Build a Business That Can Scale | Tony Robbins Podcast

[Music] are you ready for a major breakthrough in your business are you hungry for growth and ready to take massive action tony robbins has invested more than 40 years into consulting the most accomplished organizations and business leaders his exclusive business mastery program is the culmination of everything he has learned and assimilated in that process in this immersive five-day boot camp program you'll learn from Tony and other leading business experts how to uncover the critical factors impacting your business right now then refocus and realign with the business strategy you need for competing in any economy you

will leave this groundbreaking program with the essential tools to shape your business and drive it to incredible success so harness your hunger let go of your fears and take your business to the next level at business mastery admission is extremely competitive and exclusive visit ww2 near abuse comm slash business mastery to see if you qualify space is limited so only qualified business owners will be approved hey guys welcome back to the Tony Robbins podcast as we continue our real breakthrough series if you're a business owner then you know the power of developing and executing a

world-class marketing strategy but how do you go about creating that world-class marketing plan that's gonna set you apart from your competition how do you find and convey your unique selling proposition marketing isn't just about doing something unique it's about adding more value than anyone else doing more for your customer than anyone else in this episode we're taking you to business mastery where you're going to hear Tony speak with Darcy a woman who is struggling to find her niche even despite an impressive resume of clients Darcy runs a successful production company and she works with some

of the biggest companies around the world but up to this point Darcy's relied on word-of-mouth to propel her business growth and while her referrals have gotten her up to a certain point it's not enough to create the massive impact that she longs for she needs a world-class marketing strategy listen carefully you're gonna hear Tony show Darcy how to move out of her own way and eliminate the beliefs that hold her back you're going to learn exactly how you can start to find your own unique niche and start building the brand that's going to take your

company to the next level because if you do when everyone else is doing just a little bit better you're going to get an incremental return but if you do what no one else is doing you're going to find geometric rewards isn't it time you stepped up your game what's your name where you from Darcy I'm from Oregon Darcy Darcy what does this again production and production of what photography mostly and some video ok how's business great ok and what's your definition of great we're busy we have raving fans excellent clients ok west are you profitable

yes good cash flow yes what do you want that you don't have similar story as his to grow ok me okay and what would in you specifically I think the biggest challenge our shoots happen anywhere over the world so I'm bringing big teams together in different cities so I'm finding it hard in my head to figure out how to have more of me when clients don't want to pay for travel and I'm bringing teams together all over the world so what would prevent you from finding teams all over the world that live locally contracting framing

your ideas about what you want to create out of that production so you can still be the driving strategic approach but then finding people there so that you eliminate the need for the flight so the customer gets more value for less money and you don't have to worry about those logistics so if I do that in Japan and I have no work in Japan I'm paying people who aren't doing anything ok now I want you to notice how the mind of the mind not her mind this is not a new thought this is the limiting

thought that most people have who says you have to hire people why can't you have contractors that you've developed a relationship with who you say I might send you one thing a business it might be 10 I don't know but you're the best in the area would you like me to refer some business to you in partnership with you did I do that ok and so if you do that can you not do it in the major areas in what you do business yes but the problem I'm having is there's other company is like me

and if people are good they may be working with them on other jobs and not be available okay so they might not be available when you need them that's very possible so the question becomes can you generate how do you generate the business that you have currently most of its word-of-mouth and just 25 years of being in business so here's a beautiful thing she's added a lot of what over decades she's built the brand she has people that seek her out that's her greatest limitation because she has a one-trick pony it's called word of mouth

and it's really nice because it costs nothing and it's really horrible because it's not predictable with consistency so you don't have a business what you have is a great reputation and business comes and it flows and then you try to figure out how to scramble and do it now you're running up against these obstacles that are there but in truth if you really think about what your business is I don't want to ever have a business that has one leg of marketing what happens if you got a one legged stool how likely is it something's

gonna happen at some point to disrupt that if you only have one leg and if the one leg goes where does your business go right I always want to build a Parthenon I want lots of ways to bring business you know I don't care what business I've ever entered into almost all of them at one or two or maybe three things and I want six or seven because with six or seven you knock down three or four of my legs and I'm still standing tall this week that should be your number one focus how am

