Entrepreneurial Leap: Do You Have What It Takes To Become an Entrepreneur? with Gino Wickman: From the 2020 archive

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Duct Tape Marketing. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down the entrepreneurial leap. Do you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur? To drop these value bombs, I am brought to Gino Wickman into EO Fire Studios. Gene has been an entrepreneur since the age of 21. He's the founder of EOS Worldwide and author of Traction. He is also the founder and author of Entrepreneurial Leap with a mission to help a million entrepreneurs in the making over the next 10 years.

0:38And today at Fire Nation, we'll talk about being a creative problem solver and an optimist. And I love this. In business, you're going to have two great years, six good years, and two terrible years. Be prepared and have at least six months of cash flow for your business and yourself. Wise words, Fire Nation, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Gene and our sponsors. If you're looking for highly vetted, US-based fractional virtual contractors, then check out Belay. Belay is exclusively offering Fire Nation their latest ebook, Delegate to Elevate, for free.

1:12Learn how to reclaim your time and save 15 hours per week by mastering the powerful tool of delegation. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Gino, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1:55You bet. Well, hello, Fire Nation. And something about me most people don't know is that I'm an introvert. So most people would think I was an extrovert in all that I do and putting myself out there to the world. But at the end of the day, I'm a true card carrying introvert. You know, Gino, and maybe we can talk about this at some point in the interview if it comes up, but I would honestly say that nine out of 10 entrepreneurs identify themselves as introverts. Yeah. And I would, I don't know if it's nine out of 10, but I believe it's most as well. It's up there. I mean, you know, it's something that I think, because I think there's a scale, you know, I feel like there's people that might be like 60 % introvert, 40 % extrovert.

2:36It's not just like 100 % one way or the other. Like just because, you know, you like to Netflix and chill by yourself every now and then doesn't necessarily mean you are a card carrying introvert fire nation for everybody out there. So there's a range. I'm, you know, I'm definitely in that higher range of being an extrovert, but at the same time, Hey, I like to go on walks by myself. I like to be in the hammock with nobody talking to me for stretches at a time, so I definitely have my introvert phases as well. So we've already done a little teaser, Gino, about what we're talking about today. A lot of exciting things.

3:08And as Fire Nation knows, we're talking about the entrepreneurial leap. Do you, Fire Nation, have what it takes to become an entrepreneur on fire? So let's dive in, Gino. I want to talk about the six essential traits of an entrepreneur. Let's break those six down and then do a deep dive into a couple of them. You bet. And to create a little context, this book is written in three parts. I call it Confirm, Glimpse, and Path. And so what we're about to talk about is that first part of the book that is first confirming if you are an entrepreneur in the making before we even get into talking about you taking your leap.

3:46And so in that, I believe there are six essential traits that every true entrepreneur possesses They are visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible. And we can go as deep into any and all of those as you'd like. This is what I want to do. I want to at least have one or two sentences on each one of those six. And then after we go through all six, just based on those one or two sentences, I want to pick one or two to dive a little bit deeper on. So start with visionary. Love it. And so here's what I ask. So as the listener is listening, I want you to really kind of do a checkup on yourself as I kind of do a riff through these six essential traits and just kind of get a feel for if this describes you.

4:37Because, again, this describes all true entrepreneurs. Here we go. Visionary. And so visionary means that you have lots of ideas. You're able to connect the dots. You have this sixth sense. You see things that other people don't see. You're able to kind of see around corners and you're able to kind of put things together. Number two is passionate. And what I mean by passionate is passion is really passion for your product or your service or that thing that you want to bring to the world. You have strong belief. There's a void that you want to fill in the world. You want to put a dent in the universe.

5:18You have what's known as a reality distortion field, as Steve Jobs was accused of having. Number three is problem solver. And problem solver is that you lean into problems. You are a creative problem solver. When you get hit with a setback, you lean into that setback. You're an optimist by nature. you see solutions where most people see problems. Number four is driven. And driven, very different than passion, where passion is about your product, service, the thing you're bringing to the world. Driven is this internal fire that you've always had, this sense of urgency, this competitive nature. You want to succeed.

6:02You are self-motivated. You hustle. You love working hard. Number five is risk taker. And risk taker just simply means you don't freeze when it comes time to make the tough decision. You're rebellious. You have a rebellious nature. You're willing to fail. You don't want to fail. You don't intend to fail, but you know that failure is all part of the process and you will make those tough decisions and risk failing to ultimately achieve your objective. And you tend to be the kind of person that begs for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. And then responsible, the final one is that you blame no one.

