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James on a Silver Circle call
00:10 – How to be happier
02:59 – Consider the subscription business model
05:24 – Turning services into products
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Part 1 of the series
Part 2 of the series
Part 3 of the series
More about the subscription business model
Tweetables:
Are you living a compromised life? [Click To Tweet].
How to keep getting paid [Click To Tweet].
Package time into results. [Click To Tweet].
Transcription:
James Schramko here. Welcome to SuperFastBusiness, and this is Life Lessons part four. If you haven’t listened to part one, two or three, please go back and listen to those first.
Reducing compromise
In this episode, I’m talking about some more lessons. And the first one is reducing compromise. If you can reduce compromise in your life, then you’ll end up being happier. Some people have so many layers of compromise, they’re literally stuck. You need to think seriously about what’s important to you and see if there’s some creative ways to go about getting that.
For example, one simple way is maybe you can rent instead of having to buy a property because a mortgage compromise can eat up all of your income, put huge pressure on you to win the next deal, and stress you out, cause you not to sleep. It literally can make you sick and can shorten your life; versus the idea where you’re only attached to a short-term commitment at a lower monthly amount. So it’s just one way of a creative way around compromise.
You can also do other things like have things in the right names so that you can have tax-deductible debt versus consumer debt, which is non-tax deductible. So have a talk to your accountant and see how you should structure things.
There are other kinds of compromise too, like relationships. Maybe, you’re dealing with the wrong customers and they’re just eating you up. Maybe you’re dealing with the wrong partner or you’ve got friends and family members that just pull you down. Maybe you need to reduce that compromise by making a change there.
You can also have business compromise. You might have the wrong business model, you might have the wrong people in your business, you might be using the wrong tools. Question everything. Maybe you’ve got a lot of credit card debt. Maybe you can consolidate some of that or pay it down much faster instead of buying a new TV or the latest outfit. Maybe those things aren’t even important as it turns out.
Maybe, you’ve compromised the relationship with yourself. Perhaps you’re blaming yourself unnecessarily, or maybe you’re putting off things that you know you need to do. I suggest you get a mirror, have a good look in it, and reduce that compromise. Have a decent conversation with yourself and step up to the plate.
I think that some of the self-talk that people say to themselves is ludicrous. Words like “I can’t do that,” or “I can’t afford that,” or “That’s not for me,” or “I’m no good at that.” Those sort of things can be very destructive, and I would question all of those things. I think they’re reversible.
Question everything
Question everything
Lots of Western people are very unhappy because they’re not good at following clues. I think one of the solutions, and I mention this in part three, is to have space to think about and let go of stuff. Question everything. That’s how you’ll find out where you’re compromised and what you can do to fix it.
The subscription model
Let’s talk a moment about the subscription model idea because I do cover that in many of my trainings, but where did I get the idea from?
I noticed that a lot of things we use are on subscription. We have Internet service provider contracts, we have a telephone subscription, and we generally keep paying or the service stops. And we would miss that if it stopped. I remember finding out from a share trader who was talking about how he likes to invest in tollway stocks, and he defined tollways stocks as where people need to keep going and keep paying. Think like a tollway on a freeway or a highway or a bridge. You keep paying if you want to use it. I liked this concept. So I decided that I was going to switch from selling things from one at a time to look for at least affiliate schemes that had recurring components.
“Think like a tollway on a freeway or a highway or a bridge. You keep paying if you want to use it.”
What do people keep paying for that they liked? And one of the things I found was software, and the other ones I found were education forums. I looked at guys like Dan Kennedy. He had a newsletter subscription and that’s a very old business model, a newsletter subscription. My parents used to get the newspaper delivered to their door every day. That’s a subscription model.
There’s not great information about it out there, but I have been teaching it to business owners and I’ve been having huge success. We’ve shattered all these illusions of a 3-month subscription expectation from a consumer. Now we’re talking about 3 years. But not just for my business, but also for my students. It is a great way to reduce compromise when you have a recurring cashflow rolling in month after month.
Is it possible?
You almost have to pinch yourself to believe it’s possible. If you go back to the original parts of this life lesson series, you’ll remember that I talked about some of the crappy jobs that I used to have to do. There was no leverage in that. When I was carting barrow loads of earth from the backyard to the front of the street with the skip, tipping them in there one at a time, there was zero leverage in that.
At the time, I might have thought there was no hope or no better way. But now with recurring cash coming in on a daily basis from the things that I’ve set up, I know that there’s a better way. If you need help with that, join SuperFastBusiness membership. I’ll explain how that works.
