Geoff Burch: Go it Alone! (1997) 📙

Meine Notizen

Die Vorteile von “Go-It-Alonern”

Ein großer Vorteil des Solopreneurship ist, dass man seinen Job nie verlieren kann: “If you’re self-employed, you’re never unemployed. Skint, maybe, but never unemployed, and that’s what I call secure.” (S. xii)

“You notice I separate business and self-employment. The reason for this is that they are different. Sure, there are self-employed business people, but your don’t have to have a business to be self-employed.” (S. 3)

“How long have you been in business, Geoff?”, he asked me.

“About four years.”

“And you are still here. I call that successful.”

Maybe success could be as little as paying the bills, having a modest holiday once in a while and, most importantly of all, guaranteeing yourself employment for as long as you want it.” (S. 5)

“Some other, more realistic, people say, quite fairly, ‘Oh, but I don’t have the self-discipline to work at home,’ and my reply is ‘Nor do I, and ain’t that lovely?’ After all, if you haven’t got some huge financial burden weighing you down [z.B. ein teures angemietetes Büro], you don’t have to be that disciplined. If you have done a good bit of work sitting on a dining chair at the old card table while doing the filing in a shoe box, you deserve to toddle off to the kitchen for a nice cup of coffee and a doughnut, perhaps even a glance at the newspaper wouldn’t go amiss.” (S. 68)

“The trick is he hasn’t got a job, he has a lifestyle. He is the miller, he is the blacksmith or the farmer. They don’t stop work, sure, but then they don’t really start. They never retire, but they can start to take things easy.” (S. 197)

• vgl. Was ist ein Lifestyle Business? → Das ist die Essenz davon.

Do you really want to hear the truth?

“The fact is, get it right and it can be the road to fulfilling every dream you ever had; get it wrong, and the word ‘tragic’ will take on a new meaning for you.” (S. 29)

“I hadn’t realized the extraordinarily difficult rite of passage from the employed world to the self-employed world. It’s all about the power you have to determine your own destiny.” (S. 31)

“Self-employment in pure semantic terms means that you have elected to give yourself employment, to employ yourself. […] What job have you given yourself? […] Imagine you have decided to open a Ye Olde Tea Shoppe in the heart of some rural beauty spot. […] What you have actually done is given yourself a job as a waiter or waitress with no Sundays off ever. Did you want to work as a waiter? If you did, you would probably be better off working in someone else’s restaurant where you could insist on decent pay, days off, and have no worries about borrowed money and the general economic welfare of the enterprise.” (S. 36f)

• vgl. Klo putzen in der AWA.

“Got a good business idea? Assume it stinks like a rodent.” (S. 40)

“Be depressingly pessimistic now rather than later. Face the truth.” (S. 40)

• Oder, an anderer Stelle: “Be very, very realistic, even pessimistic about your chances and you still will be amazed at how bad things can get.” (S. 70)

“You are angry at the bank for not lending you money, but that is their business. They even publish a book on starting your own business, for heaven’s sake. That is a bit like the McDonald’s guide to vegetarian cooking, so beware of books published by people with an axe to grind. Read them, but remember who published them.” (S. 51)

“Optimistic arithmetics is fatal.” (S. 69)

“Of all the enterprises that come to me to say they have failed, the biggest cause is a lack of work. Even when they give different reasons such as cash flow, or prices forced too low, underneath is still a lack of work.”

• vgl. das Gespräch beim Picknick über die Baubranche: Es ist zach, wenn es zu wenige Aufträge gibt. Wenn man jedem einzelnen Auftrag nachlaufen muss. Wenn man sich die Aufträge nicht aussuchen kann, sondern nehmen muss, was man gerade kriegen kann. Und wenn es dann noch Zahlungsausfälle gibt, ist überhaupt öha. Alles wegen: Zu wenig Arbeit.

