Why New Opportunities Keep You Poor...
Summary
TLDRThe transcript emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurs focusing on solving existing problems rather than chasing new opportunities. It differentiates between 'problems' that threaten a business's survival and 'missed opportunities' that could grow the business. The speaker shares personal experiences and advises prioritizing resources to tackle current issues before expanding into new ventures. They also stress the value of data that influences actionable outcomes and the need for a clear strategy to avoid being overwhelmed by an endless list of 'should dos'.
Takeaways
- πΌ Focus on solving problems rather than chasing opportunities to ensure business longevity.
- π¨ Recognize problems as threats to your business's future and missed opportunities as areas for potential growth.
- π Address customer complaints, red flags in relationships, and sales team issues as they are critical problems affecting your business.
- π Distinguish between 'should do' tasks and actual problems to avoid overwhelming yourself with an endless to-do list.
- π Avoid spreading your business too thin by trying to cater to everyone with every opportunity; focus on core issues first.
- π Prioritize problems over missed opportunities because solving them can naturally lead to business growth.
- π Understand that focusing only on missed opportunities can lead to increased problems as the business scales.
- π Use data to drive decisions and actions, ensuring that any data point you track influences a change in behavior.
- π Eliminate data that doesn't result in actionable insights to streamline decision-making and reduce noise.
- π Allocate resources strategically by first addressing current problems and then considering missed opportunities once stability is achieved.
Q & A
What is the main difference between a problem and a missed opportunity in business?
-A problem is something that threatens the future livelihood of a business, decreasing the likelihood of its continued existence, such as customer complaints or sales team conversion drops. A missed opportunity, on the other hand, refers to things that could expand or grow the business but are not currently being pursued.
Why is it important for entrepreneurs to differentiate between problems and missed opportunities?
-Differentiating between problems and missed opportunities helps entrepreneurs prioritize their limited resources effectively. It prevents them from getting overwhelmed and ensures they focus on what is critical to the business's survival and growth.
What is the consequence of focusing too much on missed opportunities rather than problems?
-Focusing too much on missed opportunities can lead to a business that tries to sell everything to everyone, resulting in a long list of 'should dos' that can overwhelm the entrepreneur and potentially grow the business's problems rather than solving them.
How does the speaker suggest entrepreneurs manage their limited resources?
-The speaker suggests that entrepreneurs should allocate more of their time towards solving problems that arise daily, as solving these problems will naturally lead to business growth through improvement.
What is the speaker's stance on the pursuit of missed opportunities?
-The speaker believes that missed opportunities, while exciting, should not be the primary focus until all pressing problems are addressed. They can be revisited once the business is running smoothly.
Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of focusing on the present over the future?
-The speaker emphasizes focusing on the present because if the current business operations are not successful, the future opportunities will never materialize. It's about ensuring the business's survival before pursuing growth.
What is the speaker's advice for dealing with the overwhelming list of 'should dos'?
-The speaker advises moving the list of missed opportunities to another place and focusing on solving current problems. Once the business is problem-free, then revisit the list of opportunities and choose the ones with the highest potential for return.
How does the speaker propose to evaluate the importance of data in business decisions?
-The speaker proposes evaluating data based on whether a change in that data results in a change in behavior. If not, the data is considered noise and should be disregarded.
What is the speaker's approach to testing business hypotheses?
-The speaker's approach involves four steps: defining the problem or goal, proposing an action (hypothesis), implementing the action, and then comparing the before and after results to see if the expected outcome occurred.
Why is it beneficial to sleep on big ideas before pursuing them?
-Sleeping on big ideas allows for a less emotional and more critical assessment of their feasibility and value. It helps filter out ideas that may not be beneficial in the long term, leading to better decision-making.
What is the speaker's final recommendation for entrepreneurs regarding problems and opportunities?
-The speaker recommends confronting problems today and forgetting about opportunities for tomorrow. Once all problems are solved, then revisit the list of opportunities and choose the one with the highest likelihood of success to focus on.
