I’m hoping this inspires you to grow your business and rise above the media barrage of negativity.

These stories are all so present because they come direct from 3 different Maui Business Consulting Program clients that participated on our “Entrepreneurial Wealth” event a few weeks ago in San Diego.

For more on the Business Consulting Program, or to see several dozen of our clients share their own stories via short videos, just follow this link.–>

Story One:  Mark and Quality Property Maintenance Company

Mark has been running his business for many years now and was getting burnt out.  After getting some new ideas on how to escape the Small Business Trap™ of a business dependent on himself, Mark not only has been growing his company, but applied two simple ideas he got from the program to immediately grow his business in 30 days…

Idea One:  Scaling his capacity by getting his VENDORS to scale theirs!

Rather than hire on more people, Mark followed our advice and first went to his vendors whom he subcontracts much of the day to day work out to and got them to hire on more staff!

Here is the languaging we coached him to use: “Joe, I want to give you more business, but sure would understand if you just don’t have extra staff to handle more from us.  We’re growing and I just need to know, do you have the capacity to take on new business from us or do we need to find someone else to give this extra business too?  We’ll still use you for the business we already give you, but if you don’t have the staff or capacity to handle our growth, we’ll need to find someone else who can take on the extra growth. I just wanted to give you first crack at it.

Funny enough, when Mark presented it that way, several of his vendors hired on more staff to be ready to handle Mark’s growth!  Notice that Mark didn’t need to hire, didn’t need to take on the extra overhead, he just gets to contract out as he needs the extra capacity.  I’m sure you’ll agree this is a much smarter way to go.

Idea Two: Reactivation calls to past clients.

This is such a powerful technique.  When we coached Mark on it he put it into effect, and in the past 3 weeks he’s brought back several past clients who will add over $120,000 of annual revenue to his company this year!

Any names come to mind of your past clients that you need to reach back out to?

Story Two:  Cynthia and Vacation Rental Business

Cynthia has a vacation rental business, one that “should” have seen drops in sales with the economy.  But she actually increased her sales by 40% over 2011!

But this brought with it a new challenge–burn out!

With all this new business, she desperately needs more operational help to free up her time and give her breathing space.

This is very normal–having a period of rapid growth that you the business owner handle by simply “working harder”.

But remember, working harder is a Level Two solution, and a temporary fix at that.

The Level Three solution is to work smarter.  That’s why in the first half of 2012 we’ll be helping Cynthia implement systems, controls, and increased operational staffing to get her lifestyle back.

How about you?  Do you need outside help to get your lifestyle back?  Has your business’s success come at the price of longer hours to keep it all going?

If you answered yes to either of these two questions, I strongly encourage you to find out more about the Maui Mastermind Business Consulting and Coaching Program.  You may just find that you get your life back like Tom…

Story Three: Tom and xByte

When we first started to work with, Tom he was a very successful entrepreneur who worked 80 hour weeks, with his business totally dependent on him.

Over the years of working together Tom has not only grown his multi-million dollar business by close to 70%, but more importantly he’s built up the team, systems, and controls that have allowed him to successfully reduce his working hours to less than 40.

And in a time when most business owners are hiding from the “tough” economy, Tom and his team had their best year ever!  (But all we hear in the media is “the sky is falling”!)

It’s a core belief of the Maui community that real wealth is about so much more than the money you make.  And time freedom is a big part to that wealth.

I hope that these three stories spark your belief in what’s possible for you.  Don’t just blindly accept the stark picture dolled out by today’s media.

If what I shared today resonates with you, and you’d like our help to take your business to the next level…

If you think you’d to Level Three faster working with an experience team of successful entrepreneurs who’ve built and sold multimillion dollar businesses, then I urge you to learn more about our Business Consulting Program.

This structured coaching and consulting program is designed to help business owners just like you take your business to the next level.

My suggestion is that you read through this letter closely and choose one or two selling systems that you think would be most important for you to implement in your business this quarter.  Then let the other 3-4 systems go for now.

I’m a big believer that completely implementing one solid idea is worlds better than half doing 3 or 4 ideas.

Here we go…

1. Gateway offers: Every business should have 1 or 2 initial offers that they make to a new client that when accepted lead your new client into the best long term relationship.  We call this sculpted initial offer your “Gateway Offer™”.