Produkt

08/15-Solopreneure sind “lambs to the slaughter, doomed every one of them”. (S. x)

“If your new job is based on your old skill, your old employer may be your only new customer.” (S. 20)

• Kennt man…

“Benchmark and compare yourself to your competitors. If you don’t beat them clearly in a number of areas (not price), you are doomed. Don’t despair, just get better now.” (S. 88)

“Get to know what you are really selling and what business you are in.” (S. 110)

“The point for you is that to get that edge and to charge those monster prices, you will have to go that extra mile. You will have to dare to ask, ‘Mrs Smith, are you really thrilled about the job I have done?’” (S. 175)

“Dare to challenge you every day about the quality of your performance. Strive always to be a bit better today than you were yesterday. […] The impression you create sets the price you can charge, or worse, in the case of professional skills, whether you get the work at all.” (S. 179f)

Pricing

“It bothers me when I speak to prospective self-employed people who say that the major advantage of being small is that the prices can be lower. Why? Surely the major advantage is that the service is better, and I believe in some cases the prices should be higher because of your uniqueness.” (S. 11f)

• Ja, du hast geringere Overhead-Kosten. Aber ist das beste, was dir zu diesem asset einfällt, wirklich eine Dumping-Strategie?
• Wie wäre es, wenn du stattdessen eine “White glove service”-Strategie wählst und deine Kunden damit beeindruckst? (vgl. kodawari)
• Vgl. Seth Godin: Get better clients! → Wenn du mit deinem Business wachsen willst (als Freelancer), dann brauchst du Kunden, die eine bessere Arbeit zu schätzen wissen. Kostenführerschaft ist ein race to the bottom.

“I get a never-ending stream of people who insist that they will succeed because they can be cheaper due to lower overheads. This is a disastrous way of thinking. Cheap is unattractive to your customers. Who is going to employ a ‘cheap’ surgeon?” (S. 18)

• “I despair when I see the aspiring ‘Go-It-Aloner” gleefully telling me that they have an opportunity to undercut because of low overheads.”
• vgl. The School Of Life: Why We Hate Cheap Things
• vgl. Todeszone: Damit bist du im Pricing im Mittelfeld. Aber das Mittelfeld stirbt aus.

“Sell yourself, sell your price, and then sell more.” (S. 164)

Marketing

We need to put on a show!

• “We have to take our kernel skill and surround it with the succulent fruit that is the show, the sale, the surrounding magic. A great deal of this book will be dedicated to how you can create that magic […]. The biggest hurdle I can find is the mental wall built of the solidest rock, which resists the idea of sales, marketing or anything that could be construed as froth and bubble. You will have to learn to sell to survive. The way your customers see you is what determines your profitability.” (S. 16f)
• vgl. auch die Idee Hybride Produkte: Ins Experten-Business auch Erlebnis-Elemente integrieren, um ein bisschen “surrounding magic” zu erzeugen.
• vgl. “Verkaufen ist nicht unser Lieblingssport.” (Maik Pfingsten)
• Surrounding magic → vgl. Muttis Bericht vom leiwanden Arzt bei ihrer OP. Er hat eine Show für sie gemacht!

“Don’t let your clients know you’re enjoying yourself. It might make them jealous.” (S. 70)

“It always amazes me that start-up businesses tend to buy the new car, the computer, the electronic till and so on, and yet the impression they make is very unprofessional.” (S. 79)

• “Professionell” zu wirken – durchgängig! – ist eine echte Challenge für ein EPU!

Zum Thema Professionalität: “Consultancy is one area where disaster awaits the unprepared. People apply a kind of bizarre logic. I meet with them and they hand me some truly dreadful stock-printed (or even hand-printed) business card, and even worse, when I ask them for any literature, I get something truly naff that has come off the desk-top publishing function of their computer.” (S. 82)

• “Non-professional design and presentation make you look like an amateur. Definition: ‘someone who does it for nothing.’” (S. 192)

“Marketing is about finding markets.” (S. 183)

Telling the world: “If we do it ourselves, it can be crap, so the KEY here is professional presentation with amateur costs.”