I going to turn this into a business that is driven as opposed to a business that reacts right now you wait the business comes to you then you got to figure out try to meet the needs then you got to figure out where it is then you got to deal with the additional expense they got to figure out can I find the people versus if you decided there was a particular niche that you were gonna go own completely you can still up the business that comes to you that can be all over but if I

said there was an area where you could really own that area you could have a niche you could have something of people go holy this firm this woman this group is the best at what would that niche big well I'm asking her that I want you to know I'm only you heard this question I am NOT asking you to ever think of the answers to these questions for your own business I want you to resist the temptation he answer this for yourself see the other day I saw an article about a Girl Scout that sold

more cookies than anyone in the history of the Girl Scouts and so I was curious so I dug in to find more made a few phone calls and found out that this Girl Scout is in San Francisco and she parked herself outside of the marijuana places spectacies and sells cookies there and people higher than guys and are like starving they buy whole boxes of cookies this true thing she understands her niche right you got it you got understand your niche by the way she's built a little brand for herself with these people they all know

she is they all wanted to business with her I have a friend who his name's Michael quick mini where it lives in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles if you're familiar with that area and we were both kids I was like I think I'm 2 years older than him I was like 19 he was 17 and we met and he's a really passionate guy and he loved real estate in this whole goal I asked him his goal was to become a great realtor but at 17 he wasn't legal to sell yet so we'd get

on his bicycle cuz he didn't own a car yet and in those days there was no internet so the way you'd market your homes is he'd have these and they still have some of these paper devices with like you know a little book with you know a hundred homes for sale and he would get paid to go to strip eat those on his bike and we turned 18 he immediately got his license and became you know real estate salesman and if you know how the real estate business works most people do the same thing what

a most Realtors do they have a farm an area they work they knock on doors to try to get listings when they get a listing what do they do they do ads they put signs and what else they do they have open what houses they all do the same if you do the same thing as everybody else and you do it ten times better you're gonna get an incremental advantage but if you do what no one else does you can get a geometric advantage and that difference is a different business so I'm talking to him

and I'm saying what happened in the first year he did not make one sale he had to go do other work to keep himself alive he was very frustrated and why he said because I'm so young and people don't wanna do business with the new guy on the block he he lived and worked in a high-end community of rich community relatively wealthy community he's the new kid on the block so I said to him what you need is to become a brand what you need is to become an identity that people want to do business

with you if I said to all of you right now think of a soft drink the name of a large soft drink companies first when it comes your mind write it down don't say it write it down large soft drink company and then I want you to immediately write down think of what's a large computer company first when it comes to mind for you large computer company put it down write it down and then think of a law think of a luxury car company luxury car company what's first one pops your mind big luxury car

company and then maybe you asked one think of what is a search engine first one that pops your mind search engine let's look at these just for a moment I'll throw them up on the screen let's see so I say soft drink how many of you thought of coca-cola raise your hand if you thought a coca-cola now look at the keep your hand up look at the percentage of the room the father this one company look around it's 98 percent of the room with the top of the dr. pepper how many thought a Pepsi raise

your hand and look up poor little Pepsi it's not even three percent of the room two percent of the room is that wild do you think you have a little advantage that when you save the category of the product that 98 percent of the room thinks of one company computer company raise your hand if you thought of Apple Ridge again keep your hands up look at the percentage of things to that but when we think of any computer company 98 percent of the room they share if you thought of Dell poor down look at down

barely breathing out there still how many of you how many of you thought of Google for the old luxury car company let's say how many thought of Mercedes raise your hand if you thought of Mercedes keep your hands up look at the percentage of thought of Mercedes including the man that wants revenge 85 how many thought of BMW raise your head okay so those two are a little closer but Mercedes dominates how many thought at Google is the search engine let me see your hands look at the percentage that thought of Google it's like 99

percent how many thought of Yahoo 4 Yahoo's on drugs that's whose side of it right 4 people how many thought of Bing Bing who to people thought of big and that's Microsoft right how powerful would it be that if when people thought of your category they thought of you I'll tell you what pisses off totally pisses off the people ups when you say FedEx this like it's not FedEx it ship it over night you know what the people of Scott tissues hate when you say pass me the Kleenex it's not Kleenex it's tissue are there