Productize services
I’m also a big fan of productizing services. I’ve been productizing services for a long time. In one of my workshops in around 2009, I set up a recurring productized service called SEO Partner. Recently, you can buy books about this. John Warrillow covers it very well in “Built to Sell” and “The Automatic Customer.” But you can standardize services that are going to be done the same way over and over again and turn them into subscriptions.
I’ve been doing it with SEO. I’ve done it with website maintenance. The idea is that if you’re going to sell time, package it into results. I learned this concept from the motor dealership where we had servicing of cars. I realized that we were selling time. People would budget for a car service, let’s say $1,000 or $1,500 or $2,000. They were looking at their car coming in and then being rolled out with new oil, fresh windscreen wipers, vacuumed, washed and they drive off, and it’s all fresh and new. But what they were really buying was a technician’s time to change these things and the parts. So it was made up of different things.
I realized this applies to service businesses. We can take bits and pieces like software, licenses; we can take some labor for developers, and we can package subscription services the same for search engine optimization. So that is a great business model. So if you’re going to build a service business, package services into uniform packages that can be sold on a recurring basis.
A lot of businesses are productized and it is the way to go. The enemy of productization is customization. So if you’re any kind of field, these could be logos, it could be Pay-Per-Click services, etc. Each one of those has to be done customized in the beginning. So they’d become much more difficult. So just keep that in mind if you’re going to go down this path.
Wrapping it up
I’m going to wrap it here for this series. I hope you’ve enjoyed my life lessons series. If you like it, let me know in the comments section. I can do more of these. I’m just putting this series out there just to see how you like it. Thank you for coming along the journey. I do hope you take the ideas for what they’re worth and if some of the things that I’ve been through in the past help you grow your business, then it’s been worthwhile.
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Love all your work JS, not just these 4! Loved these too… :)
Love all your work JS, not just these 4! Loved these too… :)
Thank you Kate I appreciate the support !
great inspiring, practicable series, james – thank you!
Thank you Seigmar
great inspiring, practicable series, james – thank you!
If there’s one thing that stands out that you didn’t mention in this series, is that you value learning. You are hungry to learn and you never seem to stop learning. For example, the Easter Show was only just a few months ago and you recently went bowling with your family and you shared what ‘you’d’ learnt from those. If there is anything that resonates loud and clear to me from this series, it is that we never stop learning and we can choose what we take out of any situation.
If there’s one thing that stands out that you didn’t mention in this series, is that you value learning. You are hungry to learn and you never seem to stop learning. For example, the Easter Show was only just a few months ago and you recently went bowling with your family and you shared what ‘you’d’ learnt from those. If there is anything that resonates loud and clear to me from this series, it is that we never stop learning and we can choose what we take out of any situation.
Good point Bernie. We learn all the time. That’s why I question everything. What lesson does it hold? etc…
Awesome. That’s a great question. I’ll use that from now on, I like it.
Excellent series! I could really resonate with what you said, and needed that suggestion to “Have a talk with yourself.”
Attaching these valuable business principles to life experiences is a HUGE winner for me and much more easily absorbed.
Thanks!!!
˜Carol
Excellent series! I could really resonate with what you said, and needed that suggestion to “Have a talk with yourself.”
Attaching these valuable business principles to life experiences is a HUGE winner for me and much more easily absorbed.
Thanks!!!
˜Carol
thank you Carol!
After listening to all four episodes in one setting which I highly recommend I get the feeling that the chains has a multipronged theory on these life lessons. I can’t help but think of myself as a catalyst because of the discussions I’ve had in both the forum and in blog posts on these lifeless episodes. You see, I think a lot of people won’t make the effort to truly say what’s on their mind or at least to type what’s on their mind. Maybe I’ve always been one of those guys who stuck his hand up and stuck his neck out or pounded the table when I wanted to know more. The historical charting of James’s life is interesting. And although I’ve known most of this, Some of the finer detailed interpretation by James have shed light on a couple of new topics. Although this is James’s version of happiness and fulfillment it may not be yours. I however find Parallels that respectively have challenged me in the last few years to match up with some of the ideals and business models presented in this series. Since James is made the journey to the mountain and now comes back with his wisdom, for me a sense of overwhelm sometimes takes over. This is not to say that the lessons and teachings are too much to understand or too difficult to conquer, but the quench of thirst for all the little pieces that actually need to be in place in order to make this journey need to be metallly formatted and processed. I spoken about this before as the puzzle pieces that need to be filled in on gigantic life mission. This is where some of James experiences, especially in the third episode, seem to culminate into some interesting tiedowns to help process this material. I have always thought of success equating to money. I Believe a lot of people do this because we have no other anchors. This is not about financial rewards, what in our Western society we know this is absolutely necessary.