Finanzen

“If you have a well-paid job, you can have a nice lot of big debts and own flash things that may compensate you for the drudgery of your job. In fact, the purchase of compensations may be the only free choice you can make. I know a lot of self-employed people that have luxuries that way exceed the dreams of the employed, but somehow it is different. If we translate the goods into life energy expended, we come to understand their real value. If I want a new car, I have to spend my money, which is inextricably linked to the expenditure of my life energy, as the Americans call it, or my time if you want to be a bit more prosaic. I can replace money, but not time, so maybe I will take the time and stuff the car.” (S. 31)

• Solopreneure denken anders als Angestellte: Sie rechnen Ausgaben in Arbeitsleistung (Zeit) um und fragen sich: Ist es das wert?
• vgl. Finanzielle Reichweite: Was bedeutet diese Ausgabe für meine finanzielle Reichweite? Was ist mehr wert — die neue Investition oder die eingesetzte Zeit?

“The essence of good jungle warfare is to travel light and live off the land. When I storm into the commercial jungle with my proverbial rucksack of baked beans, I see people with chest freezers and home ice-cream makers on their backs.” (S. 46)

• vgl. Rice and beans, beans and rice. (Seth Godin)
• “I become unspeakably depressed when I visit a new business and walk into an Aladdin’s cave of new kit.” (S. 46)

“Money spent on quality image making gives a better return than money spent on useless hardware.” (S. 88)

“If instead of buying a £15,000 car you feel is an essential part of your business you spend 15 grand on advertising, the benefits might surprise you. For heaven’s sake, don’t rush out and do it. Just think about the priorities of where you spend your money. Personally, I would spend a grand on my publicity, nothing on the car, and then know that for 14 grand I could survive for nearly a year while things got going.” (S. 188)

Verkaufen

🔥 “Here’s the catch-22: The easiest people to sell to are people who like you. People won’t like you if you suddenly start asking them to buy things. The temptation, therefore, is to carry on being the customer’s chum without ever asking them to buy anything.” (S. 91)

“This hiatus has, in consequence, become the focus of a great deal of philosophical discussion. […] There are many techniques of closing the sale […], but for now we will look at the simplest and most neglected: to simply ask someone to buy something.” (S. 91)

“Firstly you must be sure that you are asking people to buy things.” (S. 94)

• Damit beginnt (und endet?) alles: Wenn du die Leute nicht fragst, dann kann dein Verkaufssystem nicht funktionieren. Dann brauchst du auch nicht groß zu analysieren anfangen. Erst, wenn du konsequent fragst, kannst du daran gehen, einzelne andere Schrauben in deinem Verkaufssystem zu optimieren.
• Denn: Leute können nicht kaufen, wenn du sie nicht fragst.

“We have a completely misguided idea that it is somehow inappropriate to promote our enterprise at every opportunity.”

• Du brauchst beim Verkaufen gar nicht kreativ sein. Du kannst sogar sehr langweilig sein. Langweilig konsequent, das wäre das Beste.

“Don’t come back in a few months time with a dreary tale that the work ‘just didn’t come in’. […] You want a secure future? Then make it happen.” (S. 99)

• You make your own luck as you make your own sales.

“As the realization dawns that you make your own luck as you make your own sales, I tend to get the ‘high-pressure’ defence hurled at me, which seems to suggest that high-pressure selling is not nice. I am nice, therefore I can’t do high-pressure selling, therefore I shall starve with honour. Fine, if starving is your bag, but first tell me what high-pressure is. It is very easy to dismiss the sales and marketing process as high-pressure, but when pushed, people find it very difficult to define clearly what they mean by it.” (S. 103)

“It is often […] the desire to have one’s skill valued that drive people into self-employment. It is then very sad to see the disillusionment when the skilled person that their skill has no greater value in self-employment than it did in their day job. […] Again, I ask you, what are you selling?” (S. 109)

🔥 “The simplest and most basic of sales techniques can multiply profits beyond your wildest dreams.” (S. 110)

“Sell the magic and value of your enterprise to ensure a high income.” (S. 110)

Nach jedem Erstgespräch, nach jedem Kundengespräch: Develop a regular checklist (S. 123):

1. What did I achieve? Have I secured my objective?
2. What information have I gathered that will be of use to me in future dealings with this client?
3. What information have I gathered that will be of use to me with finding and keeping other clients?
4. If I did this one again, what would I have done better?