Your Gateway Offer is the offer that has the highest odds of leading a new client along the most profitable pathway with your company. It’s the first sale that leads to all the other sales.

Most businesses let random chance dictate he first sale. That’s sloppy and bad business.

Instead, over time by properly strategizing and tracking your clients’ behavior, determine which offer you can make that will draw a new client onto the richest purchase offer pathway with your company.

Case Study: Dana Smith, Exalt Resources.

Dana has an HR consulting company that provides comprehensive HR services on an outsourced basis for small and medium sized businesses.  Her ideal client lets her handle their payroll, HR compliance, and administer their benefits program.  But it’s a tough sell to start there with a new client.  Hence Dana has created two Gateway Offers that allow a new business to start working with her at a profit, with a defined upsell process in place to transition many of them into longer term client relationships.

Her two gateway offers are an “HR Risk Audit” that walks a business owner through the liabilities and risks he or she faces with respect to how they are doing their HR function, and an “Employee Handbook Package” that gets business owners an HR compliant manual to help mitigate some of their HR risks.

Both of these Gateway Offers give great value to the new client, are inexpensive, and give Dana’s team a chance to build the relationship with the new client and hence step many of them up into higher value service offerings.

For those of you who are interested, here is a short video with Dana sharing her experiences this past year in the consulting program.

2. Makeup offers: The next time you have a client complaint or a canceled order is a prime chance for your company to make a profit and deepen a client relationship at the same time through the use of a makeup offer.

Here’s how it works. Joe calls in and complains about his order arriving late. In fact, he says he wants to return it. You have a special sales script to handle just these types of calls. “Joe, thank you for telling me about how we messed up. Forgive us for our mistake. I don’t blame you for wanting to cancel your order just to teach us a lesson. If I were you I’d have been even angrier and more upset than you are. May I make it up to you?”

When Joe says yes, offer him some special gift such as a discount or certificate valid toward his next purchase. The key is to try to both close this sale (the most expensive thing that could happen is that Joe cancels and never orders from you again) and put Joe on the path to making his next purchase from you. That’s the power of a makeup offer that has been systematized for your team to use.

3. Reactivation offer: Go back to old clients who haven’t bought in a while to spark them to buy again. This should be a formalized sales system that happens automatically and regularly versus just a haphazard, random decision. Here’s the best part: You’ll typically have three times more success selling to old clients than you will going after new clients. They just need to be asked and given a compelling reason to buy again.

Case Study:  Dr. Kimberly Nguyen , Cottage Dental

Dr. Kim as she’s known by her dental patients has built a thriving two site practice in Fullerton California.  When she got started in the consulting program , it was clear that one of the fast and easy systems to put into place to increase her practice volume was to create a formalized system whereby her team reached out to past patients who for one reason or another had not come in for a dental visit for 12 months or longer.

As you can imagine, there are people who don’t like thinking about going to the dentist!  The system, which Dr. Kim’s team put into place earlier this month, is already showing results.

How can you formally reach out to old clients from your business’s past?  It can be as simple as picking up the phone and calling them to see how they are doing and how you can continue to support them and give them value.  This is a very powerful and simple technique and will usually generate immediate results in 60-90 days or less.

Here is a short video of Kimberly sharing her experiences with the program.

4. Unconsummated transactions: An unconsummated transaction is any client interaction that started with the client ordering, but then before the transaction closed the process got derailed. It could be a dropped cart from a website order, or a phone order that didn’t go through, or a sales call that got interrupted.

The key is to have a formal process in place, ideally technology driven and automatic, to follow up with that client. For example, you could have your system automatically send an e-mail that says: “I’m writing to apologize that we dropped your Web order earlier today. I want to personally take responsibility for this mistake and make it up to you. Please call my office at 800-555-1212 and not only will I see to it that you get 10 percent off your order, but I have instructed my staff to have a special gift waiting to send to you. This is my way of letting you know how much I personally value you as a client.”

5. Referral systems: Does your company have a formalized process to encourage satisfied clients to refer you more business? Does it have more than one? If your answer is no to either of these questions then you have a real opportunity to increase your sales.

Start off by looking at where your current referrals come from. Is there a way to super-size and formalize what your business is already doing? Look at other businesses, especially outside your industry. Is there any way you can apply and layer in their referral systems to increase your sales volume?