Outlines
πΌ Prioritizing Problems Over Opportunities
The speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on solving problems rather than chasing opportunities. Problems are defined as threats to the future of a business, such as customer complaints or declining sales conversions. These issues need immediate attention to ensure the business's survival. On the other hand, missed opportunities are potential areas for business growth that are not currently being pursued. The speaker shares their own struggle with distinguishing between necessary fixes and potential growth opportunities, highlighting the limited resources available to entrepreneurs and the tendency to take on too many tasks. The crux of the message is that addressing problems first can prevent them from escalating and allows for more sustainable business growth.
π Balancing Present Needs with Future Goals
The speaker discusses the challenge of balancing immediate business issues with long-term goals. They admit to sometimes over-indexing on future projects at the expense of current responsibilities. The speaker advocates for a strategic approach to resource allocation, suggesting that entrepreneurs should prioritize solving current problems before expanding into new opportunities. They also mention the importance of recognizing when to focus on the present to ensure the business's short-term success, using their own experience as an example of finding balance between future-oriented projects and daily business operations.
π Data-Driven Decision Making for Business Growth
The speaker outlines a data-driven approach to decision making in business. They stress the importance of presenting data that will lead to actionable insights and changes in behavior, rather than simply reporting data for the sake of it. The speaker provides a framework for evaluating data: identifying the problem, hypothesizing an action to solve the problem, allocating resources, and then measuring whether the action had the desired effect. They also discuss the difference between problems, which often have existing data that can guide solutions, and missed opportunities, which are more speculative and require careful consideration before pursuing.
π Selective Pursuit of Big Ideas
The speaker encourages entrepreneurs to be selective with their ideas for business expansion. They suggest moving all potential opportunities to a separate list and focusing on solving immediate problems first. The speaker shares a quote from Jeff Bezos about the importance of taking bold bets, but also points out the limitations of resources and the need for strategic decision-making. They recommend revisiting the list of opportunities after solving existing problems, as new information may render some ideas less viable. The speaker also advises a 'sleep on it' approach to avoid impulsive decisions based on excitement for a new idea.
π οΈ Confronting Problems for Sustainable Growth
The speaker concludes by urging business owners to confront their problems and delay focusing on opportunities until those problems are resolved. They emphasize the importance of creating a customer-centric experience and the benefits of solving problems promptly. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about improving an onboarding process that not only increased profits but also enhanced customer satisfaction. They recommend a 6 to 1 ratio of deep business content to other types of content, suggesting a focus on quality over quantity in business endeavors.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Problems
π‘Missed Opportunities
π‘Resources
π‘Strategic Thinking
π‘Execution
π‘Growth
π‘Prioritization
π‘Data
π‘Behavior Change
π‘Hypothesis
π‘Ideation
Highlights
Focus on solving problems rather than chasing opportunities to grow your business.
Problems are threats to the future of your business, such as customer complaints or declining conversions.
Missed opportunities are things you should be doing to expand or grow your business.
Entrepreneurs often struggle with prioritizing between fixing problems and pursuing opportunities.
The danger of focusing too much on opportunities is that it can lead to a list that keeps growing without end.
Solving problems can lead to better business growth, whereas pursuing opportunities can just lead to doing more.
It's crucial to allocate resources to solve daily problems to prevent them from stifling business growth.
Data should be displayed for a reason and should influence behavior or decision-making.
Meetings should result in a change in behavior or action, not just be presentations of data.
Problems often come with more data than missed opportunities, which are often hypothetical.
There's a four-step process to solving problems: identifying the condition or goal, action, did we do it, and did what we expect happen.
Jeff Bezos' philosophy on betting against conventional wisdom and the importance of taking calculated risks.
The importance of being bold and taking big swings in business for outsized returns.
The analogy of baseball and business, where in business, you can score a lot more than just a home run.
The importance of solving problems today and revisiting opportunities tomorrow.
The idea of 'sleeping on it' to better prioritize and filter out less valuable opportunities.
The 6 to 1 ratio of creating content, focusing on deep business insights over general content.
The importance of creating an amazing customer experience early on to build a positive reputation.
