Customer Satisfaction Is the Wrong Target

to people’s homes that is current and relevant and that people have to tune in to, you ain’t going to have a brand to defend.” When you fail to find supporters, establish customers, secure investors, and close the deal because you fail to do whatever it takes to get the job done and then you hide under the excuse of protecting brand and customer satisfaction, you’d just as soon have a shovel in your hand and dig your own grave.

Customer service is the wrong target; increasing customers is the right target. This doesn’t mean customer satisfaction isn’t important. Everyone knows that customers have to be satisfied and happy in order for them to return and give positive word of mouth. If your service or product or investment isn’t built to satisfy, then you are a criminal, and this book will only land you in jail sooner. Make your primary focus commanding attention and generating customers before you worry about making them happy.

Let me explain simply. Customer satisfaction doesn’t concern me very much! Why? Because I know that we over- deliver to our clients and provide customer service that is well beyond “satisfactory.” We overdeliver to every client, and we never say no until we absolutely have to. We don’t even talk about customer satisfaction in my office. We do talk a lot about how to get more customers because attracting customers to our program is the only way to increase customer satisfaction. You get it. Increasing customer satisfaction is impossible without increasing customers. Whether someone signs up for our free tip of the week or buys a book for $30, an audio program for $500, or a long-term training contract for

$1 million, we always overdeliver what is expected. I only con- cern myself with getting more customers, then I overdeliver to my clients.

I am most worried about noncustomer satisfaction; that is, the people who are dissatisfied because they do not have my product and may not even know that they are unhappy. I know that the only dissatisfied clients we can have are those who don’t have my products or who have them and are not

using them correctly. We talk about how getting our clients to increase their usage of our material, systems, and processes is the only way to increase customer satisfaction. Not get- ting a client or having the client use your products incorrectly are bigger “outpoints” than most of the ways that customer satisfaction is thought of. A customer getting the package a day late is an issue and should be handled, but the client who never buys your product suggests that you have a real serious customer satisfaction problem because you never made that person a customer. The first problem you can easily fix. The second one will kill you.

I seek out clients who are qualified to do business with us. I then attend to that individual or company until they agree to hire me, knowing that until they get my product or service, they can’t be satisfied. This isn’t a pitch. This is what I believe to be true. The attainment of the customer is paramount to customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction cannot exist without a customer! The attainment of the customer is the most important thing to me. Same thing in relationships: first it is getting the wife, then it is keeping her happy, then it is growing the family, and then looking at new ways to keep everyone happy. What was most important? Getting the wife was paramount to wife satisfaction.

It is impossible for a company to create success by just focusing on customer satisfaction. I believe that the trend of focusing on customer satisfaction has been detrimental to customer acquisition. Companies become so consumed about their current customers’ “satisfaction” that many are failing to aggressively acquire and expand their market share.

Customer service is a business term meant to measure how the products and services that companies supply meet—or exceed—customer expectations after the purchase. This assess- ment is supposedly a key differentiator between the brands customers follow loyally and those that they abandon entirely. Yet most places I go into never service me enough before the sale to ever acquire me as a customer in the first place.

Executives tout the importance of customer service from their ivory towers, yet they forget to promote the attainment of the customer to begin with. Most products don’t get my attention so completely that I’m compelled to purchase them without the assistance of the company. Unfortunately, most salespeople never bother to ask the customer to buy when given an oppor- tunity, and then they fail to follow up. Thus, they never make a client.

We do mystery shopping campaigns for companies and have validated this over and over. The biggest problem with companies is that they never make a customer in the first place! If you have a subpar offering—a product that doesn’t do what you state it will and that makes people feel like they’ve been cheated after purchase—the marketplace will dispose of you sooner rather than later. But most people don’t fail because their offering is inferior or they have a poor product. Most people fail because they never get enough customers!

Does Starbucks offer the very best customer service and coffee available? I don’t know. I do know that the company has made a serious investment in making it easy and conve- nient to buy its coffee. Is Starbucks concerned about people standing in line too long and getting the right coffee and being greeted? Of course. But I assure you the company is concerned first with the acquirement of the client. Does Google provide the best search engine and the best customer experience and service? Does it look to improve the experi- ence? Certainly. But first it dominates the space so clearly and gets so much attention that it’s the first site used. What’s my point here? Brands that truly deliver customer satisfaction do not talk about customer service; they focus on customer acquisition. Emerging organizations first need people to know about them, then do everything they can to make them happy. Remember, customer satisfaction cannot exist without a customer first.

