’t let that get in the way. The more you focus on it, the more they will too.
I remember somebody saying that they were speaking on stage, and they got upset by somebody in the front row who kept typing on their phone. She said that even the people around that person was noticing the distraction. I told her, “I wonder if they’re only noticing the distraction because you were acknowledging it. You kept getting bugged by it.”
People can feel that. People can tell when you’re uncomfortable. They could tell, especially if you’re teaching in a public place, if something is taking your attention away. It’s like when somebody glances at a clock, and everybody else looks at the clock too. The worst thing you could do is glance at a clock when you know you’re coming short on time because then they all get antsy too. It’s the same concept. Stop worrying about your problems and your issues. Whatever you think are problems or issues, usually they’re not.
The thing is you stand in your power of who you are and you say, “I have the ability to serve you. Let me serve you. Let me do that.” In fact, if people are already coming to you, you don’t have to prove anything to them. They’re coming to you because they want help. What are you trying to prove? There’s no need to try to prove those things. The more you get distracted by it, the more you think that that’s what it is, the more people will notice it.
If you move forward and forget about those things, don’t let those emotional things get in the way, don’t let your past or your experiences get in your way, and just move forward and forget about yourself and serve people. You’ll find out that people will keep coming to you to be served, and you’ll keep making more money. Your business will increase. Your profit will increase. All those excuses will start to realize they’re nothing. They’re just in your head. Even if there’s a physical way that people see what your challenge is, it’s still in your head if you think that limits you. You could probably have fun with it. You can enjoy it.
If you happen to be the ugliest person on the planet, you can have a lot of fun with that. You could actually make jokes about it, and people would love it. They would be endeared to you. They would be attracted to you. I have a great friend, Sean Stephenson, who is like Mr. Glass. His bones are so brittle. They break easily. His body wouldn’t grow. He’s not much bigger than like a small child, but that guy has the largest spirit and the biggest personality ever that people adore him. They love him. His challenges allowed him to stand in greater power. That’s what I think is awesome.
Don’t let those things hang you up. Don’t let your experiences or past, or things you think are limitations hang you up because they’re only hanging you up, not everybody else. If you can know who you’re serving, know what they’re asking, you know what they want, then remember who you are. Remember the power of who you are and forget about your problems. Forget about your issues and move forward. Enjoy life. Have fun. Enjoy what you do in your business and be passionate about it. People will be attracted to you like crazy and money will not become the issue. Money will not be an issue at all. The issue will then be how you manage that money. I can help with that too.
There are always people around you to help and support you. There are always people here. You have all the resources and the people you need around you. The key is that you focus on those three key areas. I promise you, and I’ve seen it myself, everything becomes more fun. You work less, you make more money, and it’s awesome. Make it a wonderful, great, and prosperous week. We’ll talk to you next week. Hopefully, I can create some more value for you. Let me know if you have questions. Email me at Chris@MoneyRipples.com. We’ll talk to you later.