Transcripts
you're not making as much money as you
want because you're working on the wrong
stuff you're chasing opportunities
rather than solving problems so a
problem is something that threatens the
future livelihood of your business so it
decreases the likelihood that your
business will continue to exist so for
example if you get customer complaints
from your product that is a problem if
your processor you know relationship
becomes a red flag that is a problem
your sales team starts dropping
conversions that is a problem these are
things that threaten whether or not
you're going to be live tomorrow now the
second bucket are missed opportunities
these are things that you are not doing
but you should be doing in your business
that could expand or grow your business
here is the fundamental problem in my
life I have almost equally colored them
the same as just things to do I need to
fix the sales team I also need to get
this email follow-up campaign redone
because it sucks right or it's not there
to begin with we need to get this
retargeting across all platforms why
aren't we doing that and you probably
have this list of what I consider should
do right I know I should be doing all
these things but I'm not and so this is
where this gets really painful for the
entrepreneur myself included which is we
only have limited resources but our list
of should do is unlimited the amount of
opportunities taken to their natural
extreme is that you have a business that
selles everything to everyone think
about it at every Point there's there's
oh we could have a product here there
that's a opportunity for Revenue
expansion oh we should add in this other
channel that's a possibility or
opportunity for Revenue expansion and so
what ends up happening is that over time
Everything feels like something that you
should do and then over time your list
just gets longer and longer and longer
and unless you delineate which thing is
a problem and which thing is a missed
opportunity you will get way overwhelmed
so this is why I think this is so
crucial missed opportunity
are typically more fun they're exciting
they're new things they're shiny and
that's why us entrepreneurs love
pursuing them the reason that I talk
about focus and the woman in the red
dress so often is it's because it's the
thing that I struggle with to this day
most often and so half of these sermons
probably more than half are actually
just me yelling at me to be clear now
these are really fun and exciting and
they tend to be around the things that
you love and so if you're a product
person you're probably going to have a
lot of product should dos if you're a
marketer you're probably have a lot of
marketing related should do if you're
customer success related same thing so
if you're Finance same thing whatever
your thing is tends to be the thing that
you like doing the most of and that's
where you tend to see the most missed
opportunities because that's where you
spend the most time you can always see
the next step The Next Step the next
step and you keep wanting to grab those
other things and bring them into your
business because you see how much money
that we're quote leaving on the table
problems on the other hand suck and
they're not fun and it's usually you
going into something that you set up
once and having to fix you thought it
was going to work but it's not being
executed properly or there's some key
problem that that you didn't expect it's
basically you did something a new piece
of information came to light and now you
have to do something about it the reason
beyond what I just said of why you
shouldn't focus on the missed
opportunities because there's obviously
so many of them and it taken to the
National extreme it's literally
everything is also because when you
prioritize Miss opportunities you grow
your business but guess what else
happens you grow your problems and so if
you have not solved your problem before
growing the business that problem just
gets bigger some of you guys may have
noticed that I've been making a little
bit less content lately and so I've been
super busy on this big missed
opportunity I put it that way and I've
been pouring tons and tons and tons of
hours into this big new project like
massive thing for
2025 and Lea basically came to me and
she was like I'm dying over here like I
need your help I need you back right
like your head's not in the game like
you're like we're we're doing business
every day and you're over here trying to
build the future and the thing is is
this is not a problem to be solved it's
a dichotomy to be managed if you're the
Visionary entrepreneur in the business
it's normal for you to live 3 months 6
months a year plus out that's normal but
you can't take your eye off the ball
from today and so for me this was a
pendulum that I was swinging too far in
this direction and so she was like dude
you need to make some content you
haven't like you're not you're not like
you're not spending any time on it and
so um to give you context I think over
the last two weeks we've had have we
even had a a scheduled recording session
yeah so we've had about one we've had
one recording session last week and this
is now one
today and the the ones that I was going
to I wasn't as prepared as I should have
been uh for those sessions I was like
all right all right what are we what are
we talking about today and you know the
team kind of basically uh gave me gave
me the talking point point and so for