American corporations have become so obsessed with “customer satisfaction” that they’ve lost sight of the first—and

most vital—factor: customer acquisition! “Keep the main thing the main thing,” as they say in the South. Customer satisfac- tion shouldn’t be an initiative but something so inherent to an organization that all of its attention is focused on customer acquisition. To garner the attention of a potential customer or market and then fail to capitalize on creating a user of your products and services makes no sense and is the most expen- sive of mistakes. Yet that is what happens with far too many organizations.

Let’s say that a company successfully gets my attention long enough that I consider its products but then doesn’t do enough to earn my business and “shut me down” (i.e., make me a customer). Not being a customer makes it impossible for me to become a satisfied customer. I am just saying don’t put the cart before the horse. Notice how executives become con- cerned about customer satisfaction and then start initiatives to conduct customer satisfaction surveys of the individuals who became customers—and completely ignore surveying those who did not become customers. This is a huge miss and a great example of an “only practice” (discussed in chapter 10) that will show you immediately how to acquire more customers. In addition to surveying those you acquired, garnering input from those who didn’t buy will disclose much more to the company about true customer satisfaction! Don’t you want to find out wfty you didn’t acquire the business? You think you didn’t satisfy a customer and therefore never made one? Most companies fail not due to lack of quality in their product, service, or their offering. They fail because they don’t take enough strategic actions to acquire the support—the client—in the first place. That is why I suggest that customer satisfaction is the wrong target—because you don’t even get the opportunity to “satisfy” someone who never evolves into a customer.

My point here is not to negate customer satisfaction after acquisition but to shift your attention back to acquisition. Also understand that it is impossible to somehow completely prevent customer complaints. There are, of course, measures

you can take to improve your product or service. But when dealing with human beings, you are going to face complaints and dissatisfaction. It’s just that simple. The best you can do is resolve complaints and dissatisfaction when they emerge (and they will—I promise) and treat them as opportunities to be in communication with your clients. What you need is more people interacting with your product or service and the company. Yes, complaints will increase when dealing with human beings—but so will praise. Increase the number of users of your product or service through massive action, not through massive initiatives that cause your people to back off from the acquisition in the first place.

I launched my first company under the naive impression that I would work with a handful of clients and really concen- trate my attention on them (thereby eliciting great customer satisfaction). I assumed that this would give me an advantage in the market and allow me to deliver quality service and really make a difference. And although it was a nice idea, it just didn’t work out that way. First of all, this plan didn’t put me on a scale necessary to build a business with a wide reach to get me attention, and I fell way short of dominance, not to mention the cash flow necessary to continue to support clients. Just as important, it didn’t allow me to share my information with enough of the successful people.

When I finally got my thinking to the right levels and committed to expanding my footprint and taking on 10 times more clients, I multiplied my exposure—tenfold—and increased the number of successful people and companies I had been avoiding. I shifted my focus to monumental quantities instead of just serving a handful of clients, which enhanced my ability to spread the word about myself and my company to a grow- ing number of people. The grumbles I received did intensify— right along with the compliments I received. In fact, I enjoyed more successes than I suffered failures because I was exposed to greater numbers of people using my material. Augmenting the numbers of attendees at my seminars and workshops amplified

the number of quality clients I had—and expanded the number of individuals who were exposed to my ideas and techniques. More people were talking about my methodologies among their associates, who would then spread the word to people tftey knew, and so on. The more people talked about me, the more I was able to expand my footprint, get more attention, acquire more customers—and tften create more customer satisfaction. Think about it like this: Would Facebook and Google be better off if they provided their services to only a few people? If they would, I wouldn’t even use them as examples.

The practice of customer satisfaction is not limited to how you treat customers after you acquire them; it should also focus on what you do to attain them in the first place. The quality of the clients you attain will have a direct effect on your level of customer satisfaction. You will not get to qual- ity without seeking quantity. Remember as well what we dis- cussed in the previous chapter: that criticisms and complaints are inevitable indications that you are growing as you should. So disregard criticism, welcome and handle complaints, and do everything you can to expand your footprint. The more people you serve, the better your chances are of interacting with quality customers.

To be clear, you certainly want to deliver—and exceed— on the promises you make. However, if you focus on deliv- ering exceptional 10X service prior to acquisition, this part will come naturally after acquisition. I am assuming you have a great product, service, idea, or investment. Now you need to increase your support base for it. There are, regret- tably, thousands of organizations in existence that sell inferior products every day. Although I’m certainly not suggesting you push substandard offerings or sacrifice your product’s quality, I am trying to highlight an unfortunate reality: Domination of market share tends to trump all other things. Companies that sell poor products make acquisitions their number one goal— and then handle any problems with their products or offerings after they get users on board.