I’ll share an easy example that happened on a call I was on with Marge and Brian Thompson, who own a very successful precision contract parts manufacturing business called L.H. Thompson Co.

They’ve been consulting clients now for about 2 years.  In their bi-weekly one-to-one coaching  session a while back they shared a compliment about the value they were getting from the consulting program.  In our business, we have a simple yet formalized referral system in place called the “The Referral Question.”  Here’s how it works…

Anytime a client gives your business a compliment or says how much value they got from working with you, that should trigger your team member to ask the one memorized (and written) referral question you have.  In our case the question is, “Thank you for that great compliment Brian.  May I ask, who are 2 or 3 other business owners you know who you think would really benefit from working together just like your business has?“  Then keep quiet and let them share 2 or 3 referrals.

This is both a simple and professional way to ask for referrals.  Try it in your business.  (By the way, Brian and Marge were kind enough to share two referrals with us.  They had a third but he was a direct competitor but they didn’t think giving me that referral would be a good idea for them.  Who could blame them!)

If you are interested, here’s the link to a short video interview with Brian sharing his experiences in the consulting program and how it has benefited his business.

So there you have 5 specific, concrete systems you can immediately implement to increase your sales and your cash flow.

Remember, I suggest that you choose one or two selling systems that you think would be most important for you to implement in your business this quarter.  Then let the other 3-4 systems go for now.

Have a great week!

All of this is to say that learning how to design your business so that you can sell it for top dollar as easily as possible down the road is very much on many of your minds.
Tip One: Clarify your exit UP FRONT so that you build your business with the end in mind.

There are four main exit strategies for business owners: sell… scale… own passively… or pass the business on to your heirs as part of your legacy.

Which of the above strategies is your preferred ultimate business outcome?

Most business owners only look at how they operate their business, doing the job of the business as a means to generate active income to live off of. Smart Level Three business owners know that by clarified their ultimate business outcome, they will grow their business smarter and faster.

Tip Two: No matter what your exit strategy, build your business so that you COULD sell it; it will help you build a better business to own passively or scale.

I’ve given this advice to thousands of business owners over the years and I’ll say the same thing to you: if you build a business that is more saleable, the things that you do that make it more saleable make the business easier to own passively or more able to be scaled successfully.

These include things like:

• Decreasing the business’s dependence on you the owner
• Having strong controls in place
• Having a sales system that guarantees future growth and reliable income streams
• Reducing any customer concentration issues
• Etc.

Tip Three: Look at your business through the eyes of a buyer TODAY, and you’ll see the essential steps for you develop a more valuable business.

Buyers care about things like do you have solid business systems in place? Do you have key branding or other protections from competitors in your market space? Do you have a solid and growing sales pipeline? Is the business independent of the owner or are all real decisions and actions based on the owner’s involvement? Etc.

You learn so much about your business when you go to sell, that’s why I suggest you don’t wait until you put your business up on the market to get this feedback. Give it to yourself by conducting your own “buyer’s audit” of your business.

Tip Four: Most exit strategies require 24-36 months to pull off to best effect – plan today for your eventual exit.

Too many business owners make the million dollar mistake of waiting to prepare their business for their exit until the year in which they want to pull the trigger and execute their exit.

Instead, savvy business owners know that they need a minimum of 24-36 months to maximize the value for a sale… or to transition to a passive ownership role in an intelligent fashion.

Some things just can’t be rushed.

I hope these four specific tips really prompt you to think today about the business you are working so hard to create.

He’s a guy who launched and sold his first business to American Express for over $10 million, then went on to help form, scale, and eventually take public an upstart travel company that had the audacity to leverage a broke, B-list celebrity spokesperson to create a business that literally changed a multi-billion dollar industry.

His name is Jeff Hoffman, and the company he helped create is called Priceline.com.

Jeff was one of the founding team members and former CEO in the Priceline.com family of companies.

He was a keynote speaker at one of our past Business Owner Success Conferences.

Here is what Jeff shared in his talk…

#1: Build a Business, Not a Job

Jeff recognized that most business owners don’t build a business so much as they build a self-employed job for themselves.

Why do so many business owners get caught up in the day to day activities and stunt their business’s growth and get stuck in the status quo?

