My fellow co-founder of 3 Phase Marketing and I have just returned from the Business Mastery event in Las Vegas, hosted by American author, philanthropist, and life coach, Tony Robbins. It was a fusion of a typical Tony Robbins event – which feels like a dance party at times– and an immense amount of valuable content from some of the best global leaders in their chosen field.
We heard from innovators, companies that are experts in crowdfunding, content generation, PR, mindset training and risk taking. On the call list was the likes of the original Rich Dad, Keith Cunningham, marketing strategist, David Meerman Scott, technologist and author, Scott Klosoky, CEO of Digital Marketer, Ryan Diess, author and business owner, Don Miller and president and chief investment officer of Creative Planning, Peter Mallouk all delivering insightful and powerful content.
The main theme
The entire theme of the event was innovation in marketing. It covered so many principles fundamental to running a business; everything from managing finances through to motivating your team, influencing your team and how to better service your clients.
What we learnt was when it comes to innovation, we relate the term to technology, and instantly think of software, but innovation is actually a method of finding better ways to service your customers. And it’s about staying close to your customer. So, we developed some strategies on how we can build a bridge between the agency and our clients to better understand what their pain points are, and then innovate and develop solutions to alleviate some of those issues.
The power of content
Content was a common theme for most speakers, such as from Ryan Deiss, who is the CEO of DigitalMarketer.com and talked passionately about its power. He spoke about how you want to stop people in their tracks, and you do that by generating content that gives them value, followed by the implementation of an automated sequence of relevant communication.
The ultimate goal for brands nowadays is for you to become the trusted source of content and information. Give them what they need. Talk less about yourself and add more value to your customers.
The power of content and its potential to help clients through providing meaning and value was a common theme from many speakers from all different industries and backgrounds.
The psychology of business owners
Another part of the seminar that was extremely powerful was the psychology of the business owner and the mindset of the business owner. We learnt that basically 95% of the choke holds of every business is in fact the business owner. It comes from their inability to think big, lack of trust in themselves and their teams, and their inability able to let go, and instead worrying about every intricate detail that probably doesn’t matter in the scheme of things.
It became really apparent that whilst we’ve done a fantastic job of building up an agency in four years with 26 staff, offices in three capital cities, an offshore team and having attracted some of the best brands and worked on some amazing campaigns, for us to grow, it was going to require a new version of ourselves. We needed to change our own psychology and remove the fear.
The fear and the barriers are the only roadblock. It’s not the client, the industry, the customer, the technology or the people – it’s the business owners. We need to take full accountability for where we are today and where we want to go. That’s quite a confronting admission, but it’s also quite liberating because we know we have the power to control the destiny of this business and the destiny of our clients’ business.
When it comes to the psychology of the business owner, Tony said, “you need to be a practical psychologist to run a business”, because you need to be able to control your emotions, not be impulsive and have the ability to have clear focus and influence your team. It’s not about leading through control and fear – that’s extremely dated and simply not sustainable. You need to lead through empowerment.
Invest in a good coach/mentor
Tony Robbins has built sixty companies. He’s a philanthropist, father, business owner, coach, mentor, psychologist, pilot, has a blackbelt. Now, he’s on a mission to feed a billion people in the U.S. He’s a phenomenal human being, and he’s the person who we should be taking advice from. We should always qualify our mentor and make sure they are someone credible because otherwise you’re going to implement the wrong strategies and fail really quickly.
Over the years, we’ve taken advice from the wrong people. People that don’t have the level of success that we want. You have got to be cautious about where you take advice from. I now realise that it’s so important to qualify your mentor and make sure you’re taking business advice from someone who has done what you want to do – ten times over. And also ensure that your values are aligned.
It takes courage and vulnerability
Another thing that I took away was how different the mindsets of U.S. business owners are to Australian ones. Culturally, we saw how people conduct business in other markets differently. I found was that there was a common theme amongst a lot of the business owners we met and networked with and was that a lot of them were really courageous.
And courage is a trait that we need now more than ever. In business, in our communication and in our interactions, we just all need to stand up and be the best version of ourselves.
There is also a huge power in vulnerability: in letting go and letting yourself be vulnerable. Vulnerability I believe is courageous, because so many of us hide behind the mask of perfection and it just creates unrealistic expectations. My fellow co-founder, Tamara, and I have a really young team as well, and I think a lot of them look up to us. So, it’s important to show that it’s ok to be human and make mistakes, trip over and fumble, and show them that actually it’s ok to make mistakes and learn through your own actions. Simply put, it empowers them to make more bold decisions and to be more entrepreneurial as well. We all need to go with our guts.
I could write a novel with what I learnt over the 5 days with Tony Robbins. There was so much valuable content and Tam and I are brimming with excitement to implement it all into our business and our team. Here comes the future!