No organization in the world has created massive success while limiting its acquisitions. Apple learned this lesson the hard way for too long. It got killed by Microsoft for decades—a company any Apple user will claim sold an inferior product— because while Microsoft made its merchandise available to the masses, Apple focused on just a small number of people. Notice the shift that Apple has made in the past few years, making its products appealing to the masses. Three percent of all households have an iPad, and 63 percent are using an MP3 player, with Apple getting over 45 percent of that share. Apple is clearly adopting “massive action” in a big way these days with the goal of dominating with its footprint!

Remember, even if your product and company deliver perfectly, you are going to get complaints from customers— because they’re human. You can’t keep everyone happy all the time. It’s a mistake to be scared of complaints. Instead, encour- age them, look for them, find them, and then resolve them. Complaints are your customers’ very direct way of telling you exactly how to make your product better. If you approach every situation wrought with anxiety about offending a client, then you will never attain dominance in the market.

Let’s go back to Apple as an example. This company doesn’t worry today about customer satisfaction so much that it neglects to continue building products that people are willing to stand in line to get. It recognizes the proper order of objectives: (1) acquire customers (via an amazing product or service that you’ve worked on at 10X levels to create);

(2) impress them with how great you are during the acqui- sition process; and (3) establish customer loyalty (through repeat purchases, support, word-of-mouth marketing, etc.). When you’re building a business, your primary target is not customer satisfaction (yet); it’s acquisition, referral, and loyalty and then more acquisition using the customers you’ve attained. I want everyone to have my products, not just some people. I want masses of people—not just a few—to know about me and my products. I won’t be satisfied until 6 billion

people do. I want everyone to purchase from me over and over, and I want to be on their minds so regularly—and make such an impact on them and their companies—that they never even think about using anyone else.

This line of thinking differs from concentrating so intensely on customer satisfaction that members of the sales team worry about upsetting, pressuring, and pressing hard for fear that doing so may damage their clients’ opinion of them. I know sales teams that are penalized when they receive customer complaints, which seems odd to me for several reasons. For one, it suggests that these grievances could be avoided, which they clearly cannot. Even if you could avoid them, why would you want to? Complaints and problems are opportunities to do more business and solve more issues—and to give your custom- ers the chance to spread the word about how great you are at making their problems go away!

If you truly want to find out what your organization’s customer acquisition and loyalty weaknesses are, then survey the people who you do not acquire. The sooner you can ask them questions, the better—ideally, as they leave or refuse the business. And be sure to ask them about the processes—not about the people—they encountered. You might ask questions like the following:

How long were you here? Did you meet a manager?

Were you shown optional products? Were you presented with a proposal?

Did anyone offer to bring the product to your home/ office?

Feel free to call my office for guidance on how to develop this survey for your unique situation (800-368-5771). We can help identify what to ask in order to pinpoint where the breakdown is taking place.

When was the last time you were asked to give a company that you decided not to purchase from your feed- back on the experience? Did the salespeople give you enough attention? Did they stay with you through your decision- making process? Did they meet you enthusiastically, offer to solve your problems, have someone from management say hello, show you various options—or even present their product or a proposal? And did anyone call you back? I bet the answer to most of these questions is no. Companies fail not because tftey offend customers but because tftey don’t take enougft action to make tftese individuals customers in tfte first place. And I assure you that these very same companies hold one meeting after another on improving customer satisfaction. They will survey those who buy from them instead of taking the time to ask those who didn’t why. Add to this the fact that most of these surveys focus on what the sales associate did wrong rather than on what is inadequate about the organization’s thinking and processes.

Remember the operative order of importance: customer acquisition is the primary target, followed by customer loyalty, followed by customers who spread the word about you. This approach allows a company to continue to invest in prod- uct development and improvement, enhance processes, and increase promotion—which ultimately creates real customer satisfaction.

CHAPTER

Omnipresence

You see them, constantly, depend on them, and have become used to needing them, in most cases, on a daily basis.

Consider something as seemingly obvious as the news. TV channels, newspapers, radio, and the Internet deliver the

news 24/7—so that’s usually what’s on people’s minds most frequently. We see it when we wake up, we talk about it at the water cooler, we hear about it throughout the day, and we watch it on television before we go to sleep.

