Money Questions (& Answers) for Today
February 13th, 2014 // 12:18 pm @ Scott Manning
If you don’t like the answers you are getting just ask different questions.
Haha, if only life and business were that easy. Rather, some of the biggest breakthroughs and the most clarity for you will come when you ask the RIGHT questions. Usually the tough questions.
I believe this is the difference between someone who makes consistent progress in the direction of their goals and someone who does not. It has to do with how often and how significant the questions are.
Perhaps the most valuable thing I do during a day of consulting with a client is ask tough questions and really make them think about how they are doing, what they are doing, and how the outcomes of both of those topics are working out for them.
Questions by definition give us feedback, a response, something to go by, an evaluation, an answer that we can use to make better decisions, to redirect, to course correct. Questions are the catalyst to inventions, revolutions, and evolution of every possible area of life.
Questions lead to profitable discoveries, new opportunities, and the ability to do things more, better, faster, to achieve your goals and accelerate your progress.
Specifically, for you, today, in your business what questions are you asking?
Yourself, your customers, your employees, your vendors, or anyone else that has some involvement with you. There’s a sure bet you aren’t asking enough.
While there are many, some more important than others, I would like to give you 3 of what I believe to be the most profit provoking, ass kicking, business growing, customer getting questions that you ought to be thinking about today and every day.
These 3 questions should be your basis for daily action.
1. What can I do today to put myself in a position to profit?
This is quite simple…what can you do today to MAKE money. To get the check, to close the deal, to create income. This is about sales. And inevitably all questions and actions should lead to a list that goes as the answer to this one right here. What can you do today to put yourself in a position to score, to win the game, to be up for the day, to have something to show for it when it’s all said and done. This is the money question.
2. What are my highest priorities directly related to my goals that I must focus on today?
Well, eventually you should have a solid list of these that never changes, in concept, it should be about building your business and following your agenda. This is about execution. When you identify the highest priorities you are taking your goals and breaking them down into actions and then DAILY focusing on those actions ruthlessly ignoring anything that gets in your way.
When a person can answer this question clearly, confidently, quickly and precisely then you can have faith in their commitment to make something happen, to do what they say.
This is also where I find most people way off base and if you ask them their goals and then their top 3 priorities they couldn’t in a million years end up with the things they want from the things they are setting out to do today.
Fix this and you will be aligned and money will come to you easily.
3. What is the one thing that I can complete and finish today that will make the most difference?
Okay, so you should have at least a few, I suggest 3 possibly up to 7 “one things” every day. It does of course depend on the “one” thing and what the day is. When I have a client visiting me, where ever I may be at the time, that day is pretty much used up. They pay for my focus and that is the most important thing I can do and give them that day, it does make the most difference because I am investing in a relationship with my time and knowledge and so is the client.
On a copy/work day where I am “in the office” I have a list of sometimes 10-12 things and I always have a notepad with pages and pages of “one things” that eventually must be done.
For your purposes however, I want you to make your “to do list” and then be honest with yourself as to which one is actually something productive and purposeful that will lead to the fulfillment of both Question 2 and by result Question 1.
You see, this is the entire point of these daily questions, what ONE thing will make the MOST difference towards your FOCUSED Priorities and RESULTS by placing yourself in a position to profit.
Wasn’t that interesting!! That is how it works. And the more leverage you create by asking yourself these questions and answering them as you evolve in your business and grow, the more you can achieve.
Every entrepreneur’s objective should be “compounding return”, not just in the sense of interest in a bank, rather more valuably interest in your business by way of marketing systems, sales strategy, carefully orchestrated and engineer ways to extract wealth and maximize profit.
Just for fun, I want to give you an extra question because it is important, the answer to this questions makes it possible to achieve 1, 2, and 3.
We all get stuff, we all feel lazy or lethargic, we all feel like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders at some point or another. This is best discussed in one of my favorite books of all time and probably one of the top 3 books in terms of impact and value it has had and given to me and my life.
It is called THE WAR OF ART by Steven Pressfield
And the thing that is holding you back is Resistance.
So the daily question to ask yourself is…
4. What is holding me back from getting more done, moving faster, being more decisive?
In other words what is your “resistance” today and how can you overcome it. The first step is acknowledgement and the second is proactively counteracting or destroying or eliminating it in some way.
I can’t emphasize this enough because 1, 2, 3, will all flow effortlessly when you figure this out.
It can be something different every day depending on life, family, others, heavens even the weather…oh yes, the weather. You see what I’m saying – however there is NO excuse, none what so ever that is good enough to allow you to give yourself a pass on answering and executing and completing questions 1, 2, and 3.
Your time spent throughout your day removing and/or dealing with the resistance is a constant battle that must be fought. Know this, if you don’t ask the question you might as well be throwing in the towel, instead, identify the enemy and attack.
The same goes for all questions, there is one thing I can promise you, you won’t have answers to questions you don’t ask. And neither will anyone else. You have a responsibility as your own boss to check-up and performance review and assess your own progress, where are at as opposed to where you wanted to and planned to be.
This is the most critical place where discipline is required and where every (and I do mean every) entrepreneur struggles, they don’t hold themselves accountable because there is no one else there to do it. You make up artificial deadlines and proclaim feel good goals without having real commitment to either. When you wake up every day asking yourself these questions you are sure to stay on track and to keep your productivity profitable. As they say there is vast difference between productivity and accomplishment and I would add there is usually a large discrepancy between what you accomplish versus what you actually wanted to achieve.
You should not settle for less, you must put yourself in a position of profit, you can do that by asking these questions daily and then making sure that you have the right answers by creating and design your life and business so that it serves your agenda and acts as catalyst to your personal goals and ambitions.
Be brave, ask the tough, best questions and profit by making the right answers a reality for you.
You can’t deposit talk, you can’t cash dreams, you can’t live off playing business…
When you decide to go to “work”, make the most of it! Take this whole thing serious, these questions will help keep you focused, your mind sharp, your thoughts and actions accountable, and most importantly everything you do TODAY clearly driven in the direction of YOUR goals.
Category : Blog