you guys it may not be content right it
may be you need to make ads it may be
you need to be looking at the outbound
team it may be our customer success is
failing whatever that thing is it was
the thing that's hard right and so for
me like I like despite the fact that
everyone thinks that I'm a content
creator this is not my main job all
right and so my life is not as you know
as much as I try right as much as I try
to make more cont everybody like it's
not it's not the main thing still and so
um but I let it get away from me and so
the thing is is like I've given I've
learned to over time give myself a
little bit of Grace in saying this I
will never solve this it is
unsolvable but it's simply about
percentages of the pie that I'm going to
allocate to Now versus the future and I
get a little bit too over indexed on the
future that's in my nature and so I have
to overemphasize the present because
this if this doesn't work then that will
never happen anyways and I think Leila
has always been so grounded in today and
I've been so grounded in the future
that's been our yin and yang but we both
try and mean the I have to pull her
towards future be like hey let's like
this is where we're going this is we
have to build it this way to get to here
and she's like yeah but that's a massive
pain for me and I will tell you
something that I have and now it's
taking me far too long to learn is that
it's easier to solve small problems than
big problems and so when we were
thinking about putting the sequence of
what things we're going to prioritize by
the way the TLD are of this is this is
strategy strategy is prioritizing
limited resources against unlimited
opportunities these are things that you
could do with these resources versus the
resources you have and so if you have a
fixed pool of resources the first things
and this is like I'm relooking at my my
list right
now are the things that probably suck
they are the problems and that is where
you can spend or should spend in my
opinion your time because when you solve
your problems guess what else also
happens you grow you would like my team
to go over that list of things that you
have to grow your business the things
that are the missed opportunities and
also the problems and give you a
step-by-step plan to solve those because
we probably have solved them for
businesses just like yours because we
have a lot of different companies
probably bigger than yours in the
portfolio and so if you'd like that uh
we are holding uh workshops here in
Vegas this my actual portfolio team we
hold them one or two times a month uh
and so if that's at all interesting you
can go to acquisition. comom and you can
click the scale button and uh if your
business qualifies we'd love to see you
out here opportunities can grow your
company problem solved also grow your
company but when you solve problems as
you grow you get growth through getting
better when you grow through capturing
missed opportunities you grow through
doing more and to be fair I have no
problem with growing through doing more
but I do have a problem when more also
creates more
problems and so if the goal of the
entrepreneur is to allocate resources
across the entire company to achieve the
best returns then we should be
allocating more of our time towards
solving problems that are coming up on a
daily basis when you have a business
that no longer has problems you will
grow by default and so my allocation of
resources has gone in this direction now
I want to zoom out and make this super
Tactical for you you probably look at
data hopefully if you follow my stuff to
any degree on a regular basis now if
you're earlier on you have to go gather
that data from tons of places as you get
more advanced that data becomes pushed
to you via dashboards or direct reports
people present those things on meetings
it's the first slide and then you talk
about the data so I want to give you a
2011 level hack here that will change
how you run your business number one the
data that you choose to display must be
there for a reason one of the biggest
problems that I see across our portfolio
companies and even within our holding
compan company is that my direct reports
and my employees often over report
because they know I love data and so
they like look at all of this data that
we have but if you present me a piece of
data and a change in that data does not
result in a change in Behavior it is a
waste of time and so right now if you
look at the data and you're like okay
we're trending in this direction if you
if you ask the hypothetical question if
we Max this out would it change what
we're doing if the answer is no then you
should stop looking at that piece of
data it's noise not
signal and so when you're making the
decisions for your business the data
that you look at you should clearly know
and your team should know what Behavior
this data influences if our average view
duration drops then it could be from a
number of reasons but if it does drop
are we going to do something about it
and what are we going to do this also
will Target your discussions or Orient
your discussions with your team and so
if they come to you and say hey we want
to run a meeting about this the end
result of every meeting should be a
change in Behavior it should be what are
we going to do now if someone says Hey I
want to report these trends that we're
seeing cool and I'll give you a really
recent one that
