Peter's Post: Summary of "Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business That Works"

Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business That Works

byDaniel Priestley

A summary of the original text.

Entrepreneur Revolution, summarized by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business That Works by Daniel Priestley. Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Priestley.

In this summary...

Embrace the age of empowerment and enterprise so you can quit working so hard, follow your dreams, and make a fortune along the way.
Open yourself up to a world of new opportunities by accepting 10 challenges—simple steps you can take today to develop your entrepreneurial mindset.
Unlock your potential by using the three keys that all successful entrepreneurs need if they are going to make the most of their ideas, talents, and opportunities.
Unleash the power of the Ascending Transaction Model, which involves four types of products that strategically work together to generate a lot of revenue.
Thrive in this exciting new age by living in the "entrepreneur sweet spot"—where you do what you love, do it well, and get rewarded generously for it.

Entrepreneur Revolution

The idea of the Entrepreneur Revolution is that the rules that created commercial success in the past have radically changed. For some people, this will be a time of great uncertainty and loss. For others, it will be the greatest opportunity in history.

A revolution is a great shift in society, where an old system is thrown out and a new one is embraced. In all of history, the real fortunes are made in revolutionary times.

The difference with this revolution is that it presents a chance for wealth to spread to a lot more people. The tools, technology, and opportunities that have emerged are designed to empower people. Lots of people.

Today, farmers in rural India have access to more computing power than NASA had when it launched Apollo 11.
Today, a teenager in his or her bedroom has more tools for building a global enterprise than Coca-Cola did when it grew internationally.
Today, your business ideas have more potential to be massive than ever before in history.

You are alive during a unique point in history; a time where anything is possible for you.

Before we look forward, however, let's look backwards at the last revolution.

Two centuries ago, during the agricultural age, most people worked the land. Then came a technological breakthrough.

The steam engine, fossil fuels, and machinery changed everything. One tractor could do the work of 100 men in the field. One textile factory could make all the suits for a city at a fraction of the cost of a tailor.

Between 1850 and the year 2000, most people were factory workers. In the early part of the revolution, "blue collar" factory workers worked on machines making products. In the late 1900s, "white collar" factory workers worked on computers making data.

But now, we are at the dawn of a new age. Over the next 100 years, most people will work in small businesses in an "entrepreneurial team."

Once again, it's technology that has changed things. It's technology that has robbed the big factories of their competitive advantage and given an edge to small businesses.

Technology has made it possible for any small business to find a market globally, to build a brand, and to be open for business 24/7.

Small businesses can do almost all the things big businesses can do; and they can do something more.

A small business has a team of people who care; they know their customers, they love what they do, they respond faster, there's less red tape, the workplace is more fun, and everyone gets to have a say.

For these reasons and more, top performers are going to quit their jobs and start businesses. They are going to take with them the other top performers.

These entrepreneurial teams will be faster, more cost effective, more nimble, more responsive, and more profitable.

So, let's be honest. Where would you rather work? Would you like to work in a soulless company that cares only about its balance sheet and treats you like a number? Or, instead, would you like to be part of a small, dynamic team of creative people who are servicing the needs of a niche you feel passionate about?

An entrepreneur is not just the founder of the business. An entrepreneur is someone who makes valuable things happen, and who takes full responsibility for their success or failure.

In that context, high-performing entrepreneurial teams can only exist because the "entrepreneurship" is shared by the leaders, managers, and team members, and not just the person who started the business entity.

Chances are, if you are a top performer, you want to work somewhere that you are recognized and where you feel that the work you do makes a difference.

If you're an entrepreneur, then this is your time. Never in history has there been a better time for you to start and grow a business, and that makes an inspiring difference to the world.

The Rise of the Global Small Business

Not too long from now, almost every business will be a multinational. There will be millions of "global small businesses."

The global small business (GSB) isn't like a big global business, and neither is it like a traditional small business. As the name suggests, this is a business that typically has less than 20 staff, but isn't limited by geography. It can reach into cities all over the world and can easily be making millions in sales despite a relatively small headcount.

Most commonly, GSBs will be service providers, or offer intangible products like software and information. However, many will also sell high-value physical products that can be sent whizzing all over the globe to customers in faraway cities.

Global small businesses will have incredibly well developed brands compared to traditional small businesses, making them look much bigger than they are. They will be built around a "micro-niche." Rather than being a business for "health and wellness," they will be for "vegetarian marathon runners."

GSBs will interact with the world through video on the Web, articles, audio podcasts, downloads, streaming live events, slideshows, blogs, tweets and communities.

