I’ve been speaking to a lot of successful entrepreneurs, and whether you’ve been following the podcast or these vlogs, one of the things that has been fairly consistent across the board is that only the paranoid survive.
I think all the time, “What would someone have to do to put us out of business?”
In 2012, all someone would have to do to challenge us was to produce other great videos and story-driven content.
We had to do more, and that’s why we expanded to offer the placement and marketing of the videos. From ambassador programs and referral programs that we’ve run for clients, to the Teslas we’ve given away, to the conference and the book — all these different things have resulted out of the question: “What would it take for someone to either put us out of business or become a serious competitor?”
This question results in the innovations that distance the gap between us and our competitors.
Josh Linkner was the one who said, “Someday a company will come along and put us out of business, so it might as well be us.”
For example, when you’ve got the right person in the intake department, you don’t have an intake problem. When you’ve got the right trial attorneys, you don’t have a litigation problem. All these different challenges are solved as a result of having the right people on board in the right roles.
The best teams, in my view, will always win.
If you’ve got the best team members, the best people answering the phones, the best people moving case files forward, the best attorneys, and so on — you are going to be a very strong force, if not the dominant force, within your market.
The number one complaint you hear from business leaders is that they can’t find great talent or it’s difficult to find great people out there. With one of the highest unemployment rates in the last several decades right now, it is an unprecedented time to hire great talent.
Harvard Business Review did a study where they looked back at previous downturns and found that one of the greatest competitive advantages that the challengers had was that they hired high performing employees from competitors.
Any time there’s any type of downturn, recession, or any period of adversity, it’s an opportunity for challengers to really step up to the plate.
You’ve got a chance now to hire talented people that can be a springboard to not only help you increase the capabilities of your organization now, but also help you get further when the dust clears.
You’re going to come out a much stronger firm overall.
This goes back to what I was saying before. If another competing firm came along that had better people on the intake side, better trial attorneys, a more competent management team, a stronger leadership team, a more aligned culture — would that put you out of business?
If you remain paranoid in a healthy way and think about ways in which another firm could put you out of business, then it will push you to innovate. This will help your firm be more competitive and continue to distance that gap between you and everybody else in your market.
If you agree or disagree with anything Michael said here, he wants to know about it. Text him at 404-531-7691 to share your thoughts.
