The Power of 1%

By Pat Rigsby

One of the biggest differentiators between a great business and an average one is that the great one keeps improving.

They keep evolving their business and making it 1% better, over and over.

Someone who looks at a great business’s sales or assessment system may say “that doesn’t look that different from what I do.”  But again – the great ones keep improving things, 1% at a time.

And if you look at their businesses, all the things that they do from their Success Session to their Referral Systems to their Training Systems don’t necessarily look like something you’ve never seen before…they just do them all a little bit better than most everyone else. That’s why the best businesses succeed…they take what works, they plug it into their business and they ‘plus it’ over and over…improving each component by 1% time and time again.  

And when it’s all said and done you have a business that has maybe 20 different components which are each 10-20% better (at minimum) than the competition. But because of the compound effect, this doesn’t make their business 10-20% better.  Because every piece works synergistically with the others their improvement actually multiplies the improvement of the other areas. It’s the difference between 100 clients and 400.  The difference between $150,000 a year and $750,000.

If that seems hard to believe, here’s how a 20% increase compounded changes things, illustrated another way:

– 10 X 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000,000,000

– 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 = 61,917,364,224

12 is only 20% bigger than 10, but compounded the difference is HUGE.

So how can you put this into action?

Model Success

That’s what you’re doing by reading this, so you’re already off to a good start.  The best business owners I know may have invented a few things from scratch, but most of the components of their businesses were things that they learned from other successful fitness pros and businesses that they adapted, improved and made their own.

So study what’s working.  Borrow from successful businesses.  Model their success.

Implement

We all see dozens of good ideas…in products, at events, in Mastermind Meetings. But I’d guess most people actually implement about 2% of what they learn. The best businesses are living, breathing pictures of implementation.  

All the things people say they’re going to implement – the best ones actually do.

Remember – It’s not what you know.  It’s what you do.  You can say you’re a relationship business, but if you drop the ball over and over – you’re not.  You can say you’re all about referrals, but if you don’t have referral systems in place that are working – you’re not. The best implement. So should you.

Plussing

‘Plussing’ is a Walt Disney term for continually improving and it should be a regular part of your vocabulary. You may learn a referral system from someone and implement it, but you shouldn’t settle for it ‘as is.’  You should always be looking ways to make it a little more effective. We often talk about getting 1% better.  This is getting 1% better in action.  

Improving your referral reward or the way you ask.  Improving your internal language.  Improving your training system.  1% at a time.  

This ‘plussing’ will eventually give you that 10-20% edge in every area that the best business owners have.

So that’s it.  Your ‘all too simple’ way to build a powerhouse business.  Put it into action and reap the same rewards that the industry’s best business have reaped.

Get Started Today, 1% At A Time.