A GSB will revolve around the special talents of a few key people of influence. The business will outsource almost every function that is not clearly creating value.

Inside the team will be communications experts and product designers. The one common thread is that you must share the passion of the business if you want to be on the team.

These GSB teams might not be in the same geographical location. They will communicate on instant messaging platforms, market themselves using social media, manage their operations in the cloud, and be based wherever it makes sense from a tax and IP protection standpoint.

The GSBs will have their top talent working from home offices and meeting in rented boardrooms on a weekly or monthly basis. Due to multiple time zones, the edges of work and play will blur. Performance will be more important than hours clocked.

GSBs will become an attractive alternative to white collar employment. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, consultants and managers will define a micro-niche and then leave traditional employment in favor of their own GSB start-up, or join a GSB that stirs up their underlying passion.

Having a GSB will create an enviable lifestyle. A GSB isn't like having a traditional, local small business that prevents the owner from traveling and limits the money they can make to the local economy.

A GSB, on the contrary, expands as you travel and is only limited by the size of the micro-niche and the creativity of the team. Many GSBs will earn millions in revenue and have only a few staff. For this reason, many GSB owners will earn seven-figure salaries with comparative ease.

The GSB is an exciting new category of business to look out for in the decade ahead as the barriers to entry drop for doing business across borders.

Your next project might be for a GSB. You might even be setting up one for yourself.

You'll have the power to log into your business from your smartphone anywhere in the world. You will be able to see sales figures, workflow, and financials instantly.

Your business won't sleep. You’ll be making money 24/7, and you'll have clients in time zones that wrap around the world.

All of this is made possible by the times we are in. The foundations have been laid for people like yourself to unfold your passion into a highly functional business that delivers a ton of value to the world.

It sounds idealistic. However, it's entirely realistic. You have the power and the choice to leave the Industrial Revolution model of employment and step into an age of empowerment and enterprise.

The choice is yours.

Meet Your Entrepreneur Brain

Your brain controls the way you think, and the way you think controls what you do. So, if you want to consistently make things happen, it's vitally important that we take a look at the brain and how it's wired.

There are three key parts of your "entrepreneur brain":

The Reptile: The survival part of your brain that has you see the world as a dangerous place where most people and most things can't be trusted. Its main purpose is to make sure that you can escape and survive any dangerous or stressful situation.
The Monkey: The functional worker part of your brain that has you see the world as a set of challenges and problems for you to play with and explore while you ride the emotional highs and lows that they make you feel.
The Empire Builder: The part of your brain that has you see the world as a deeply connected place that you can transform in a meaningful way.

If you operate from the primitive, survival part of your brain, you will live like a reptile. This part of the brain has no empathy for others, a skill that is vital in "value creation." The reptile isn't able to reason effectively and it has no concept of time.

The reptile believes the only resources that exist are those it can touch right now. If it can't see money, there's no money. The reptile will destroy everything around itself if it thinks it will bring an immediate benefit to its survival.

The monkey brain isn't much better than the reptile brain if you want to achieve success as an entrepreneur. If you operate from the purely functional part of your brain, you will live like a monkey. You will have friends and you will be able to perform repetitive tasks, but most of what you do will not be very meaningful in the long term.

The monkey brain loves to experience peak emotions like anger, sadness, happiness, surprise, and excitement. You can keep the monkey brain occupied for years by just stimulating peak emotions on a daily basis.

The monkey believes the only resources that it can access are those it's been told it can access. If you tell the monkey it earns $45,000 a year, it believes that's all there is.

If you want to build an empire, you need to access your empire building brain. If you operate from this part of your brain, you will live like an emperor. You will develop a space that is truly your own, people will be honored to share conversations with you, and you will solve big important problems and make a difference to many people.

The empire builder part of your brain has great amounts of empathy, logic, reasoning, and higher consciousness. It can connect with people and events over vast distances. It can calculate future events, and it can draw unique insights from your own past or even the stories of others and naturally devise strategies.

While reptiles believe in resources they can touch and monkeys believe what they are told, the empire builder believes in the resources it can have influence over.

Here's the problem. The brain was built in such a way that the lower parts of the mind can shut down the higher parts. In a survival situation, you don't want to empathize with your attacker, nor do you want to make friends with it. You want to do what's needed to survive and nothing else. So the reptile is in charge when you feel your survival is immediately threatened.

If the reptile part of the brain is calm, the mammal brain takes over and gets on with the feeble monkey existence that revolves around repetitive tasks and fluctuating emotions. The monkey brain is in charge when you do not feel like your survival is immediately threatened but when you're stimulated by peak emotions.