Practically amazing to me is what James doesn’t say, that’s why wanted to get this short retort out. What James really does care about is helping other people with their own success. And though this is not mentioned throughout the podcast it’s Evident that he truly enjoys more than anything else, other than surfing, is the camaraderie of building a sort of his own quasi-university. Even though the financial rewards of having recurring revenue through forum and other details such as affiliates and business services, more important is the fabric of connection to the audience. The solidification of his position of leadership and truth to his calling of educating, as headmaster of “James U” enables him to sustain his lifestyle. What I’ve also taken away from this Life lesson review – I believe it is rare to have these types of mental faculties and experience to produce such an outcome.
If you look at the general population only a very few will, as James says, step up, look in the mirror and get in the real game. Entrepreneurialism aside, the successful blend of being able to help others achieve their goals while building an empire that satisfies lifestyle requirements is indeed a privilege, we all should strive towards.
Today, this privilege is built for you and the administration of such a massive amount of content and instruction is here for for you to make the decision, choose wisely and you can be rewarded for the rest of your life.
Thank you James. Keep learning and teaching.
After listening to all four episodes in one setting, which I highly recommend, I get the feeling that James has a multi-pronged theory on these life lessons. I can’t help but think of myself as a catalyst because of the discussions I’ve had in both the forum and in blog posts on these important episodes. You see, I think a lot of people won’t make the effort to truly say what’s on their mind or at least to type what’s on their mind. Maybe I’ve always been one of those guys who stuck his hand up and stuck his neck out or pounded the table when I wanted to know more. This is more, way more.
The historical charting of James’s life is interesting. And although I’ve known most of this information, some of the finer detailed interpretations by James have shed light on a couple of new topics. This is James’s version of happiness and fulfillment it may not be yours. I however find Parallels that respectively have challenged me in the last few years to match up with some of the ideals and business models presented in this series. Since James has made the journey to the mountain and now comes back with his wisdom, for me a sense of overwhelm sometimes takes over. This is not to say that the lessons and teachings are too much to understand or too difficult to conquer. The quench of thirst for all the little pieces that actually need to be in place in order to make this journey successful still need to be mentally formatted and processed. Just like puzzle pieces that need to be filled in on a table of a gigantic life mission, the marathon of building this takes patience and education. This is where some of James experiences, especially in the third episode, seem to culminate into some interesting tie-downs to help process this material more succinctly. As I fill in my puzzle, I fully enjoyed these parables.
I have always thought of success equating to money. I believe people do this because, like me, we have no other anchors of life experience to guide us into port of true fulfillment. These series are not about financial rewards, as what in our western society we know this is absolutely necessary, but instead drill into some very hard won leadership skill sets discussions.
Practically amazing to me is what James doesn’t say, that’s why I wanted to get this short retort out. What James really does care about is helping other people with their own success. And though this is not mentioned throughout the podcast it’s Evident that he truly enjoys this more than anything else, other than surfing. The camaraderie of building a sort of his own quasi-university. Even though the financial rewards of having recurring revenue through forum and other details such as affiliates and business services is here on display, more important, is the fabric of connection to the audience. The solidification of his position of leadership and truth to his calling of educating, as headmaster of “James U” enables him to sustain his lifestyle. What I’ve also taken away from this Life lesson review – I believe it is rare to have these types of mental faculties and experiences to produce such a unique outcome., as i don’t see much anything with as much integrity.
Also,If you look at the general population, i feel only a very few will, as James says, step up, look in the mirror and get in the real game and “truly become successful and sustained” besides the SFB members of course, who are all on the path to greatness!
Entrepreneurialism aside, the successful blend of being able to help others achieve their goals while building an empire that satisfies lifestyle requirements is indeed a privilege, which listening to these episodes makes me want to strive towards this responsibility.
So take on your role, your privilege is built by showing up everyday and with the helpful administration of such a massive amount of content and instruction at SFB, its is here for for you to make the decision to learn.
Choose wisely and you can be rewarded for the rest of your life.
Thank you James. Keep learning and teaching.
You are right Matt. In the series you will notice I have had multiple influences across different sections of the world. This is something I LOVE facilitating for members of the communities I run. Cross-sharing of knowledge from outside our peer group creates growth.
Superb series mate. Looking forward to more of these.
Superb series mate. Looking forward to more of these.
Thank you Kenny!