brands that are so in your mind that when you think of a category you think of them first yes or no gets it out so mine was if there's any area to create a breakthrough improve your life I wanted to be that for the whole world I made that decision and I've done it the most dominant in all those categories you can be dominant any category so I said to my friend Mike I'm just a kid at the time I said we got to find a way for you to do something that sets you apart

from everyone else and it needs to be different than what you're thinking and I said I don't know what it is but we got to find some way so that people like you respect you trust you and it needs to be not you try to market do you know the kind of money anyway means you do something that makes you worthy of being branded an opportunity shut up one day there was a trash strike in Encino California which is upscale community where he had us his business and the trash strike people fought will last a

week but four weeks into it looked like no solution in sight what happens after four weeks of trash building up in a wealthy community outside their houses tell me what happens dogs cats Pratt's gets knocked over the place people are used to this pristine community it's filthy it smells what kind of emotional states the people that are wealthy feel when they start seeing their whole community breaking down and there's nobody taking away their trash you think they're happy or angry very angry so my buddy funny it wasn't my idea he did it on his own

I just said you got to find the thing and he figured it out he called me up he goes what do you think if I go and I hire a private service that take all the trash out of my farm I said I think that's brilliant goes I'm gonna do it and tell everybody I did it I said that's the only part I wouldn't do don't tell anybody you did it because why the hell would I do it then I said trust me just deliver the value people find out and when they find out do

not let them pay you under any circumstances be the guy that adds value he doesn't understand that's how much it gonna cost you those well I'm not sure but I don't never the total number I think was like $4,000 which for him would be like 40,000 in those days but I said buddy it'll be the best money you ever spent he did it now I want you to picture this he became a brand overnight how you come home to your rich community your smelly ass community and its pristine clean you like all thank God the

trash strikes over you turn on the news that night and what does it say one day 39 of the trash strike who stole my trash where did my trash go I thought the trash how come our trash is gone and people started trying to figure out where the trash wid and everybody's calling everybody this is unbelievable the trash Mike's going on where's our trash or community so great this went on for about ten days and at some point the information leaked out don't know how and Mike starts getting all these phone calls did you do

that well I didn't tell anybody but yes oh my God why didn't I think of that I want to pay my part nope I won't let you do that what no no it's not fair for you to do this yes it is fair I work in this community I love this community this community was becoming filthy so I decided to take matters in my own hands to protect the community that's unbelievable come on let me pay him absolutely not well what could I do for you well if you ever want to sell your home if

you know anybody ever wants to sell theirs if you ever like to list your home you ever want to move I hope you'll think of me he made 1.2 million dollars in commissions over 4 years and sold 99% of all properties that sold in that community for four years and then he started his own office and dominated the entire community all from a four thousand dollar investment ladies and gentlemen not bad so tell me what's the niche you could own what's the brand you could own if you were creative if you thought outside the nine

dots why should I do business with you versus anyone else if you can't answer that question in a compelling way you don't have an effective business you might have something that would be effective if you get it to people but you're not an effective marketer you should be able to tell people what your business is and at least in a room the size get 30 40 50 percent of the people to be interested if you're not doing that you're failing miserably which by the way you can go from failure to success by just iterating let's

try something else try something else don't beat yourself up just let me try something else that didn't work okay try something else if you try something it doesn't work what should you do try something else if that doesn't work if you're going to succeed what should you do if that doesn't work what do you do and if that doesn't work what do you do how do you get how long do you give your average child to learn how to walk before you tell him you've tried too many times it's not gonna happen just give it

up you're not a Walker and go what are you crazy my kid's gonna keep trying until he/she walks no wonder almost everybody walks so tell me what's the area that could be your niche why should I buy from you versus someone else the current niches photography and we produce these very complicated shoots so the niche is when people hire me and my production company they know they're gonna get the maximum value in a day for the least amount of money someone that's keeping it on schedule knocking it out of the park bringing great teams together

real positive environments people leave really excited but these shoots are super complicated it's exhausting I'd love to have more simpler shoots or but that is our current niche very complicated shoots for clients like Apple Salesforce Amazon I mean we're we're busy and I'd like to expand the business and have more people like me that can do this we've talked about that here yes what's preventing that it's definitely me well what would in you what belief because are you starting to see the pattern everybody I mean could we come up with 20 ways to do this