If the monkey brain stays stimulated, you cannot access the higher mind of the empire builder.

This realization may start to give you insights into why society is set up the way that it is.

The people who ran the show in the Industrial Revolution did not want very many empire builders running around.

Many parts of society during the Industrial Revolution evolved to keep people from going into "survival mode." Governments set up provisions for Social Security, pensions, and healthcare because, without these things, the population might feel their very survival was under threat and end up burning down the city just trying to survive winter.

After survival is taken care of, the system is designed to keep people performing like well-trained monkeys, who can perform mind-numbing, repetitive tasks for years on end.

Most importantly, the system seems to have been set up to keep people from spending time in their higher mind—the empire-building part.

In order to keep workers from rising up, two things must happen:

People must be convinced that they are able to survive. You must not threaten their survival in the immediate moment or they will turn savage and behave like reptiles.
People must be kept occupied with peak emotions while they aren't working so that they don't have a chance to access their higher mind. Not only will this prevent people from becoming disruptive, but also the monkey brain loves to consume shiny new objects that it gets bored with rapidly. The monkey brain creates wonderful consumers.

Does this sound familiar? It should: It's exactly how the masses have been treated for the last 200 years. The mainstream news, entertainment, and popular personalities all reinforce these two messages.

The traditional, mainstream media is an elegant way to keep most people in their monkey brain. It stimulates emotional highs and lows without immediately threatening your survival, which would throw you into your reptile brain.

If you look at the way we are bombarded by advertising and entertainment, it's no wonder so few people ever escape their monkey life of repetitive, meaningless tasks.

When people tune out from the noise, they give themselves a chance to access their inner empire builder. They tap into new ideas that could help people, and they discover vast resources they barely knew existed.

Accessing your inner empire builder isn't as hard as you might think. You need to do two things:

Convince yourself that you don't need anything—you are whole and complete in this moment and your survival is not threatened in any way.
Avoid overstimulating yourself through emotional highs and lows.

Ten Challenges

You are now going to be presented with 10 tasks that are designed to challenge you. Even if you think you can imagine what it would be like to complete these tasks—do them for real.

If you do, you will rapidly begin to flush out the industrialized worker mentality and open yourself up to a world of new opportunities.

Challenge 1: Make three calls. Empire builders believe that they have access to any resources that exist on the planet, whenever they need it, and that they only need to have the right conversation to get them.

To begin this task, simply pick up the phone, send some emails, and arrange some meetings. Begin the conversation without knowing where it will lead you.

Challenge 2: Save 10 percent of your income. Set up a new bank account and put at least 10 percent of the money you earn into that account. This "monkey account" helps you to feel OK about taking risks, and will eventually stop you from needing to go do boring, familiar tasks.

Don't touch that money; its purpose is nothing more than to become part of "your wealth." The monkey and the reptile need to know your future is being taken care of, so this account will please the part of you that's conservative and safe and concerned about your long-term survival.

Challenge 3: Stop spending time with people who bring you down. Start making friends with more people who inspire you. Spend more time having conversations with people who bring out the best in you. Make a list of people you currently spend a lot of time with, and decide who can stay and who might need to go.

You become just like the people you have conversations with. These people determine the dominant ideas you ponder, the opportunities you notice, and the resources you can access.

If you do not have any people on your list who inspire you, you're better off spending time out networking in inspirational places trying to find some.

Challenge 4: Carry cash. Carry $1,000 on you at all times. If $1,000 isn't enough to make you a little bit uncomfortable, carry the amount you'd love to earn in a day.

It's almost impossible to "go reptile" when you have a wad of cash in your possession. The reptile simply won't wake up unless it's worried about immediate survival issues, or unless it spots a big, potential windfall.

With cash in your pocket, you won't be worried about your immediate survival and you won't be as susceptible to promises of easy windfalls.

Challenge 5: Buy two lunches per week for people you don't yet know. You need to build a good network of people who aren't customers, clients, or old friends. To help with this, select two new people a week to take out for lunch (at your expense). Invite business owners, investors, accountants, or anyone else from whom you can learn.

You'll get great advice and fresh ideas, and you'll find yourself learning all sorts of new things. You'll make connections with people and develop a network, and you will be able to start introducing people to each other.

You'll also get introduced to people as well. You'll get referrals, opportunities, and advice. Having a network builds your net worth more than almost anything else.

Challenge 6: Tune out from the news. Give up on all traditional media and news for a while. No papers, no radio, no TV. When you tune out from the news, you will probably feel anxious that you're missing out on something. Quickly you will discover that, if anything does relate to you, someone will tell you about it. After a while, you will be shocked at how much energy you once gave to this thinly veiled form of entertainment.