According to Jeff the reason is simple, they don’t have an accurate road map that gives them a clear model for HOW to build their business.

They think that long hours spent doing the job of their business is going to help them escape.  But let’s be very clear, you cannot dig your way out of a hole!  The more and faster you dig, the deeper you get.

The same thing is true for business owners–you cannot dig your way out of your business by putting in longer hours doing the job of your business.  To escape the Self Employment Trap™ you’ve got to stop doing the job of your business and step back to grow and develop your business as a business.

#2: To Reach Your Business Dreams, Follow a Better Road Map

The road map you are using to build your business is one of the biggest determiner of where you’ll end up with your business.

Jeff always encourages business owners to build their business with the end in mind of building a business that COULD be sold.

Regardless of whether you ever sell it, this will spark you to build a better business.

You’ll incorporate stable systems; you’ll groom your leadership team; you’ll implement intelligent business controls.

All of these things will make your business more valuable, more scalable, AND easier to own passively.

#3:  Get Off the Couch and DO Something

Jeff shared with our group how the average business owner works hard in the business, but is actually lazy about learning new ways to grow and expand their business.
Case in point, the workshop he was a guest advisor for had 75 business owners.  The invitations went out to over 10,000 business owners.  Where were the other 9,925 business owners who could have been there that weekend learning about ways to grow and expand their business?

One of two places… Either they “had to work” for their businesses (ironic isn’t it?) or they were at home “on the coach”.
Jeff’s observation was that in business it’s always the business owner who can consistently get him or herself up off the couch and learning new ways of growing the business that will outshine and outperform the masses of business owners who are just too lazy to break out of old, outdated ways of doing things.

Tip One: Cultivate the skills and experience of investing so when/if you do sell your business, you have the skills to intelligently invest the money.

This includes picking a few areas to focus in on to build your “Advantages” in. Your Advantages include your knowledge, expertise, experiences, contacts, financial resources, etc.

For myself, over the past 15 years I’ve cultivated Advantages in real estate and my two key investment niches are currently commercial real estate (mainly office buildings) and hard money lending. Both of these work well for me to generate passive, residual income (PRI) based on my advantages.

What niches will you focus on? A particular area of stocks? Bonds? Private placement investments in privately held companies? Index investing?

You need to start today to create a plan whereby you accumulate the Advantages you need to be successful. If you wait until you have that liquidity event (e.g. selling your company) you’ll be in a rush to invest the capital and you’ll make mistakes. I learned this one the hard way to the tune of $3 million.

What do you need to learn about your chosen niche investment vehicle?

What books, courses, classes will you master?

What contacts do you want to cultivate over the next 24 months to help you in this area?

What experience sets do you want to gain to help you in this area? How can you creatively craft those experiences over the next 24 months?

Tip Two: Start investing 10-15% of your working time and money NOW to your investing outside of your main business.

I will be the first to acknowledge that focusing your main efforts on building your business is the single BEST way to accumulate net worth. Period. End of story.

But it isn’t enough. You need to build wealth outside of your business, both to protect you and your family, and also to cultivate the skills and Advantages you need to be ready if you ever sell your business.

Start today to set aside 10-15% of your working time and net income to invest outside of your business. (An interesting test would be to sit down and calculate how you are doing on this target that I laid out. Where is your current starting point?)

Tip Three: Create a simple quarterly “scorecard” for how you are doing in your investing outside of your business.

Your scorecard should include:

• How much have your set aside to invest (both in dollar amounts and as a percentage of your net income). Track this against your target (see Tip 2 above for my suggested level).
• How have you done managing your investments? Measure your AFTER TAX, AFTER FEE, REAL return against an appropriate passive bench mark.
• The key learning goals you have for the quarter in this area of your life. Track how you did to meet and exceed these learning goals.
• The key relationship/contacts you wanted to establish or deepen for the quarter. Track how you did to meet these targets.

Imagine the impact of doing this for several years BEFORE you sell your company. You will be more confident and much more prepared to wisely invest the money you get from the sale.

I’ll share one more cautionary tale about this. One of our clients sold his business for over $4 million cash. He knew how to build businesses, but he never really focused on the skill of how to intelligently invest his net worth. The result? 5 years after the sale of his company he had lost $3.5 million from the sale from bad investments. Don’t let that happen to you. Invest the time and energy to prepare yourself NOW!