This is the kind of mind-set from which you must operate—to make yourself available everywhere. You want people to see you so often that they think of you constantly and instantaneously identify your face or name or logo with not just the offering you represent but even the offering made by those similar to you. Many people incorrectly assume that they can make a handful of phone calls, a personal visit or two, and send out some e-mails and somehow command people’s attention. But the truth is that none of these actions will cause people to think about you enough to have a con- siderable effect. Are you operating at the right level of target- ing, and thinking big enough? If you’re not already, you need to expand your approach and enlarge your footprint with the goal of dominating and being everywhere.

My goal these days is to get more than 6 billion people to hear my name constantly, know it when they hear it, and then when they think sales training, they think of me. Although this may seem unrealistic, probably unattainable, it is the right target, thinking, footprint, and concept for my business—to be everywhere. The mere commitment to doing something this big will be an adventure in and of itself. Even before I’m able to fully attain my goal, I will achieve some greater level of success in the attempt. Will money come as a result? Abso- lutely! Will people buy my products? For sure! Will I create success for my ideas and get support for whatever I am trying to accomplish? Guaranteed!

This mind-set will then allow for us to make all our deci- sions with the goal of moving me in the direction of getting everyone on the planet to know about me, my products, my company, and my efforts! Every decision we make at my com- pany is based on this one mission: Introduce the entire planet to Grant Cardone. Although our targets have to be funded,

money is not our primary interest. We know profits will come as a result of our efforts to be everywhere at the same time. We don’t ask what a project will cost or whether it fits in the budget or if we have time to do something. We ask, does it help us accomplish the mission of being everywhere? We don’t stop to figure out whether I want to travel or speak to a smaller group or what the outcome may be. We simply do not allow any excuses and distractions that could limit expansion. In the same way, any attempt you make to have yourself, your brand, your product, or your service be omnipresent will automati- cally guide your actions and decisions.

Is this kind of thinking too big? For most people, it is. Is it absolutely necessary? Well, not if you are willing to settle for average. However, if you are considering that, go back and reread the chapters on why average goals will fail you and why normal does not work. Show me one great company that has not accomplished omnipresence. Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Google, Starbucks, Phillip Morris, AT&T, La-Z-Boy, Bank of America, World Disney, Fox TV, Apple, Ernst & Young, Ford Motor Company, Visa, American Express, Macy’s, Wal-Mart, Best Buy—these names are everywhere. Each of these compa- nies is in every city—some on every street corner—and most are available around the world. You see their ads, you know what their logos look like, and you can even hum some of their jingles and use their names to describe not just their products; but in some cases, their competitors’ products as well.

There are also individuals who have accomplished omnipresence so well that the world immediately recog- nizes their names, such as Oprah, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Bush, Barack Obama, Abe Lincoln, Elvis, the Beat- les, Led Zeppelin, Walt Disney, Will Smith, Mother Teresa, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and so on. Whether you like them or not, each of these people has created such a name for himself or herself that most people know who they are—or at the very least, recognize their name and align it with importance. The way in which they man-

age and control their brands will determine their long-term success and survivability.

My father always gave me the following valuable advice: “Your name is your most important asset. [People] can take everything away from you—but they can’t take your name.” Although I agree with my dad’s emphasis on the importance of names, it of course becomes less important if no one knows it. Unless people know who you are, no one will pay attention to what you represent. You have to get people to know you, which means that you have to get attention. The more attention you get, the more places you will be; the more people you are with, the more you can be everywhere. And all of this will improve your chances of using your good name to do good work.

Have you ever heard the saying, “It is enough if you can just help one person”? Although it’s surely a good thing to help one person—and certainly better than helping no one—I per- sonally don’t really believe helping just one person is enough. I know it sounds good and that this saying emphasizes the importance of helping others, but there are 6.8 billion people on this planet, and most of them need some kind of help. Your goal must—and can—be bigger than “just one person.” And in order for this to happen, people must know who you are and what you represent! Otherwise, you will not be able to help even one person—much less make a dent in 6.8 billion.

You must think in terms of being everywhere at all times. This is the kind of 10X mind-set necessary to dominate your sector. If you commit to taking 10X actions consistently, fol- lowed up with more 10X actions, then I assure you that you will be propelled into situations where you find yourself every- where. The first thing you have to do is burst through obscu- rity and let the world know what you can do for it—and then do it relentlessly. Although it might sound like a grind, it will only be a chore if your goals are too small, self-serving—and unattained. I promise it won’t feel like a grind when you come out on top. You may want to get rich—but why? What do you want to use the money for? Do you have a higher purpose

you’re looking to serve? After all, you can only accumulate so much personal wealth before it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe you want to amass riches in order to help more people and improve conditions for all mankind. That would require you to be omnipresent—everywhere, all the time.