but whatever ways we come up with it'll be worthless because their brains still gonna go yeah but they yeah but is what's you know uh the strategies are not that complex in between all of us in this room we could all help her not just me right we could brainstorm together worthless if we don't make this shift so what is it within you what's the belief I completely believe and have several people in mind to do this but the conversations that happen over the phone with different photographers I'm working with very successful photographers and companies

it's that moment you say I'm not sure who will be on set with you like which member of our team and that's where the conversation shifts and that's what I hear and I'm struggling with how to have more producers that do what I do do it well with people being like yes no problem to grow your business 30% how many more people would you need to get of this nature to great and you're not capable of doing that oh I am absolutely where are you gonna find these two I already know who they are why

are we having this conversation she knows who they are it's only thing to a planet of seven billion people I'm confused I agree with you how do I get everybody else that is hiring our company to shift as well to be like okay it's not you on set it'll be Rebecca or Danielle awesome all you have to do you train people we train people all the time we train people by our states your hesitancy they have hesitancy but so do you and they feel that in you I feel in you and I don't even know

you so I absolutely know your people would feel it in you we're only talking about two people who you find two people sounds like you might even know who they are you don't need everybody to do you seem to train them I'll give you an example my daughter I can remember when she was 16 she kind of sprouted and became a woman real quick and this 25 year old young man started to date her and so I had to show him my knife and gun collection and educate him how this was gonna go and so

he got the message which was really useful he was really really a great kid but one day I watched and I heard her on the phone leaving him for the second day in a row a horrible message about you didn't call and you didn't come by and you didn't do this and she was beating him up verbally for not showing up and I stepped in the room I heard of the second day around I said honey I said everything you're doing right now is training this man to never come to be with you we're always

training each other when he finally shows up you at him you nag at him you say you didn't do this you didn't care this and he's actually doing it he won he's showing up when he shows up you should be loving him reinforcing him saying oh my gosh I'm sure you were so busy I missed the heck out of you thanks for coming then he wants to show up when he knows now as if I'm white I'm so maybe I won't even go maybe I'll come up with something bigger he avoids it versus training people

do what you want you need to train people you got to start with you the real challenge is not your people it's still you even though you got it in your head there's all these pieces inside yourself the complexity of your business is like him talking about I'm the only person can do this it's not much different so if your business is too complex have another division that does less complex things break out a department that's going to specialize in these three niches and you could separate yourself from other people and be really specific and

maybe have more leverage and then the complex ones that you've already got get your two people and implement them what you have to do is stop the stressful thoughts and the way you stop them is they're still gonna happen because your brains 2 million years old what if this what if at how do I get these people huh you don't you just do it you just go out there and you iterate you iterate you iterate you stop thinking so much and you do more the more you just do and when it doesn't work what do

we do change approach doesn't work what do you do can you find the way if you keep doing that yes or no but most people are so afraid of failing they got so many stories in their head but they never begin the process you have to be willing to fail to succeed and it's really not failure it's just learning but you got to make the shift does it make sense tell me what you're gonna do tell me three things you're gonna do that are gonna grow your business geometrically I'm gonna get the story out of

my head how you gonna do that it's probably gonna be constant work I would guess nope all you gotta do is develop a habit of erase or stop or that's and all you got to do is break the pattern like immediately don't wait till the little monster is an adult Godzilla eating your business taking the city kill the monster while it's little the minute you have your thought you're gonna have to Bowl that's an old story let me do this instead you just have to you get what you tolerate you get what you tolerate in

yourself you have tolerated these stories draw a line in the sand no more do I tell a client that that's when they call asking for my availability listen it's my life in business I've got a seven year waiting list for people to pay me a million dollars a year to coach them for three sessions a year for two hours each so scarcity is a good thing right and the companies you're talking about it can be a really good thing you just not owning who you are if you are who you perceive yourself to be and

