The world is filled with talented poor people. All too often, they're poor or struggle financially or earn less than they are capable of, not because of what they know but because of what they do not know. They focus on perfecting their skills at building a better product rather than the skills of selling and delivering the product. Companies which grow maybe do not make the best product, but they are the best at selling and delivering a basic average product.
For the World War II generation, it was considered “bad” to skip from company to company. Today, it is considered smart. Since people will skip from company to company, rather than seek greater specialisation, why not seek to “learn” more than “earn.” In the short term, it may earn you less. In the long term, it will pay off in large dividends.
The main management skills needed for success are:
1. The management of cash flow
2. The management of systems
(including yourself and time with family).
3. The management of people.
The most important specialised skills are sales and understanding marketing. It is the ability to sell--therefore, to communicate to another human being, be it a customer, employee, boss, spouse or child-that is the base skill of personal success. It is communication skills such as writing, speaking and negotiating that are crucial to a life of success. It is a skill that I work on constantly, attending courses or buying educational tapes to expand my knowledge.
One should know a little about a lot. The purpose of this article is to encourage readers to work with people smarter than you are and to bring smart people together to work as a team. Today it would be called a synergy of professional specialities.
I know of no other skills to be more important than selling as well as marketing. The skills of selling and marketing are difficult for most people primarily due to their fear of rejection. The better you are at communicating, negotiating and handling your fear of rejection, the easier life is.
Being technically specialised has its strengths as well as its weaknesses. I have friends who are geniuses, but they cannot communicate effectively with other human beings and, as a result, their earnings are pitiful. I advise them to just spend a year learning to sell. Even if they earn nothing, their communication skills will improve. And that is priceless.
In addition to being good learners, sellers and marketers, we need to be good teachers as well as good students. To be truly rich, we need to be able to give as well as to receive. In cases of financial or professional struggle, there is often a lack of giving and receiving. I know many people who are poor because they are neither good students nor good teachers.
Make it a practice to give first. Teaching is one of the ways of giving. The more you give, the more you receive. One glaring difference is in the giving of money. Rich people give lots of money away. They give to temples, to charities, to their foundations. They know that to receive money, you had to give money. Giving money is the secret to most great wealthy families.
Many people think, “When I have some extra money, I'll give it.” The problem is, there is never any extra. So, these people work harder to draw more money in rather than focus on the most important law of money: “Give and you shall receive.” Instead, they believe in “Receive and then you give.”
Remember that financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing and law. Combine those four technical skills and making money with money is easier. When it comes to money, the only skill most people know is to work hard.
In school and in the workplace, the popular opinion is the idea of “specialisation.” That is, in order to make more money or get promoted, you need to “specialise.” That is why medical doctors immediately begin to seek a speciality such as orthopedics or pediatrics. The same is true for accountants, architects, lawyers, pilots and others. Truth is that schools reward people who study more and more about less and less.
The hardest part of running a company is managing people. Understand the value of learning to lead men into dangerous situations. “If you're not a good leader, you'll get shot in the back, just like they do in business.”
There is an old cliche that goes, “Job is an acronym for 'Just Over Broke.'” And unfortunately, I would say that the saying applies to millions of people. Because school does not think financial intelligence is an intelligence, most workers “live within their means.” They work and they pay the bills.
There is another horrible management theory that goes, “Workers work hard enough to not be fired, and owners pay just enough so that workers won't quit.” And if you look at the pay scales of most companies, again I would say there is a degree of truth in that statement.
The net result is that most workers never get ahead. They do what they've been taught to do: “Get a secure job.” Most workers focus on working for pay and benefits that reward them in the short term, but is often disastrous in the long. Instead I recommend to young people to seek work for what they will learn, more than what they will earn. Look down the road at what ; skills they want to acquire before choosing a specific profession and before getting trapped in the “Rat Race.”
Employees look forward to their pay raise every year, and every year they may get disappointed. So, they would go back to school to earn more qualifications so they could get another raise, but again, it would be another disappointment.
The question I often ask people is, “Where is this daily activity taking you?” I wonder if people look at where their hard work is taking them. What does the future hold?
When I speak to adults who want to earn more money, I always recommend the same thing. I suggest taking a long view of their life. Instead of simply working for the money and security, which I admit are important, I suggest they take a second job that will teach them a second skill. Some of the companies have excellent training programs that help people get over their fear of failure and rejection, which are the main reasons people are unsuccessful. Education is more valuable than money, in the long run.
When I offer this suggestion, I often hear in response, “Oh that is too much hassle,” or “I only want to do what I am interested in.”
To the statement of “It's too much of a hassle,” I ask, “So you would ; rather work all your life giving 50 percent of what you earn to the government'” To the other statement-“I only do what I am interested in”-I say, “I'm not interested in going to the gym, but I go because I want to feel better and live longer.”
Unfortunately, there is some truth to the old statement “You can't teach an old dog new tricks.” Unless a person is used to changing, it's hard to change.
But for those of you who might be on the fence when it comes to the idea of working to learn something new, I offer this word of encouragement: Life is much like going to the gym. The most painful part is deciding to go. Once you get past that, it's easy. There have been many days I have dreaded going to the gym, but once I am there and in motion, it is a pleasure. After the workout is over, I am always glad I talked myself into going.
If you are unwilling to work to learn something new and insist on, instead, becoming highly specialised within your field, make sure the company you work for is unionised. Labor unions are designed to protect specialists.
So the rule of thumb is, “Highly specialised, then unionise.” It's the smart thing to do.
When I ask the classes I teach, “How
many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonald's?” almost all the students
raise their hands. I then ask, “So if most of you can cook a better hamburger,
how come McDonald's makes more money than you?”
The answer is obvious: McDonald's is
excellent at business systems. The reason so many talented people are poor is
because they focus on building a better hamburger and know little to nothing
about business systems.
Many corporations do the same thing. They find a young bright student out of business school and begin “grooming” that person to someday take over the company. So these bright young employees do not specialise in one department; they are moved from department to department to learn all the aspects of business systems. The rich often “groom” their children or the children of others. By doing so, their children gain an overall knowledge of the operations of the business and how the various departments interrelate.
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