Instead of getting worried about world events, you will stayed inspired and keep on doing things that work.

When you focus on your own life, you will do things that are newsworthy yourself.

Challenge 7: Keep a journal. Make lists of high-value tasks, write down your goals, draw pictures, write sales copy, and project your future. Keep track of your thoughts and mark down your milestones. Every empire builder needs to endlessly explore ideas, plans, goals, and targets.

There are so many ideas buzzing about in the empire builder brain. Brilliant, multimillion-dollar ideas seem to come thick and fast showing up virtually every day.

These ideas need to be explored on paper. Calculations need to be done, resources need to be explored, lists of missing pieces need to be accounted for, and diagrams need to be sketched.

Here are some key things to write down to get you started:

What are you most grateful for in your life so far?
Who's been helping you recently whom you haven't acknowledged?
What do you want to achieve before the end of the year?
Which 10 business ideas would you start if you had $100,000 to invest?

Challenge 8: Plan your vacations first. Most people plan their vacations around their work. They hope there will be some spare time and money for vacations each year. But you are not a robot; you're a human being with limited time.

Start the year by blocking out at least 8 to 12 weeks of vacation time. Work out where you want to go and how much you need to set aside, and then reverse-engineer your work to serve the lifestyle you want to live.

Why is this important? It allows your brain to relax about "getting some downtime" because it knows vacations are coming. This allows you to get so much more done when you are working. It also allows your family and friends to relax about when they will be able to spend some real quality time with you. If they know that there's a good 10 weeks of planned vacations coming, they won't worry so much if you have to be home late or work through a weekend here and there.

Vacations also give you time to think. Many people get their best ideas when they're not working. When you get away from your business, you can see the big picture and the really important stuff.

Challenge 9: Get structured. Make an appointment with an accountant and a lawyer to discuss your business and wealth-building plans. Ask them to steer you in the right direction for tax planning, wealth protection, and attracting investment.

Most people think they will set up a structure after they make a lot of money. Sadly, this doesn't work.

You must create a wealth structure before you make money. It's a nasty catch-22. Companies, trusts, accountants, and lawyers all cost money and you have to spend this money before you have it.

Challenge 10: Get your entrepreneurial team in place. There's no such thing as a self-made millionaire. In every case, successful people are surrounded by a brilliant team of people.

Build a team of people around you who can help you to implement your ideas and achieve the big goals you have for your future. No matter if you are starting out or you're already a millionaire, it will be the team you build today that will determine the results you get tomorrow.

These 10 challenges will change your life, if only you are willing to step into the unknown and trust the process.

It's not easy going from the world of "industrialized factory worker" to the world of "entrepreneurial adventurer." It will feel uncomfortable if you don't know where to start. But the 10 challenges will help you to escape from the drudgery of the Industrial Revolution and into the freedom of the Entrepreneur Revolution.

The Very Essence of Success

What makes some people successful, while others struggle?

Why is it that some people in an industry are millionaires, and other people in the same industry are just getting by?

There are three keys that all successful entrepreneurs need if they are going to make the most of their ideas, talents, opportunities, and the times we're in. Every entrepreneur will need:

Luck
Reputation
Vitality

The first key is luck. Luck is going to play a part in your life, whether you like it or not. Hard work is not going to be your unique selling proposition; you simply couldn't work hard enough.

Fortunately, you are living one of the luckiest lives in the history of humanity. You have clean water, education, food, housing, and a free mind.

You have airlines running fleets of planes around the world just in case you want to fly. You have farmers preparing their best produce and sending it minutes from your front door.

Never before in history could people get their questions answered in seconds. Never before could people communicate their ideas with so many others. Never has there been more finance, more resources, or more exciting conversations.

Whichever way you look at it, you are living a life more extravagant than the royal families throughout the ages. King Louis XIV would be amazed at what you have access to in your day-to-day life.

The ability to acknowledge how lucky you already are allows you to see opportunities more clearly. The next step is to learn how to coax it into your life.

You influence your luck when you show up in places that are luckier, when you spend time with people who are luckier, when you learn ideas that produce luck, when you get crystal clear on your vision, and when you begin having lucky conversations.

Given the choice between putting in another repetitive day at the office or going to an event that's full of inspired leaders, choose the event. You don't know who you will meet, but there's a good chance that something great will happen.