6:43You take full responsibility. There are two types of people in the world. You can line everyone up in your life. There are the people that take responsibility when something goes wrong. And there are people that blame everyone else when something goes wrong. And so you default to looking in the mirror when something goes wrong. And I heard a great line just a few weeks ago from one of our EOS implementers. And the essence of responsibility is if a meteor hits your building, you know, it's your fault. At the end of the day, you chose that building, you built that building, you chose to be there.

7:18And so that's, you know, just that kind of a person, somebody who's responsible just defaults to saying, how do I solve my problem? And those are the six. Fire Nation, six essential traits of an entrepreneur, visionary. You have a lot of ideas. You literally claim to have had the idea for Amazon before Bezos. That's a lie. You didn't, but you claim it. Passionate. There's a void you want to fill that reality distortion field. Problem solver. You are an optimist. Driven. I love this one, of course, because of the internal fire. Risk taker. You make decisions and are rebellious and responsible. You take 100 % responsibility.

7:54One thing that I've always said is that, hey, if I'm going to stop, if I'm going a stop sign waiting, you know, for that light to turn red. If I'm at a stoplight and I get back rear ended, it's my fault. It's my fault. Like it is a hundred percent my fault. Like that's how much I believe in taking a hundred percent responsibility for everything. I mean, for me, Gino, that goes back to my army days. I was an officer for eight years and the commanders in my line of command that I always admired the most were those that took a hundred percent responsibility. I was like, I want to be like those people because no matter what happens, no matter whose fault it is, they take that responsibility.

8:31And I love that. It is passionate. It is so important for me to continuously be 100 % responsibility. Love that. So Gino, I've gone through all six and the two that I want to dive into a little bit deeper is number one, problem solver, that optimist. So go a little bit deeper into this one. They're going to go a little bit deeper into the risk taker, and then we'll move on. Love it. Well, again, so, you know, as I said, you're a creative problem solver where problems happen. Most of the world sees problems. You tend to see solutions. And so, you know, building a business, being an entrepreneur, putting a product or a service out there to the world, you constantly get hit with setbacks, a problem with the product, a problem with the service, a surprise that absolutely knocks your business on its butt.

9:25Well, most of the world curls up in a ball, sucks their thumb, and waits for the problem to go away or someone else to solve it. You get fired up. You actually get energized, and you lean into that, and your brain just starts to go. Yes, for 30 minutes, an hour, maybe even a day, you got knocked off kilter, but you get up, fired up, ready to solve whatever that problem is, be it a big one or a little one. And I find that an entrepreneur is basically solving six problems a day if they have a normal business. I mean, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to lie. I dislike, I strongly dislike being around pessimists.

10:02I just don't like being around pessimists. I never have. I don't know. It's just something about them. And it's even to this day, I mean, I have family members who are so pessimistic and I just can't stand spending a lot of time with them because I'm just like, why do you want to live the world this way? I mean, you have literally two choices. You can be an optimist or a pessimist and you're choosing that sad, sad route. And I don't get it in Fire Nation. I'm telling you, there are so few entrepreneurs who have truly been successful while being pessimistic. Like you have to be an optimist. Like, yes, this went wrong.

10:34Now, where's the bright side? Where's the silver lining? Where's the sun shining through this cloud? Figure that out. And now risk taker, Gino, I wanted to move into this one because, you know, I love personally being the devil's advocate. Like I always love to say the opposites, you know, of whatever someone says about their opinion, no matter if I agree with or disagree with it's because I love the conversation, you know, and I also love that phrase that you use, which is ask for forgiveness, never permission. I mean, that is literally how I live my life. And, you know, looking back into why I launched entrepreneurs on fire, like I hired the mentors and the masterminds and they all told me, John, a daily podcast will fail.

11:11It just can't work. And I loved that they said that because that gave me the chance to be rebellious and just go against the grain. So break this part down for us, risk taker. Yeah, I love it. And I love your point there about, you know, I think about everything I've ever succeeded at. Somebody told me I couldn't do it. And for some reason that just fueled me 10x. And anyway, with that. Well, Gino, but that actually excited me as I'm sure did you as well, because I'm like, wow, these people think it can't be done. And I figured out how to do it. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And then the other way I like to describe this is everybody thinks that an entrepreneur as a risk taker, you know, the one risk they take is when they start their business and take their entrepreneurial leap.

11:54when in fact that is one of a thousand risks over a 10-year period. And so this is so important because I'm teaching these six essential traits, and then there's an assessment that your listeners can take to make sure they have them because I'm first and foremost confirming that you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur. And it's a cautionary tale because if you don't have these, you probably shouldn't take the leap. And so my point is taking your entrepreneurial leap, that's one risk. and then getting your butt kicked every week for the next 520 weeks over the next 10 years, you know, that's where you're making tough decisions.