I don't think you're exaggerating because you got the clients you just aren't owning a hundred percent of where you are and the little thing about I don't want to put this person a person I'd handle it objection and a heart beated apples just say do you want the best you can have something cheaper and we can send somebody that's not as good but I really you came to me because you want the best you trusted me to put together this a complex shoot and it's gonna cost you this little axe more but you're gonna have

the very best you want it or not I'm happy to provide someone else if you want less you can have oats before they go through the horse or after they've gone through the horse they're cheaper after they've gone to the horse and for me in my business and I'll give this to all of you right now one of the most valuable things you'll ever do is fire a customer you must fire customers how many of you have customers that you hang on to that are a total pain in the ass they're not grateful they're not

nice they're mean to you the mean to your people raise your hand one of the first thing you should do when you go home is fire them but do it as a public hanging I'll give an example years ago who here has been to life mastery or wealth mastery our mouth okay quite a few that I used to do those programs it was one long nine-day program was actually 12 days at one point so I took people for 12 days and nights 12 13 14 hours a day I basically killed people that's what I did

right but it was an incredible program but as the years went by people's scarcity about time changed how many of you look at time differently today than say five or ten years ago quite a bit differently right so I have this great program but I began to realize a lot of people we only did it once a year and if you missed those 12 days you gotta wait another year to go to it and you know you're laters a long time and some people signed up and then never showed up we were paid but I

don't want to be paid I want the person to get the benefit so I finally sat down with my team and I said I think 9 days is the threshold at that stage 12 but time you travel it's two weeks psychologically it's too much but 9 or 10 days people still there and so we changed to a nine day format and when we did it we eliminated three days but during the program this was in Hawaii I used to have a day and a half of just open time so eliminate the open time and I

cut about half a day of content but I did some other things better I know how to make it better regardless so we announced our clients were doing this and I'll never forget one of my personal account representatives came to me and just said mr. Robbins we're in such trouble there's this woman and she's so mad and she's telling everybody that you're cheating her I said who is that what do you mean I'm cheating her she said you cut the program from 12 days to 9 you've cut two and a half days from the program

and she says you're cheating her and she says she's gonna tell everybody that you're cheating her so I said you get on the phone with this woman and you let her know that you've had a conversation with me and that she's been to another program this is a graduate program so she knows I had a hundred times more value than she could ever pay and you tell her that I've heard this and the cheese banned for life from any program and we will refund all of her money because we need that seat because we only

have so many seats they're all sold out we want her seat and she's never welcome again at anything I do because she knows better and she's lying she's just playing this game and I will not tolerate it and I said you tell her that and she says she's gonna threaten other people tell her please bring those people will buy their seats as well and when this happened what do you think the woman did first she got angry and said you can't keep me from the seminar I told him call her back and said we are

sending her money we did and she is not to come and she is never invited again no one my reputation if I did something wrong I'll own it but she absolutely knows it's not true there's no excuse of this but I will not tolerate you are fired as a customer it's a privilege to do business with me just as my privilege do business with you we choose each other but I can step out any time if you're not gonna add value I'll do the same thing in this room or any room anyone who's disrespectful to

the rest of the people here anyone who really doesn't want to improve what he doing here get the hell here's your money and go we need you to see and what do you think this woman did she showed up in Hawaii at the program and tried to check in and they kept her out and she paid a whole scene they said would you come talk to her so I came out to her and I just said what is it you watch because I wanted to dissemble I said no no I'm the guy that cheated you

remember I said it by the way like her 20 friends that supposedly were all upset they all nobody wanted a refund anymore and I would not let her in I let her stay out for a full day she came back and apologized profusely and I said is it sincere and I said ok then you can come in the room don't ever pull that with me again or you're banned for life you can go find somebody else go talk to some positive thinking person you're not gonna get in here if you take a stand like that

first of all all my people saw this happen and their eyes were this big they couldn't believe it and then they saw these people complaining stop complaining and this woman begging to get back in and I taught all my people not by my words but by my actions there's a standard heated business with me if you're not gonna meet that standard you can't be a client of mine I make that choice just like you make the choice do business with me we both mutually choose if you did that I'd be willing to bet you could

stop some of these conversations angry give her him [Music] the Tony Robbins podcast is directed and hosted by Tony Robbins in New York is our editorial director an occasional host our executive producer is Carrie song Jimmy Carvajal and Adriel dilatory are a digital editors special thanks to Mary buck height and Diana for their creative review