Given the choice of talking to someone who's convinced there are no opportunities out there, or talking to someone who's enthusing about an exciting future, talk to the person with an inspired outlook. You don't know what exactly you will learn, but you will probably discover something worth knowing about.

Every day, you are making choices that will either make you even luckier, or choices that repel the luck that is trying to show up in your life.

The second key is reputation. In the Entrepreneur Revolution, your most prized asset is your personal brand and reputation. When somebody Googles your name, the first page of results is a clear indication of how the world sees you.

We live in a world where your reputation will follow you around for life. One stupid decision will be searchable for a very long time if the story hits the Internet.

On the flip side, a great reputation will pay regular dividends. People who have a good reputation receive inbound opportunities. Their phone rings every day with perfect projects. They don't have to chase constantly for their next paycheck; the money comes and finds them.

Make decisions with your reputation in mind because great entrepreneurs believe that money comes and goes, but your reputation is permanent.

As Warren Buffett once said, "It can take 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

The third key is vitality. There are two literal definitions of the word "vital"—the first is "irreplaceable," and the second is "lifeforce." Money, wealth, power, and influence move towards people who are the "irreplaceable lifeforce" in their domain.

Your goal is to move to higher and greater levels of irreplaceability. People who are merely functional end up being replaced; people who are vital end up with ownership. They stay true to their center and they own their space. Often, this results in them owning their marketplace, their business, and their niche, too.

Vital people have a sense of curiosity, a spark, a contagious energy, and a genuine desire to serve at a new, higher standard.

Vital people don't dream of retiring someday. They think about ways that they can keep doing more of what they love to do for as long as they can.

Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire and he is in his 80s; he hasn't retired yet. Warren Buffett is the second-richest man in the world; he's also in his 80s and he hasn't retired, either. You could make a list of almost every billionaire in the world who is in "retirement age," and almost every single one of them still shows up to work.

But, of course, it isn't work. When it feels like work, you want to retire, you want to knock off early, you need other hobbies to keep you sane, and you are dreaming of going on vacation.

What you are actually dreaming of is what it would be like to wake up excited about what the day could offer you and doing things that make you feel even more invigorated than when you started. Well, here is the amazingly good news. You live in a world where you have vast options and can do almost anything.

You can create things, you can trade things, you can invent things, you can bring people together; and any of that could make you wealthy and fulfill your dreams.

Wealth flows to vital people, not functional people. Wealth flows to people who build a reputation. Wealth flows to people who acknowledge their luck and go out to create more of it.

The Entrepreneur Sweet Spot

In these exciting times we're living in, for the first time in history, it's easy to make an income from almost anything you want. You can pursue a passion and live well from it. You can access a global market and enough people around the world can join in to make it a business.

For the first time in history, people can move into the "entrepreneur sweet spot."

You only have to figure out three key ingredients, and you will find that you wake up each day living very happily in the age of the Entrepreneur Revolution.

Here are the three ingredients you need to hit the entrepreneur sweet spot:

Do something you're passionate about.
Do something you're good at.
Do something that makes money.

Let's address these aspects one at a time.

Knowing your passion is very important for several reasons.

First, an understanding of your passion gives you a personal compass. You must take a deep look at what you want to do with your life and decide in advance what constitutes a good opportunity and what doesn't. Without knowing what it is that you are passionate about, you will constantly be distracted by the infinite number of choices that bombard you every day.
Second, having a clear passion that others can tune into is a huge competitive advantage. It's nearly impossible to build a business without passion. You will always be beaten by the person who has it.
Third, passionate people have a huge advantage over dispassionate people. A passionate person attracts opportunities like a magnet.

Many people struggle with the big question, "What should I do that I'm passionate about?" It is actually not that hard. Whether you are conscious of it or not, there's an underlying theme that's been showing up in your life since you were a child.

There are things you've been doing almost your whole life that you keep coming back to. All the things that genuinely excite you are somehow connected.

Your "theme" will take the form of a rant that begins with any of these four sentences.

"For as long as I can remember, I've felt there's something exciting at the intersection of …"
"I deeply believe that the world needs …"
"Never in history has there been a better time for …"
"My whole life I've been fascinated by what happens when you mix …"

This rant will light you up and excite you. It will feel like a rant that's been waiting to emerge since you were very young. It will feel a bit like a crusade you want to embark on and you don't really care how it happens, as long as it unfolds.

Now that we've talked about discovering what you are passionate about, let's talk about the next step in moving to the entrepreneur sweet spot.

You can't just be passionate; you also need to deliver real value.

At the heart of every great business is something of value. You cannot build a business if there's a lack of value—and if there's no value, there's no business in the long run.