12:30You're having to fire people that are, you know, lifelong employees. You're having to make really tough decisions. You have to fire customers. You have to make major changes to your product or service that potentially put you out of business. This is never ending this risk taking that you have to do. And so it is a forever thing. It's not a one-time thing. You check the box and all of a sudden you're in business. Talk to us about the entrepreneurial range. What is this? Yeah, so this helps me teach these six essential traits because the reality of it is what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to explain to the reader and your audience what a true entrepreneur is.

13:09And for people that listen to this that don't have all six essential traits, they feel a little defeated because they really want to be self-employed. And so the entrepreneurial range works like this. And so if you picture in your mind this arc, if you will, and on the far right side of the arc, you picture the word true entrepreneur. And on the far left side of that range or arc is self-employed. Well, every self-employed person is somewhere on that range. And so a true entrepreneur are the picture that if we go to the far right side of that range are the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Blakely.

13:51And then if we go to the far left side of that range, these are self-employed people, people with, you know, one person show, sole proprietors of somebody who buys one franchise, somebody who has a lifestyle business. And so the point of that is all of the people on that range that have a business, they're all self-employed. But what I'm teaching and speaking to are people on the right side of the entrepreneurial range that truly build organizations with people, really making an impact on the world through an organization of people. And so no matter where you are on that range, it is respectful.

14:29You're taking a risk. You're a self-employed person. And many self-employed people need to stay on that left side of the range and just be a one-person show. And there's no shame in that. But if someone has these six essential traits, you can't stop yourself but to end up with an organization and a product or service that is far-reaching. And so that's the range just to help the listener really understand the context of being self-employed and the audience that I'm teaching. So I love that visual of the true entrepreneur all the way to the self-employed Fire Nation. So kind of visualize that, picture that as you're going through this process.

15:08And in your book, Gino, you have the entrepreneur in the making assessment. Give us a quick taste of what this looks like. Yeah. And so it's free on the website e-leap.com. You're going to answer 25 questions about yourself and you're going to get a result. And so it's everything we're talking about. And that result is just another way, another tool, another opportunity for you to filter yourself and decide, do you have these six essential traits? And if at the end of taking that assessment, you score a 90 or higher, there's a really good chance you probably have all six essential traits where on the other side, if you score 60 or lower, I'm gonna caution you that taking the entrepreneurial leap may not be the right decision for you in the way of being on the far right side of that range.

15:57All that said, if you just wanna have your own business, you wanna be self-employed and let's pretend you're handy, I mean, you can go start a handy person business, be a handyman, a handywoman, make 60 bucks an hour, a six-figure income, be self-employed, and that is admirable, so please go do that. But our odds are you're probably not going to build a 100-person construction company. And Fire Nation, not everybody's meant to be a number one either. Or even like the person that's running their own self-employed company. I mean, it's just a reality. Like the number 37 at Facebook has made way more money than Gino and I will combine to ever make.

16:35It's just like they were in the right place at the right time and they were adding value to a real corporation. And so that's why taking these type of assessments is so critical to really honestly gauge yourself. Because it's a fad. It's cool. It's hip. Everybody wants to be a quote-unquote entrepreneur now. And that's awesome. And a lot of people can and should, but a lot of people can't and shouldn't. So figure this stuff out before you spend a ton of time, energy, bandwidth, and potentially money going down this path if it's not your path. And Fire Nation, if you think we're even close to being finished dropping value bombs, come on now.

17:10We've got eight critical mistakes that entrepreneurs make and so much more as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. No one accomplishes anything great alone, but perhaps you've experienced this too. Delegation and managing a team, especially a virtual team, can be the toughest thing you'll do as a business owner. Well, good news. If you're looking for highly vetted US-based fractional virtual contractors, then you've got to check out Belay. No more throwing away your time on managing details, scheduling meetings, replying to emails and processing reports. If there are tasks and projects you're holding onto, it's time to delegate them so you can free up time to focus on the things only you can do.

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19:03The easy-to-use CRM just got even easier. In a world buzzing with AI solutions, HubSpot just released some incredible tools that are going to level up your productivity and grow your business. Get early access to HubSpot AI today at hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence. So Gino, we're back, and I want you to give us a glimpse of what it looks like to be an entrepreneur. Yeah, you bet. And so with that, you know, bringing you back to that context and your listener back to that context, we've talked about the first part of the book and this content, which is confirm. And let's pretend we've confirmed that you're an entrepreneur in the making.