My first reaction to a question link that is that I don’t believe in “getting through” rather I want you to get FROM!

In fact, in today’s post I want to share with you 5 quick tips to thrive in today’s tough times.

Five Quick Tips to Thrive in Today’s Tough Times

Tip One:  Use this as a chance to reduce your business and personal S-Factors™.

Your S-Factor is your cost of living, or in the case of your business, your business’s cost of operating.  Now is a perfect time to look closely at your expenses and trim, cut, prune, and diminish where you can.
This might include negotiating with your vendors for better pricing… Or getting on a better calling plan with your cell phone provider (a friend of mine saved close to $1,100 a year by consolidating all his family’s cell phones to a better plan.)

We had one client who got a $55,000 per YEAR reduction off the rent she paid on her business’s office space.

Take a look at your real estate’s tax assessments. If the values have dropped, how about petitioning for them to lower your assessment.  I did this on two of my properties and it saved me over $3,500 per year!

Tip Two:  Forget about your expenses.

I know this one contradicts tip one, but what I mean is once you’ve made your cuts, don’t obsess about them.  If you live your life immersed in stressing over your expenses you’ll never create the financial successes you want.

Instead, spend some concentrated time getting your spending in alignment with your best interests, and then focus all your working attention on growth–growing your business, finding great investments.

You’ll want to regularly review your expenses, but don’t lose sight of the fact that you need to play offense too!

ESPECIALLY in your business… At a certain point, cutting costs loses its impact and you’ve got to generate revenue.  Don’t lose sight of this.

Tip Three:  Reach out to your peer group.

In tough times it’s quite common that people withdraw and go it alone.  This is not only painful and lonely, but downright dumb.

It’s in tough times that your peers need you.  Together you can keep your focus on the positive, on what you can do to move forward towards your goals, and to hold each other accountable for any “stinking thinking”.

Of course this assumes that you have a positive peer group of doers.  If not, I URGE you to do whatever it takes to create one.  If you can free yourself up, join us tonight! and be part of several hundred of your peers who are positive and ambitious doers.

Tip Four:  Focus on creating value and serving others.

No matter what is going on in the world you will always be rewarded in direct proportion to the value and service you share with the world.  So focus on creating value, and on serving others.

Not only will this help you shift your focus to positive places you can make a difference, but it will also stabilize your position and ultimately help you grow your business and investments.

Tip Five:  Remember to give thanks.

You are already a HUGE winner in life’s economic lottery.  You live in an abundant society.  You will never have to go hungry or sleep without shelter.

You have people who you love and who love you.

Take time to DAILY focus on the 10 things you are most grateful for, and where appropriate, tell the other people how you feel to have them sharing your life.

I hope these suggestions help you to maintain your focus and to use these current times to grow from.

Please feel free to forward this post to any of your friends or associates who you know could use a positive boost.  It’s my passion to share these ideas on building Level Three wealth with as many people as possible.  (This is my way of focusing on creating value and serving others.)

As you read through each of these building blocks, ask yourself two questions:

1.      Am I currently using this raw material to build my business?

2.      If so, how can I use it more effectively to leverage my results?

Okay, here we go into the building blocks…

Building Block #1:  The Business Owner’s Mindset

It all starts with you the business owner.  You’ve got to make the mental shift from running your business as a self-employed job to building a business you can one day sell, scale, or own passively.

This means consistently reminding yourself that you are just a temporary producer, and that your business must eventually replace you from its day-to-day operations.

Building Block #2: Systems

Systems are the reliable processes and procedures that empower your business to consistently produce an excellent result for your clients.

They’re documented best practices that increase your company’s efficiency and reduce costly mistakes; the checklists your shipping clerks follow to ensure that all orders are shipped correctly; the orientation process for all new clients when you begin working together; and the standardized contracts you use with all your new hires and vendors.

You’ve got to get your whole team to buy into the belief and discipline of creating, using, and editing your systems over the long haul.

Building Block #3: Team

Every business needs talented people to help make it successful. My insistence that your business’s success be independent of any one person does not mean your team is unimportant. On the contrary, the only way to build a Level Three business is to have great team members who consistently perform for your company.