When there's an asset, there are many ways to make money from it. If you want more income in your business, you need a bigger asset.

In business, the main asset you have is called "Intellectual Property" (IP). This isn't just the legal definition of IP that has been formalized with trademarks, patents, etc. In this context, IP is the special stuff that makes you valuable.

It is your method of doing something, your unique philosophy behind what you do, the recipes for success that you know. It's your brand or reputation; it's your way of creating a culture that attracts top people.

So how do you create more of it? How do you know what IP you already have but take for granted? How do you dig up this gold?

You write. You write articles, you write books, you write brochures, you draw diagrams, and you get what's in your head out on paper.

The content that you write will be used to make products, marketing materials, employee handbooks, investor memorandums, and Web sites.

People will read what you write and decide if they want to spend some time with you, buy from you, partner with you, and even invest in you. Rarely can people make the decision to do any of that unless they read something. Certainly, it's hard to scale your business without great written content.

When you examine successful people, a very common trait is that they write. They keep journals; they publish articles and white papers. They are often authors of books.

This isn't just for the people reading it; it's for the author, too. They develop valuable IP as a result of the writing process.

The third step to living in the entrepreneur sweet spot is to learn how to earn money from what you are passionate about, and how you can deliver value to others by doing it.

There's been extensive research into the link between money and happiness. Statistically, money does make you happier. Up to a point.

When you deliver value to others, you must be rewarded for it or you will eventually become resentful.

For most people, however, you don't need to build a massive business and earn millions. You can build a lifestyle business that generates a healthy six-figure revenue, by doing what you are passionate about. That allows you to take home a healthy income, while still having a great deal of freedom.

Building a Global Small Business

A business isn't about desks, computers, business cards, staff, accounting software, or Web sites.

You are in business to develop and commercialize IP. That's it.

How that happens takes many forms but, at the guts of it, you're creating or sourcing products and then making money from them.

Provided you have value, you can use the following process to maximize the amount of money you can make from it.

At the heart of every business is a product. If you have a product, you can begin to build a business.

A product, as we'll define it here, is a consistent way of achieving a desired outcome that your customer wants.

For example, a Rolex is not a watch. It is "a conspicuous device that communicates status and high achievement."

A person who buys a Rolex does not want to buy a device that tells the time. He or she could buy a $20 Casio that does a better job of telling the time. The desired outcome the customer wants to achieve has more to do with what a Rolex says about the wearer.

When you think about your product, you need to be very clear about the real problem you are solving. You need to see yourself as someone who is project managing some sort of result for your clients.

If you have a service, you need to structure it in a highly repeatable way so it begins to resemble a product. You should also give your service a special name, like you would a product.

Imagine two accountants. The first one thinks of himself as offering a service: "tax advice and compliance." The second one sees herself as a product creator. She has three products: "Fixing Financial Mess," "Small Business Growth Plan," and "Exit for the Max."

Which accountant would you rather talk to? Who would earn money and have a business that scales?

The first key to commercializing your business is deciding what product you are actually selling and giving it a name that best reflects the customer need you solve. This simple decision will largely impact how much money you make for the life of the business.

The Ascending Transaction Model

Knowing what you are passionate about is not enough to make money in business. Having a valuable IP is not enough, either. If you want to make money from your business, you need to have an elegant product strategy.

We now need to look at a very powerful product strategy that makes a lot of money. It involves four types of products that strategically work together to generate a lot of revenue.

This system is called an Ascending Transaction Model ("ATM") to remind you that it's designed to give you money.

Great businesses have four types of products that all serve a unique purpose:

Gifts
Products for prospects
Core offerings
Logical next steps

Let's take a look at each of these types of products, and place some rules around them to make sure they are doing their job.

Gifts are free products that you give to the world, expecting nothing in return. You don't ask for contact details, you don't ask for money, you don't ask for anything. They are thoughtful, valuable, and enticing in their own right, and they show just how brilliant your business is.

A great gift is delightful if it's given to the right person at the right time. It needs to open people up to a whole new world of value that your business offers.

Your gift should entice people to want to know more about what you do and what value you offer.

In a small business, a gift can be a DVD, a book, a YouTube channel full of great content, a downloadable checklist, or a sample.

The key is that you give it freely and ask nothing back from the person who receives it.

The rules for creating a gift are:

It is given without conditions. You must not ask for anything in return.
It must be meaningful. A great gift can open people up to a new world where the problems and frustrations they've had don't exist the way they used to.
It doesn't make you broke.

The gift must be low-cost for you to deliver. In most cases, it will be a digital gift or an event experience, which have a very low cost per person.