The higher your purpose, the more fuel it will provide for your 10X actions. This is what it takes to rocket to omnipres- ence. People of fame and influence achieve this status because they are compelled to fulfill their purpose by writing books, doing interviews, blogging, writing articles, accepting speak- ing engagements, and saying yes constantly to get attention for themselves, their companies, and their projects. These are the results of thinking big. This isn’t a grind; this is passion. It is only a grind when your mind-set and actions are too small and will not create enough of a payoff. You are capable of much more than you’re doing now. Once you match your mind-set with the right purpose, you will start taking 10X actions—and find yourself simultaneously propelled into more places than you ever thought possible.

In order for your life not to feel like “work”—or like you’re running on a hamster wheel—you must think in terms of the right volumes. Omnipresence—the goal of being every- where at all times and at the same time—is exactly the kind of massive thinking that is missing from most people’s expecta- tions of themselves and their dreams.

You must first make a vow to have your brand, idea, con- cept, company, product, or service make a footprint on the planet. To do so, you have to get involved with your com- munity, school system, neighborhood, and local politics. You have to attend and be seen at events, write in the local paper, and get connected to the players in your community. Once involved do everything possible to stay active, have people see you, read you, hear you, and think about you. Say yes to every opportunity to get your word out. Write about it, talk about it, give lectures on what you do, and even bark on the street corners if you have to. Commit to omnipresence!

I didn’t learn this incredibly important lesson myself until I was under major attack by people who didn’t want to see me doing well and I had to figure out how to counter it. My gut reaction was to retaliate immediately by way of inflicting physical harm (which I felt in a fleeting moment of insanity). However, my wife reminded me of my own saying: “The best revenge is massive success.” She advised me to move forward with such great momentum and so much of a presence that every time these people woke up, turned the TV on, or made a business move, they would see my face—and be reminded of how well I was doing. Hearing the truth from my sane and positive wife immediately put me at ease—and made it clear to me that the best payback possible was not force of any kind but simply amassing more success.

Rather than spending energy on retaliating, I spent all my energy, resources, and creativity on becoming omnipresent and expanding my footprint. This is a much better investment in energy than chasing someone else down. Consider how you can use this illustration to figure out how you can be in more places at the same time. Immediately after this attack, I got very busy making sure I was seen everywhere all the time. I wrote my first book and followed it up with another one three months later. I then finished my third book, and members of my group spent months doing everything possible to make it a New York Times best-seller—which they did!

The goal was to do everything we could to get my infor- mation and material disseminated. We started using YouTube and Flickr to provide motivational videos, sales tips, and busi- ness strategies to our clients—and asked people to pass them on to their friends. I personally recorded more than 200 vid- eos, wrote 150 blogs and articles, and did 700 radio interviews in 18 months. I then began getting national TV exposure with the networks and cable TV. Fox, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN radio, WSJ radio, and more all started having me on their shows. In the same period, I personally wrote more

than 2,000 posts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. All of this was in addition to what my office was diligently doing to get my name out. My face, name, voice, articles, method- ologies, and videos began showing up everywhere—many at the same time. People with whom I had never done business started saying to us, “I see your name everywhere!” I was completely focused on expanding my footprint and making myself known to the rest of the world rather than worrying about a small group of critics.

My business blew up on every front. Opportunities started to flow in daily. We started getting attention not just from those we had been focused on but from people all over the world. As a result of this campaign, my books are being translated into Chinese and German. Now inquires from France, Mexico, South Africa, and other countries are flow- ing in with interest in our sales training programs and books. We have people calling us from both here in the United States and overseas who are interested in TV programs and doing magazine articles. I am not bragging here but showing you what can happen for you when you take the right actions at the right levels and start thinking in the right size.

All powerful companies, ideas, products, and people are omnipresent. They can be found everywhere. They dominate their sector and become synonymous with that which they represent. Real success is measured by longevity. So if you want to be excited and passionate for the long haul, then make omnipresence your constant goal. Your name, brand, and reputation are your most valuable assets only if enough people know of them and use them. And remember, tfte best way to even tfte score against tftose wfto ftave it in for you is to make yourself so well known tftat every time tftey look up—eacft morning wften tftey wake and rigftt before tftey go to sleep at nigftt—tftey see evidence of you and your success.