It’s critical, however, to ensure that it doesn’t rely on the presence of any one individual. Instead, capture critical knowhow in your systems. You need great team members, and you need them to document the core processes by which you operate your business successfully.

Building Block #4: Intelligent Business Controls

Controls are the intelligent processes, procedures, and safeguards that protect your company from uninformed or inappropriate decisions or actions by any team member.  They also are your business’s way of making sure that key work is getting down on time and the right way.

There are three main types of business controls: Checklists/Visual Process Controls; Scorecards/Metrics; and “Embedded Controls”.

Visual controls include tools like checklists that let you SEE that the right action was taken by the right person at the right time.  They also include scorecards and metrics which give you a quantifiable way to make sure that any specific area or system is operating well, and if not, it gives you a timely warning light to go and fix it.

Process controls are the safeguards you build into your “way you do things” that keep people from making costly errors (or worse).  These include your financial controls like having two or more unrelated party in the flow of any money cycle.  And having levels of spending authority.

Embedded controls are those systems that work beneath the surface to automatically protect your business.  They include things like standardized contracts, and mandatory fields in your database.  The control is built into the fabric of the system and cannot not be used.

Building Block #5:  Scalable Solutions

Have you ever watched the television show This Old House? Imagine you’re on it, working on a 75-year-old house with its original electrical wiring and plumbing. What would happen if you plugged in a full complement of modern electrical appliances? You’d blow your fuses, not to mention create the potential for an electrical fire to break out.

And what would happen to your plumbing if you went from a well-water system to tapping into the higher pressure of city water? (Can you say rain gear?!)

Likewise, too much growth that makes increasing demands on old, outdated systems is what causes most growing businesses to fail. The systems that worked for a $500,000-a-year business are no longer sufficient to cope with a $5 million business, and not even close to being adequate

for a $50 million business. At first, the additional sales will cause a few “leaks,” but before long, your business will have burst pipes and water everywhere! That’s why the final building block of a Level Three business is scalable solutions.

Scaling your business requires building it in such a way that your business model and systems can be rolled out and replicated on a much bigger playing field. This also means when you’re solving a business challenge, you look for solutions that can be scaled.

In essence, building with scalable solutions mean that the systems, controls, and team solutions you choose are ones that can handle multiples more volume.  For example, this could be outsourcing your shipping to a third party fulfillment company.  Or this could mean choosing your database solution based on your future needs and not just on today’s costs.  Or it could mean tweaking your business model so that your service is more scalable and not so dependent on one or two key people.

Today I wanted to share with you three specific questions to ask yourself to help you massively grow your business in 2012.

Question One: What is the single greatest limiting factor inside my business?

Is it the limited number of leads you generate? Or do you have enough leads, but your lead conversion (aka: sales process) stinks?

Or maybe you just don’t have any more capacity to take on new orders or clients?

Or is it a lack of financing to fund your growth?

Or is it that you the business owner just don’t have the time to focus on the highest value parts of the business?

What is the SINGLE biggest limiting factor currently in your business.

Question Two: What are your top three business priorities for 2012?

Too many business owners scatter their energies across too broad a front. Instead, focus on FEWER but BETTER areas!

We hold our Maui Business Consulting program clients to just 3 top priorities, any more than that and you simply fritter away energy.

Question Three: Is your peer group pushing you ahead or holding you back?

I know that’s a painful question to ask, but we need to be real.

Too many business owners stay stuck in a Level Two self employed “job” rather than build a true Level Three business… and one of the biggest contributing factors is that these business owners buy in to the limiting beliefs of their Level Two business owner peers.

Don’t let that happen to you. Upgrade your peer group to be with people who are playing at the level you want to be or higher!

            What is the deeper reason(s) you invest so much of you in your business?

Think about it.  You invest thousands of hours each year in working for and growing your business – what’s the deeper “why” for which you do it?

I’ll share with you my deeper whys for Maui Mastermind so you can see what I’m getting at, but please make sure you don’t just read this passively, but that you invest 20 minutes to write down your answers to this core question.