The second type of products is called products for prospects (PFP). This is a product for people who want to try you out without committing too much money or time. It is designed to offer a quick win or a first-hand experience. It's a sample of things to come, a test drive, or a first step in the right direction.

A good law firm will offer a free first consultation; a car dealership might invite you to a special event; or a small business might invite you to attend a low-cost seminar.

Products for prospects need to have a low cost. They involve either a small amount of money, some focused time, or sharing of contact details.

The product for prospects is designed to ignite the commercial relationship between your business and your ideal customer. It should warm people up to doing business with you, share some of your philosophy, demonstrate your value, and do it all quickly and cheaply.

Small businesses can run events or Webinars, create memberships, offer downloads, or offer books or DVDs, all very cheaply.

The rules for creating a product for prospects are:

Get your ideas out to the world. The product for prospects should be focused on sharing your ideas and philosophies. Not generic ideas, not old ideas, and not small ideas. Share your big, unique, and transformational ideas with your prospects. Ideas are cheap these days—make your money on the implementation of the ideas.
Get contact details. A product for prospects should be exchanged for accurate contact information. It's OK to charge for this product if you like, and it's also OK to give it at no charge, but you must get people's contact details in the process.
Make sure that people get some sort of quick benefit from this product, preferably in under seven days. If you charge, it should be priced cheaply enough that people feel they got a very good deal, considering how quickly they started to see value. The product for prospects should lead people closer to the decision to buy your core product, but not cannibalize your core product. A quick win doesn't mean that the problem is completely solved and there's no longer a need to do more with your business.

The third type of product in the ATM is the core product. These are the products or services for which you are famous. For BMW, it's cars. KPMG's core offering is auditing. Singapore Airlines is known for long-haul flights.

With these products, you can deliver a full and remarkable solution to what people want. These products seriously solve problems. They are your main focus, and your customers and clients can't stop talking about them.

These products are priced to be profitable. It's OK to lose a small amount of money on gifts and products for prospects, but not on your core business.

You've given people a taste of what you do with your product for prospects, but now it's time to be paid for your fair value when someone wants to access your core business.

You must create a special methodology that makes your core offering remarkable. You need to push your team to be the best in your market for this type of product.

The key is to create a full and remarkable solution to your ideal customer's problem. You want your core product to turn people into evangelists for your brand.

The rules for creating a core product are:

A remarkable solution. The core business must be a full and remarkable solution to a real problem your potential clients face. Your goal is to create a product that is so good that people want to tell their friends about it.
Implementation, not ideas. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that you will make money just by sharing your ideas. People already have access to ideas free of charge; they don't have time to implement the ideas, and they will pay you big money to do it for them.
The price is right. The job of the core product is to make profit; you must never undersell your core product at a loss or at breakeven. Every time a client says yes to doing business with your small business, it must generate an order of thousands of dollars, minimum. You can't run a profitable business on small sales.

Finally, the fourth product in the ATM is the logical next step (LNS). Your core product was so delightful that your clients want to know what comes next. The LNS is the product you mostly sell to people who have already bought your core business.

For example, BMW is known for its cars, but it makes a lot of money in finance and insurance. Then it services your vehicle, and eventually it handles the sale of your older car as it upgrades you to its new model.

With this fourth product, you should do well in business for many years to come.

The rules for creating a logical next step are:

It's highly profitable. The LNS should aim to double the profitability of your business. It is designed to be sold to existing clients, so you don't have the huge costs of building a relationship with them.
It's different. It must not simply be more of the same. If your core business is accounting, your LNS can't be more accounting in some other form; instead it could be legal services, business coaching, software, temping staff, etc.
It's logical. Don't confuse your clients with a product that doesn't fit with your brand. If you sell graphic design services, you don't want to offer personal training as a second sale because it doesn't seem to make sense. The LNS product is a "logical next step" that shows up after you solved the first problem.

These four types of products are designed to string together and create a product ecosystem. They take a client on a journey, from barely knowing your business to feeling great about doing a lot of business with you.

Your potential clients will appreciate a gift that is given in the spirit of being thoughtful.

They will then want to try out something without too much risk. They might be happy to spend a small amount of money for a quick win. Your product for prospects is the perfect thing for them to try you out.

After having two positive experiences with your business, a client may now be open to spending money on your core business.

If your core business is as good as you've said it is, your client will have other wants, needs, or problems that they would like you to help them with. Your LNS product will be the perfect thing.

