Do You Have A Piggy Bank?
March 28th, 2019 // 1:18 pm @ Scott Manning
Last week, during our Wealth Group Meetings, we put a lot of thoughtful effort and planning into what I call my Piggy Bank Philosophy. I share my “flying pig” symbolism with my Doctors all the time but I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about this – which if done right – a pig with money inside of it is what gives it wings to fly for your dreams.
Your Piggy Bank begins with a reality check.
Among other things, I have an overriding belief on the reason why Entrepreneurs work their businesses like ‘jobs’ instead of ‘investments’, accepting a ‘paycheck’ instead of a ‘return’, is not because they don’t want to get rich, but because they don’t know how.
Specifically, they don’t fully embrace the true goal of being an entrepreneur.
In a few seconds I will summarize this goal, in one very clear, simplified statement.
First, I want to make the point that, the reason we (and yes, that means me, I did for well over a decade) fall victim to this flawed thinking is because we have been conditioned by everything around us to think about business and money in a certain way.
Of course, this is our fault; responsibility can’t be pawned off to someone else.
As example, during my first 8 years as an entrepreneur I learned how to close sales, lead people, and feel really good about myself, and I’m grateful for encountering people like Zig, Tommy Hopkins, Brian Tracy, and of course larger than life physically and in his own mind, Tony Robbins – they all influenced me to get where I am today – but I never found the focus of marketing and money until later.
And Marketing, for those who don’t yet understand, is all things: education, experience, every point of contact and engagement with your customers, clients, patients before, during and after their buying relationship with you.
It’s everything. And the formula that makes your business work is a MONEY MATH formula surrounded by the magic of the Marketing, Message and Experience.
It is your dedication to these and your INVESTMENT in them that makes your customers, clients and patients MORE VALUABLE and thus your Business More Profitable.
The keyword there was INVEST.
The reason people don’t get rich is because they are running the business like a job, not like an investment. Let that sink in, because a job is a cycle, a static thing, that at best, you hope for gradual growth, and you plan to do one thing, then do the same thing, all over again.
Month in and month out. And that’s exactly what most people settle for.
If you are honest with yourself, at some point during your life, and probably right now, you are working to pay the bills and earn a living, not to get rich.
Here’s how to change all of this, once and for all. Like finally finding the light switch and now seeing everything around you in the LIGHT instead in the dark…
Are you ready?
With your business, you must have one overriding goal above all else, that goal is to take as much money out of the business as possible and put into the piggy bank.
Now, certainly, at first instinct someone might say that they don’t have enough consistent money to pay their bills let alone stash some in the piggybank. And that could be true, and the reason is because they are working to pay the bills and not fill up the piggybank.
You see, a big change happened for me in my life, when I started working everyday, every waking moment, with focus, intention, and dedicated discipline to making sure the pig was getting fed. I want a very fat pig. And you should too.
I’ll never forget Zig Ziglar saying, “If someone says they don’t want to have a lot of money, they will lie about other things too.” So, quit kidding yourself and man (or woman) up.
If you set out every month to pay your bills, pay your people, and hope for a little left over for a nice dinner and a good nights sleep, then you will continue to stay in the cycle of self-employment and living a downtrodden break-even life-style.
If, however, you wake up everyday knowing what your goals are and knowing that if you go another month without feeding the piggybank you are losing the game, wasting your life, and settling for less than is possible.
Think about it this way… Paying the bills and making some money is like scoring baskets back and forth with your opponents on the basketball floor. It feels great, until the last seconds and you realize you didn’t win…
In all sports there are always winners and losers. At the end of your month, there is always a winner and a loser for you too. That’s determined by how much the piggybank gets fed.
The good news is, chances of winning every game is basically zero. Chances of winning in your business – is 100% completely within your control. And determined by where your focus is, what your are playing for.
To Just Score
Or
To WIN and Ensure Victory!
One of the biggest reasons Doctors are attracted to me and what we stand for – in addition to the fact that I practice everything I preach – it is that we are giving doctors more than just permission to do well, we are actually facilitating their ability to do so, beginning first with desire and a clear vision of what success really looks like.
I want to liberate my doctors to feel proud of making a lot of money because they in turn have helped a lot of patients, they can take better care of their team members and enhance the quality of their experience (along with many other amazing benefits).
We help Doctors feed their Pigs and build up their lives and wealth outside of the practice. This happens of course by taking care of the practice – as a business – itself – first. The profit matters because you can’t sustain anything without it.
This is our focus. It’s our goal. It’s what we do.
When we step in we have two objectives: balanced lifestyle and profitable growth – as fast as possible. That is removing the burden of being a slave to their practice and increasing the prosperity the practice delivers to them.
Truth is, no one ever has any money left at the end of the month, anyway. That’s why having the piggybank is so important, all the money is going somewhere… if you don’t have a place to put it, it’s going out the door.
Now, in some cases, your piggybank takes different shapes. When we begin helping practices or doctors transition in some way, it may take 6-12 months, even longer, where constant reinvesting of profits is necessary to reach their ultimate potentials.
Attaining a state of ideal and maximum profits will not always be easy – it will though always be worth it!
That is simply what’s required if you want to double or triple your income or add a million dollars to your business… most people can’t discipline themselves to build a business because they are too busy wasting money living, when they haven’t yet earned (and don’t yet deserve) to have that lifestyle.
Again, they live as if the business is a job, as if they have a paycheck. That’s fine… if you want to be an employee, get paid like one, retire like one, and have a life like one.
Don’t get me wrong, smart employees can still get rich, because they work their job as if they were an entrepreneur. I know many like this, they know what their focus is. The risk is when an entrepreneurs lives, works, spends like an employee – waking up 2, 5, 10 years later to realize no one was matching their retirement contributions and oops, they forgot all about the piggybank.
When you change your focus to investing in your business for growth and feeding the pig to get rich, your life will change dramatically. And you will find a new sense of urgency, power, and success in your business.
It’s like this: who is truly motivated to work hard and pay a bunch of bills – no body. You’ve got to have motivation and enough reasons to get rich. You’ve got to have a place to put the money, else you’ll have none.
No pig, no profits. That’s what I always say.
Category : Blog