🔥 Wenn du nicht ehrlich glaubst, dass du besser bist als deine Konkurrenz, dann lass die Leute in Frieden. Werde zuerst besser!

• “Currently he is giving £50,000 worth of business to someone inferior than you. (If you think that was a bit arrogant, and if you are inferior to his current supplier, don’t waste your telephone bill ringing him.)” (S. 125)

“This better off, superior stuff may be unsettling you a bit, but you had plenty of time in previous chapters to sort this out. I am desperate for you to succeed, prosper and win enough business to support the lifestyle of your dreams, but if what you offer is crap, then you will only beat those who are crappier. What upsets me is those of you who are superior in every way and still go bust because you failed to communicate that to the potential customer.” (S. 125)

• vgl. Bernhard Kuntz: Die Katze im Sack verkaufen: Referenzen stolz teilen! Stolz über seine guten Angebote reden!

“Persuasion is a listening skill. […] Nature made us natural salespeople by giving us one mouth and two ears to remind us that, when selling, we should listen twice as much as we talk. […] The trick is to shut up and sell […].” (S. 126)

“You may feel that the first meeting was not the time to ask the intended victim to buy anything. So come on, answer me this: Are you ever going to ask them to buy anything? Oh you are. When? ‘When the time is right’ is the usual cheery reply I receive. When is the time right? ‘I don’t know, but I’ll know it when I see it.’ We can get ourselves into an astonishingly circular argument here.” (S. 126)

“It is starting to look as though the measure for a small sale and a large sale is the same: SALE = SUCCESS; NO SALE = FAILURE.” (S. 133)

🔥 “Be very careful that you don’t form one of these cozy relationships where the other person is happy to see you because there is no danger of you asking them to buy anything. It just goes on forever with no result. That is a FAILURE.” (S. 134)

• “v. int.” = FAILURE
• In diesem Sinne ist auch Stephan Parks Zugang (bedingungslos beraten; er wird sich schon von selber melden) zu hinterfragen. Ev. gibt es da noch einen dritten Weg.

🔥 “This is to provoke you on every contact with a customer to realize that you INTEND TO SELL. […] Your future livelihood depends on this determination.” (S. 134)

“The only reason anyone in the world doesn’t buy from us is because they have an objection, or to express it better, a concern. If, by asking questions, we can handle those concerns, the business is ours.”

• Ganz speziell wichtig bei Info-Webinaren: Die concerns ansprechen — entweder vorab oder in den Fragen am Ende.

“For pity’s sake, remember to ask people to buy something. It breaks my heart to see all you talented people so packed with ability and enthusiasm sink, just because you lacked the bottle or know-how just to ask.” (S. 161)

“Initially the biggest trouble you are going to have is finding customers and lucrative work. With this in mind, make sure you get the most out of each and every customer. […] You might fear that this will put customers off, but it doesn’t; it shows you care enough to anticipate their needs. They will love you […].” (S. 162)

“You may feel we have spent a lot of time on this selling bit, but in my experience it is what the ‘Go-It-Aloner’ stands or falls on. If you have the ability to find and keep customers, you are unlikely to lose.” (S. 163)

“Remind them of the good things they want, then suggest a plan of action.” (S. 164)

“If you have worked so hard to get these customers, don’t forget to work hard to keep them.” (S. 182)

Was der Autor seinen Leser:innen sagen will

“Remember, this book is to help you achieve success by avoiding disaster.” (S. 57)

• Das ist das Theme dieses Buches.

“If you do screw up, you haven’t let the book down. You certainly haven’t let yourself down. You haven’t broken a magic spell. You just screwed up. Let’s pick up the bits, put it back together, and avoid ever making that mistake again. End of story.” (S. 196)

🔥 “Don’t be afraid to ask people to buy things, and don’t be afraid to tell the whole world you exist.” (S. 197)