David’s Answer with Maui Mastermind:

1. I love writing about, talking about, thinking about, and creating on ways to build and grow successful businesses.  I find the subject matter so interesting and it is a huge creative outlet for my “driver” / “builder” energies.  I find this a joy; it is something that I would do for free.
2. It gives my family and me a wonderful, values driven lifestyle.  I get to control my schedule and spend tons of time with Heather and Matthew and Adam – and that is so fulfilling for me.  I know that when they grow up, Matthew and Adam may say that my dad messed up on this or that, but that they’ll say, “My dad was incredibly involved and present in my life.”  That matters deeply to me.
3.  It is the major way that I “serve” the world.  Every time we help a business owner improve his or her business, we directly help them, their employees, and their vendors improve their life.  Plus, we get to do it in a way that empowers people to do for themselves, not just writing a check for us to do for them.  This is one of my core values.

Now what are YOUR deeper reasons for doing your business?

Write them out on a 3×5 index card and keep it up and out in front of you at the office.

Also, thank you to all of you who took the time to write in and share your ways of “paying it forward” in the world this holiday season based on the email I sent you last week.

I heard so many inspirational stories and I want to share a few ways you in the Maui community are making a difference:

• Sharon and her husband gave a young couple who manage their manufactured home park a free and clear home!
• Antonia gives to her local food bank and women’s shelter and challenges her peers in the Maui community to buy an extra case of a staple food at the store the next time you shop and drop it off.
• Matt played Santa at his local animal shelter raising money and awareness to adopt pets.
• Chris is buying gift cards through his church to give out.

As you can see real wealth is savoring the people and blessings in your life AND real wealth is what you give and share with others.

Thank you for being a part of the Maui community.  You are a blessing in my life and I deeply care about you

From the entire Maui team – may 2012 be a prosperous and healthy and joyous year for you.

For a limited time, get your own personal copy of our 4-part video training course for business owners (a $596 value!)

Here’s exactly what you’ll get:

Video One: Simple Steps to Breakthrough Business Ideas! ($149 Value)

Join Jeff Hoffman, mega-successful entrepreneur as he shares with you his proprietary system for reliably staying ahead of your competitors by creating breakthrough business ideas.

Jeff sold his first company CTI to American Express for over $20 million before he was 35 and went on to launch, scale, and sell numerous other successful businesses.

He is the former CEO and founding team member of Priceline.com (currently valued at over $6 BILLION!)

In this 50-minute video, you’ll learn the exact same system he used to build the multi-billion dollar Priceline.com family of companies.

Captured live at a past Maui workshop, you’ll get dozens of ideas to make your business more successful.

—-> Link to get your complimentary copy of this 4-part video training course!

Video Two: How to Escape the Self-Employment Trap™ and Build a Business, Not a Job! ($149 Value)

Join Wall Street Journal and Business Week bestselling author and serial entrepreneur David Finkel for this 90-minute training on how you can build a business that independent of you the business owner.

You’ll learn the how to avoid the single biggest mistake that most business owners make, and how you can build a business you can one day sell, scale, or even own passively.

This video training lays out the concrete road map to build a business, not a job.

—-> Link to get your complimentary copy of this 4-part video training course!

Video Three: 6 Time Tactics to Free Up 6+ Hours per Week to Build Your Business! ($149 Value)

Have you ever felt maxed out, without the time to focus on building and developing your business? In this 50-minute video training you’ll learn 6 tested and proven time tactics to free up a full day each week to reinvest in growing your business.

You’ll learn a revolutionary new entrepreneurial time mastery system that helps restructure your week for maximum impact inside your business.

You’ll learn how a physician in St. Louis MO, Dr. Gurpreet Padda, increase his net income by over $1 million in less than 12 months of applying this system. And you’ll get 6 specific time tools that will immediately help you to upgrade your use of time to create more value, higher sales, and more discretionary time to grow your business.

Video Four: The Three Essential Ingredients to Build a Business You Can Sell, Scale, or Own Passively! ($149 Value)

Too many business owners try to build a business independent of themselves simply by hiring the “right manager”. This rarely works over time. Instead you need to build a solid foundation of competent team, solid systems, and intelligent business controls.

In this detailed “nuts and bolts” workshop you’ll learn about all 3 of these critical building blocks to build a business, not a job.

You’ll learn the four core systems of every successful business, the 5 simple controls that your business needs now, and the 4 stages every business system goes through as you build your company the right way.

—-> Link to get your complimentary copy of this 4-part video training course!

Take action now and enjoy this gift with our compliments!

We look forward to your continued engagement with the  Maui Mastermind community of business owners!