happened I had a vendor for a platform a
while ago and the vendor was telling me
hey we should go for shorter shorter
versions of this type of content and I
was like okay why and he said well
because when we shorten it a higher
percentage of people watch it or consume
it and I said why do I care what does
the view duration or listen duration
have to do with any of the metrics that
we have in this business can you prove
to me that us getting a higher
percentage of people viewing a shorter
piece of content in some way drives our
business now if he then said yes pieces
of content that have higher average view
durations or average listen durations
then create more shares then I would say
got it done we're doing it but if you
just report oh we should do this because
it improves this metric how does that
metric tie to getting us more customers
or making customers worth more if you
can't tie why this thing or this metric
that we somehow track tracks to this I
do not care and the reason I think this
is so important is that we have such
limited attention in business every
single day that if someone's going to
buy or bid for our attention they better
damn well have a good reason for it and
also your team is limited as well they
are human beings too and so they have
many people they've got slack messages
they've got emails they've got meetings
and then they have the work that they're
actually supposed to do and so if you
have a quarterly for example and you
have your whole team there if you are
aren't clear about what change in
Behavior the data is going to create you
are wasting your time and theirs if
after that day or after that meeting you
go back to business you might as well
have just taken the day off wrapping
this back to problems and missed
opportunities you will probably have
significantly more data around your
problems than you will around missed
opportunities missed opportunities are
going to be purely hypothetical we think
if we had this percentage of people to
convert and they pay this price this is
the revenue uplift that's that that we
have potential to capture all of this is
hypothetical fine on the problem side we
have to look at what thing we're going
to change to fix this problem and so
this is how we do it we have four steps
all right so if you're writing this at
home then this is this is the writer
Downer part number one is the condition
or the goal that we are trying to the
problem we're trying to solve all right
this is how this is current this is
desired
cool next thing is what is the action
what are we going to
do and this is to be clear a hypothesis
our turn rate is at 5% okay we
hypothesize that if we do a one-onone
reach out to every customer as they
enter our you know buy our product we
will decrease turn that's the hypothesis
it's an action tied with what we expect
and the reason for taking this cost on
because it will cost you you money to do
this cost
resources the third bucket and this is
the fun one did we do it or not so this
is the before and after so we have the
problem here's how we hypothesize it we
have what data that we want to affect so
turn rate was the percentage we want it
to go down we hypothesized it's going to
go down by this much cool that's the
before the after is did we do it or not
very simple because you can have this
whole hypothesis get to the end of the
quarter get to the end of the week and
then say we didn't really do it okay
well then we didn't test the
hypothesis now here's the fun one let's
say you do it did what we expect to have
happened happen because we are guessing
that if we do this thing churn will go
down but we could do the thing and
children could remain the same and so it
cost us time and it cost us money but
the problem remained unsolved and this
is the nature of business and this is
why your second business grew way faster
than your first business because you
already knew the solutions to the
problems that you're going to create
along the way and then you run smack
into problems that you don't know how to
solve and this is why I'm I want to hit
on this so hard you're not growing
because there are problems that you need
to solve that you're not solving because
they're not fun and you don't know what
to do so instead you're doing more of
the thing that you know to do around
opportunities but you still have not
solve the problem and you've done this
enough times that you've now grown the
problems to the point where it's
stifling your business and so you have
to
stop and so you have to look at that big
to-do list that you have and you have to
think which of these are problems that I
need to solve that will make us better
and as a result of being better grow our
business and which of these are
opportunities that are missed that we
think that we could do but aren't doing
yet I would encourage you to take that
entire list of missed opportunities
Theos and just move them somewhere else
and what I have is something called Alex
is Big money-making ideal list everybody
in the company knows about this I have
more ideas than we have capacity to
implement and I have learned through
many years of working with Lila that I
actually only get maybe one out of 10 or
20 that I actually get to do because you
don't have unlimited shots on goal that
is the problem so Jeff Bezos has the
saying that it's the beginning of this
book I'll actually read it to you
because I think it's so it's so
significant outsized returns often come