If you do it correctly, you will have constructed a seamless journey for your clients. They will enjoy dealing with you, because they don't feel pressured or rushed to make a big decision; they feel each decision is quite natural and is based on positive past experiences with you and your business.

It's not enough simply to have these four types of products in your business. You need the glue that links them up to form an ecosystem.

There are three pieces of "glue" that hold your ATM together.

The first is the lead capture process. You need to capture people's details. Prospective clients need to be able to signal you that they are interested in doing business by registering their contact details with you.

This could be on your Web site. It could also be a fishbowl on the counter for people to put their business cards in. It could be a "Facebook Connect" button that automatically connects your business' page to your client. However you structure it, capturing people's contact details is a key part of your business and you should have several ways to collect them.

Become more aware of how other companies capture your details. Additionally, research your industry and find out who is capturing details in a brand-affirming way. Use these procedures in your business.

The next piece of glue is sales. It's a very important part of every business that many small business owners avoid.

The good news is, if someone has had a good experience with your gift and products for prospects, the sales conversation will be an enjoyable experience. Products for prospects and gifts are brilliant for warming people up to be presold before they meet you for a sales chat.

Become more keenly interested in how sales conversations are structured. Put yourself in situations where you can be sold to, and find out what works for you as a buyer, and what doesn't. See if you can create the ultimate "buying experience" out of your sales conversations.

The final piece of glue is service. Your clients need you to look after them better than you said you would.

This means you must undersell your core product. Don't tell prospects about everything you will do for them once they are a client.

If you tell them you will take them away each year on a river cruise, they will expect it. When the invite arrives, they will think, "He did what he said he was going to do."

If, for some reason, you don't give them the river cruise, your clients would feel they missed out on something you said you would do.

But if you never mentioned the cruise, when the invite arrives they will feel special because you've done something above and beyond their expectations.

Even after you've delivered value to your clients, they will want to know that they are still valued and you're still available to them. You must build into your business special ways to look after your existing clients long after they have bought from you.

You can put them into an online club membership or forum, you can invite them to "clients only" events, and you can send them updates. Make sure it's delightful, though. If you send out a half-hearted newsletter once a month, they will be annoyed.

Think of all the businesses you have bought from in the last year or two. See if you can think of who has looked after you as a client above and beyond your expectations.

Can you recall special events, little surprises, or unexpected value that showed up after you were already a client? If not, can you imagine what you would have loved them to do? When you have some ideas, design some surprises for your existing clients.

Living the Dream

You now have the four products, and you have three pieces of glue that form a product ecosystem. When you put them in order, you end up with an Ascending Transaction Model.

You will create a nice, easy way for people to do business with you at several levels. People will love being around your business, and they will feel good about buying from you again and again.

The best part of an ATM is that you can simply go around making sure people are given gifts and products for prospects. After that, the domino effect kicks in, and you have a business that just flows.

This will allow you to live the dream and enjoy the great opportunities of the Entrepreneur Revolution.

The pay-off is huge. Can you imagine waking up every day and getting paid to do what you love? Can you imagine hearing back from people who say you delivered real value to them and, because of that, they simply love to do business with you?

Can you imagine living in the entrepreneur sweet spot? You do what you are passionate about, you deliver amazing value—and you get paid well for it.

For the first time in history, this isn't a dream for a few; it's a reality for millions.

If you aren't quite there yet, keep going. It will be worth it. You're going to make it. You're living in the most amazing time to be alive.

You could have been born any other time in history, and your battle would have been with disease, hunger, or conflict.

Any other time in history, and you wouldn't have had a voice or a platform to share your message. Any other time in history, and your ideas would live and die in your head without seeing the light of day.

You are living in a time when anything is possible, where you do have a voice, where your ideas can come alive, and where you can empower yourself and others through enterprise.

You're here in the right time and the right place in history to make a difference and to live out your dreams.

Don't waste a day. These revolutionary times don't come around often. Seize this day today as your moment. Let the world be your playground as you embrace your role in the Entrepreneur Revolution.

About the Author

Daniel Priestley is a successful entrepreneur, international speaker, and best-selling author. He started out as an entrepreneur in 2002 (at age 21) and built a multimillion-dollar event marketing and management business before age 25. He has since built several successful businesses in the UK, Australia, and Singapore.

In 2010, Daniel launched an entrepreneur growth accelerator designed to assist in supporting small businesses through a growth phase. Each year, in several cities around the world, Daniel's team selects small business to go through this nine-month growth process. The accelerator program has attracted the support of highly celebrated business leaders, investors, and companies.

You can keep in touch with Daniel on his blog: www.entrevo.com/blog

or on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danielpriestley

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