In life we have many different visible temptations. For example, if you’re with me, you can visually see me being tempted by a girl. You can see me being tempted to steal something. You can visually see me being tempted to do many different things, and all of these temptations are bad.
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But as an entrepreneur, there is an invisible temptation, and when you do it, no one but you will ever notice.
In this video, I reveal to you the invisible temptation of entrepreneurs, and what to do about it.
So let me tell you the invisible temptation of an entrepreneur. It’s when the entrepreneur starts dropping their standards.
When an entrepreneur starts lowering their standards, no one feels it. No one sees it.
For instance, in the past you may have had a specific process that you did when you brought new people onto your team. But you stopped doing that.
You used to have a process that every single sales rep went through. They had to take specific steps before they were allowed to go on the field and start selling. But you’re no longer doing that. You’ve dropped your standards.
You used to expect your executives to show up at the office at a certain time and leave at a certain time, and really pushing it in their departments. But you don’t have that expectation any more. You’ve lowered your standards.
You used to expect people to sell a certain amount, but you no longer expect that from them because you’ve lowered your standards.
You used to expect certain things from all your vendors, but now you let them do whatever they want and you don’t even pay attention to what they’re doing. You think they love you, but they’re commission driven. They may be marking you up 20, 30, 40% and you have no clue. You’ve dropped your standards.
You used to have certain procedures set up where every single time a new subscription or client or sale came in, you had to do x, y, z, but you’re not doing that any more. You’ve lowered your standards.
You used to pay attention to the way every single phone call was answered in your office. The first person that touched a customer has a specific script to follow, but they’ve become lax and are no longer following the script. And you used to expect that no one would be put on hold for more than 12 seconds, but you no longer even track the time. You’ve lowered your standards.
You used to monitor things, study trends, look at numbers. You evaluated the performance of every department. You had monthly leadership meetings and sat down and had conversations with each of your leaders individually at least every month. You’re not doing that any more. You’re lowering your standards.
You used to go out there and visit every single storefront, every single sales office, every single location that you have in place to see what’s going on in there. You listened to the employees, sales reps and customers. You’re not doing that any more. You’ve lost your standards.
Numbers Never Lie
I could go on and on and give you more examples. The crazy thing is, no one will even know about this temptation because it’s invisible. But the numbers never lie. You may have excuses for the numbers. For instance, you can blame things like the market.
OK, that’s fine, IF 100% of the marketplace is struggling. If that’s the case, I get it. I’ll give you that one right there, no problem. For example, if on the day after 9/11 nobody was selling and you weren’t either, I’ll give it to you.
If your headquarters is in New Orleans, and terrible flooding takes place, and sales are down for everyone in New Orleans, including you, I get it.
But if you don’t have a disaster or true crisis in your business and your numbers are down, it all goes back to the invisible temptation – you had a drop in your standards.
And you know what typically happens? You lost a little bit of your edge, as I talked about in this video.
Why You’ve Lowered Your Standards
Let’s talk about why you’ve lowered your standards. It’s because your belly is full. Because your belly’s full, you’ve lowered your standards. The impact of lowered standards won’t immediately be visible, but within three months to a couple of years, other people will start to notice it as well.
They’ll say things like, “You know, he used to be a lot stronger. She used to show up earlier and leave later. She used to do more, call more.” But most people will feel uncomfortable bringing it up to you, even though they’ve noticed that you’ve lost your edge.
A Conversation I Have with Entrepreneurs
I’ve sat many entrepreneurs down and said,
Can I ask why you keep justifying every single thing? Why do you make so many excuses? Why do you constantly justify why you’re not winning? Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? You act like you’re the only person going through the struggle. You tell me how hard life is and how bad the market is in your area. You keep justifying things and making excuses.
Almost always, the reason why I end up having this conversation with people is because they’ve already surpassed where they thought they were going to be as an entrepreneur.
You need to have a next goal, another milestone that you want to hit as a company. You need to remember what you had to do to reach your current level of success.
One of the best questions to ask your comrades is, “What did we do at that level that was different?” and then get back to doing the things you used to do before your belly was full.
I’ve Been There Myself
Listen, I’ve been in this situation myself. I’m not making this up like I’m all high and mighty and like it’s never happened to me before. I’m sharing all of this from personal experience. Everything I teach, I’ve gone through myself, so I understand the struggle – and I know the formula to get out of it – and now you do, too. And if you don’t make changes, it’s on you.
The Right People Like High Standards
Some people say, “People don’t like to be around a high standard.” Really? What types of people? Maybe the types of people you’re attracting are not the types of people you want in the company to take it to a different level.
I don’t want people with low standards around me. If people feel that what I expect is too tiring, they don’t belong here. They’re not the type of people I’m looking for. The people who join my team need to understand that we have plans for doing something very big. Our plans are not small. We’re not trying to be just another company. We’re not trying to make just $10 million, or $50 million, or $100 million; that’s easy to do. We want to do something that’s never been done before.
Our standards are high. And when you have high standards, you’ll attract the right people who thrive with high standards. It may take a bit longer to find someone to come on board with you with that type of standard, but the moment they come, what they bring rubs off on everybody. But it starts at the top, with the leader never giving in to the invisible temptation of lowering his or her standards.
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