19:39We move to the second part of the book, which is glimpse. And you're grabbing one of the tools that I teach. And the idea behind glimpse is to paint this vivid picture for that entrepreneur in the making so they can see in advance what the life looks like and make the right decision for themselves. And in that, I teach a day in the life of an entrepreneur, both the dream and the nightmare, the two scenarios that entrepreneurs live. And in that, what I do is I teach the eight critical mistakes that most entrepreneurs make to live and end up in that nightmare scenario. So again, I'll give you the high level and then we can go as deep as you'd like, but here they are.

20:18Number one is not having a vision. Number two is hiring the wrong people. Number three is not spending time with your people. Number four is not knowing who your customer is. Number five is not charging enough. Number six is not staying true to your core. Number seven is not knowing your numbers. And number eight is not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. Okay. I definitely know the two that I want to go on a deep dive already because I just know my audience. But let's take a second, just like last time, let's go through, give one or two expounding sentences on each, and then we'll dive into two.

20:54You bet. So number one, not having a vision, simply put, you know, you don't need a detailed business plan any longer to launch your business. 95 % of businesses don't need it. 85 % of businesses are not raising outside funds when they start. And so the idea of those, I created a tool called My Vision Clarifier, eight sections to it. And you're just simply getting out of your head and in a document, your vision. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your people. You owe it to your customers. Number two is hiring the wrong people. So what happens in this situation is the entrepreneur almost always takes the leap, starts to grow the business, needs people, and they grab the closest body that they can.

21:36And so they hire their brother, their sister, their best friend, their mom, their dad, their neighbor, and they throw them into the business and have not confirmed that that person fits in the culture, has the core values, has the skill set to do the job. And sadly, they're firing that person a year or two or three years later. And each one of these mistakes stem from the 30 years of me working with companies and taking clients through my process. These are all the mistakes that we're fixing and solving and unwinding as we as EOS implementers are helping companies through the process. Number three is not spending time with your people.

22:12And so a classic mistake of the entrepreneur is their passion leads everything and they're bringing people into the organization and these people are just following them aimlessly because they're so fired up about the passion where they're just not spending enough time and so months in years in all of a sudden communication is always the number one problem and so the quick solution is meet with your people weekly, meet with your people quarterly, and give feedback open and honest. And often that will solve 85 % of your communication problems. Number four is not knowing who your customer is. And so a classic mistake is that an entrepreneur is trying to be all things to all people.

22:54They're marketing and selling their wares to everyone in the world where the real secret is to hone your target market, know your ideal customer, demographic, geographic, psychographic and target them. Number five is not charging enough. Classic mistake where it's a psychological issue. Most entrepreneurs undercharge and to the degree they literally raise their fees 10%, it's the difference between going out of business and staying in business. The difference between losing money and making money. Number six is not staying true to your core. Classic mistake here is the more successful you get, the more opportunities come at you, the more shiny stuff presents itself.

23:34And so most entrepreneurs go after all the shiny stuff and find themselves deluded and unfortunately out of business because they didn't stay true to their core. Number seven is not knowing your numbers. Classic issue with someone with the six essential traits. They're typically not great with the numbers, but simply put, have a weekly scorecard, monitor your monthly P &L, have a budget. And number eight is not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. Even if you only have two people, you and one other, you need to have an org chart, roles and responsibilities. You need to know who's doing what.

24:09It will set you up for great success as you add the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, 100th person to your organization. Okay. The first one I want to dive into is number five, not charging enough. I can tell you from firsthand experience, Fire Nation comes at me all the time. Like, John, what do I charge for this? What do I charge for that? It's such a stress point. It causes fear. It causes paralysis. They don't move forward because of it. So they're either charging way too less or way too much, or they just don't know what to do here. So let's go a little bit deeper into this. Like, how do we actually figure out what that price point, that right price point might be?

24:46Yeah, great. I want to share three things. Number one, I cannot tell you how many times I've advised a client to raise price, raise fee. They did it without a hitch. So I'm speaking from experience on this. One example is a client was charging$95 an hour for their tech service. When they just raised it to$99, there's a 4%, almost a 4 % increase in the bottom line. They didn't skip a beat. Second thing I always like to share is a great tool for your listeners. watch Casey Brown's Ted talk on this subject. She is the expert, the guru on pricing, and she will take you to the psychology of why you are struggling with charging enough.

25:31Again, it is a psychological issue. And then a fun little nugget from Dan Sullivan, the creator of the strategic coach, the way he describes it is he says, here's how you do your pricing. He says, pick the number that scares the heck out of you and then add 20%. Add 20%. And that is true. It's true almost all the time, but that's the kicker is the add 20%. So there's a couple of nuggets to stir the conversation. Okay. The next thing I want to move into is not knowing your numbers. I mean, let's just be honest right now. Coronavirus, COVID-19. I mean, that hit a lot of people out of nowhere. They weren't prepared and you are seeing businesses and record numbers failing.