from betting against conventional wisdom
and conventional wisdom is usually right
given a 10% chance of 100 times payoff
you should take that bet every time but
you're still going to be wrong nine
times out of 10 we all know that if you
swing for the fences you're going to
strike out a lot but you're also going
to hit some home runs the difference
between baseball and business however is
that baseball has a truncated outcome
distribution when you swing no matter
how well you connect with the ball the
most runs you can get is four in
business every once in a while when you
step up to the plate you can score a
th000 runs this longtail distribution of
returns is why it's important to be bold
Big Winners pay for so many experiments
now here's the one flaw and I Bezos is
much smarter than me much richer than me
but there's one flaw with the
analogy if you go to a casino and you
have a a a 100x payoff and you've got a
one out of 10 BET then you should make
that bet every time under one assumption
that you can bet as many times as you
please let's say you go to the casino
and it's a $10 minimum bet
and the bets 100x payoff but you only
have 20
bucks you're only going to get two
swings which means the likelihood that
you fail entirely is four out of five
you have a 20% chance of actually
winning an 80% chance of losing
period And so this is in my opinion a
more realistic take of what it's like to
be a business owner we do not have
unlimited swings we do not have
unlimited resources and so we have to be
incredibly measured with which swings we
choose to take and so the highest
likelihood swings are the problems that
need to be solved in your business today
these are the sure money these are the
as soon as you solve it you cash it in
the things that are certainly not
certain is the missed opportunities that
are purely
hypothetical and so if you solve all the
problems that you have at a current
level once you get to that and there are
times where you get there where
everything's kind of humming along that
is when you look up your big missed
opportunities list your big money-making
idea list and you say now which of these
will I take and here's the interesting
thing if you do this you will find that
many of the ideas that you were jazzed
about two months ago now you think are
stupid because you found out more from
solving the problems that actually give
you more information that this is
actually not a missed opportunity and so
it increases the likelihood that the
swings you do take the big swings do
result in the big payoff
and so like this is like the big the
ultimate sleep on it like if you have an
amazing idea don't tell them right then
because you're going to oversell
everybody you're going to oversell
yourself if you sleep on it the next day
you're a little less psyched if you come
back to it two months later you'll be
amazed at how many of these things you
just won't even want to do anymore and
think about how stupid it would be if
two months later after looking at all
your ideas 90% of them you don't want to
do anymore it means that every one of
those things that you shov down your
team's throat because you were excited
about it was a mistake it was you
failing as an entrepreneur because you
got too distracted you got too excited
about shiny object you got too into the
stuff that you like rather than
confronting the stuff that you hate that
will absolutely grow your company this
is something that I'm personally working
on and I'm heated about it because this
has been such an epiphany For Me In
terms because I love any Frameworks that
allow me to better prioritize that allow
me to be a better strategic thinker for
my business and so this
operationalizes better what you guys can
can expect from me is um I will be
prioritizing making more content for you
guys um I hope you guys have liked the
deeper content stuff like the real
business stuff I think right now I'll
tell you honestly we settled on a 6 to1
ratio so basically five out of every six
videos are going to be deep business
stuff like if you guys haven't seen the
last three videos that I put up on
YouTube especially the one before last
there's a banger case study on what we
did to make 3 million bucks more profit
in one of our folio companies to
increase customer satisfaction course
decrease refunds and chargebacks
increase Ascension rates by over
40% just by fixing our onboarding
process in this particular business and
so every company needs some sort of
onboarding process whether your physical
products business you're a software
company you're a you're a a service
business you need to have that stuff but
guess what that was a problem and it was
a problem that we solved and it
immediately made us more money and we
should have put more attention on that
even sooner because the reputation that
we would have would be simply better
right so like the early you create that
amazing customer experience the more
customers who go through it the more
people have positive things to say about
you and so I say all this to say one
main
thing confront your problems today
forget about your opportunities for
tomorrow put them on the big list once
you've solved all the problems go
revisit the list and then pick the one
that has the highest likelihood of
yielding the biggest return for you and
then go all in on it if this content was
valuable for you check out either of
these two videos
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