CHAPTER

Excuses

tract you later.

An “excuse” is a justification for doing—or not doing— something. I think the dictionary implies that it’s a “reason.” However, in reality, an excuse usually turns out to be some- thing otfter than the real reason that motivates your actions (or lack thereof ). For example, let’s say that your excuse for being late to work is due to traffic. Well, that’s not truly the reason you didn’t make it to work on time. The reason you were late is because you left your home without enough time to allow for traffic. Excuses are never tfte reason for wfty you did or didn’t do sometfting. Tftey’re just a revision of tfte facts tftat you make up in order to ftelp yourself feel better about wftat ftappened

(or didn’t). Making excuses won’t change your situation; only getting to the real reason behind it can do this. Excuses are for people who refuse to take responsibility for their life and how it turns out. Slaves and victims make excuses—and will forever be destined to having leftovers and others’ scraps.

The first thing to know about excuses is that they never improve your situation. The second thing to know is which ones you use on a regular basis. Do any of the following sound familiar? I don’t have the money, I have kids, I don’t have kids, I am married, I am not married, I have to find balance in my life, I am overworked, I am underworked, too many people work here, we don’t have enough people, my manager sucks/ doesn’t help me/won’t leave me alone/is negative/is too jacked up, I don’t like reading, I don’t have time to study, I don’t have time for anything, our prices are too high, our prices are too low, the customer won’t call me back, the customer cancelled the appointment, people don’t tell me the truth, they don’t have the money, the economy is bad, the banks aren’t lend- ing, my owner is cheap, we don’t have/can’t find the right people, no one is motivated, people have bad attitudes, no one told me, it was someone else’s fault, they keep changing their minds, I am tired, I need a vacation, the people I work with are losers, I’m depressed, I’m sick, my mom is sick, traffic is terrible, the competition is giving its product away, I have such bad luck. . . .

Bored yet? I know I am! I had to really reach deep into the recesses of my mind just to come up with some of those. How many of these have you used? Go back and circle every statement you’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. Now ask yourself, will any of these excuses ever improve your con- dition? I doubt it.

So why, then, do so many people make them so often? Does it even matter? An excuse is just an alteration of reality; nothing about it will move you to a better situation. The fact that “the customer doesn’t have the money” will not help you close your deal. The fact that you “only have bad luck” is not

Excuses157

going to improve the conditions of your life or change your luck. In fact, if you keep telling yourself that long enough, you’ll start to expect it—thereby ensuring that things will con- tinue to be bad.

You have to start understanding the differences between making excuses and providing actual, sound reasons for events. This book focuses on the many differences between the success- ful and the unsuccessful—and a very distinct dissimilarity is that successful people simply don’t make excuses. They are actually quite unreasonable when it comes to providing reasons—at least for failure—as well. I’ll never ask myself (or anyone else, for that matter) why I was unable to bring my product to market, raise enough money, or make enough sales because as far as I’m concerned, no answer will do. There are no justifications that will change these facts or situations—and any reasons I might provide are only opportunities yet to be handled. Any rationale you give yourself just gives someone else the chance to find a solution. Remember what I’ve said time and again throughout this book: “Nothing happens to you; it happens because of you.” Excuses are just another component of this—and a major dif- ferentiator between whether you will succeed or not.

If you make success an option, then it won’t be an option for you—simple. No excuse exists that can or will make you successful. Engaging in self-pity and excuse making are signs that someone has an extremely minimal degree of respon- sibility. “He didn’t buy from me because the bank wouldn’t make the loan.” No, he didn’t buy from you because you were unable to secure proper financing for a potential customer. The first statement assumes no responsibility for the event, while the other does—and identifies a solution. Once you adopt a more advanced sense of responsibility—and refuse to make any more excuses—then you can go out and search for a solution. And as an added bonus, you will avoid such situa- tions in the future.

The quality of being rare is what makes something valu- able. So anything that is plentiful has very little worth. Excuses

are one item that people seem to have an almost endless supply of. Because they are so plentiful, they have no value. Because they do not forward your desire to create more success for yourself, they are worthless uses of your energy. If you are going to approach success as you’ve been taught throughout this book—not as an option but as your duty, obligation, and responsibility—then you must commit to never using excuses for anytfting! You cannot allow yourself, your team, your family, or anyone in your organization to use another excuse as a rea- son why something didn’t come to fruition. As the old saying goes, “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

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Date: 2016-04-22; view: 688