I got this email from a ‘wantrepreneur’ who recently joined my membership community. And the lesson behind his cautionary tale is one worth learning from so I’m sharing it…
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“I love your content, it’s amazing but it’s time for me to cancel my membership. I only accessed the content for a few weeks. This wasn’t an easy decision and it took me a while to arrive at it. But with my business slowing down I need to save every penny I have right now until business picks up again. With that in mind I need to cancel my membership before December arrives. Thanks.”
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My reply…
You may cancel at any time. But please be aware that if you cancel, you will never, ever be allowed back in no matter how much you beg, plead or scream.
Sorry to be so blunt, but I’m looking for doers, not wannabes or wishers.
As a matter of fact, I’ve gone ahead and cancelled your membership effective immediately and I do not recommend you attempt to re-subscribe in the future.
-Coach Bru
A little harsh? Nah, quite the contrary.
For starters I’m very selective about who I want in my community.
And I do this specifically because the last thing I want to do is sell to people who aren’t intellectually curious, make excuses, are lazy and don’t take action.
If I did then I wouldn’t be providing the best possible environment that the rest of my outstanding members deserve. This person’s excuse making, and penny pinching mentality was a very clear sign that is the anti-thesis of the expectations my members have for themselves and I have for them.
My immediate reaction was:
This is an educated, professional adult and he can’t manage to use the amazing content he proclaimed he loves in order to recoup his whopping $1.58 per day investment? Never mind use it to make even more recurring or passive income in his business?
He treated the resources as an expense instead of an investment. When you treat something as an investment you get a return.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the person or think he’s a horrible human being or anything like that. He just doesn’t belong in the Yesterdays Underdog community and I don’t want him back.
Nor do I want anyone else with his mindset either. Your focus shouldn’t be on reducing expenses when building a business, especially when it comes to professional development designed to make you a better leader.
So how do you know if you’re a wantrepreneur?
If you cancel resources that increase your revenue before you cut back on your Direct TV, Spotify, daily $7 latte addiction, Netflix, Hulu or Amazon subscription you rarely use, restaurant dining multiple days a week and other entertainment expenses that by their very nature are created to prevent you from building your own business yet contribute greatly to someone else’s.
There’s no shame in being broke, but there is in having your priorities wrong.
Even a panhandler on the street could find $1.58 a day. And if he can, certainly a professional with an advanced degree ought to be able to do that AND make back his investment many times over by applying the wisdom.
In other words, if he were actually using the resources it wouldn’t have cost him a dime.
And THAT my friend is the shame of it all.
I would bet the mortgage on the fact that he didn’t use a single strategy contained in the membership site or the book my members receive when they subscribe.
And I know for a fact he never took advantage of the two MAJOR perks I provide all my Yesterday’s Underdogs members which are:
1. Unlimited email access to me with the ability to ask questions about how to tackle the challenges in their business.
And
2. He certainly never took advantage of the call-in day opportunity which takes place the third Friday of every month, when members can call in and use me as a sounding board for ideas and ask questions.
He could’ve even asked in his email:
“Coach Bru, funds are tight this month. Do you have any ideas on what I could do to create a quick influx of revenue?”
And my answer would’ve been:
- You could take discounted pre-orders on inventory for 2020. (Nothing like having plenty of business on the books for 2020 well before 2020 even starts.)
- And you could’ve held a Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or any other holiday sale for all your existing 2019 inventory.
(Which ironically is advertising)
- And you could’ve followed that up with an after Christmas sale at the end of next month, offering a generous discount for clients who make an annual commitment for the duration of 2020.
But he couldn’t have been bothered to even ask a simple question.
What’s my point to this rant?
There are people who make excuses and people who make progress.
Some are always blaming external factors like the market, the time of year, busyness, government regulations and anything else they can point a finger to besides the person staring at them in the mirror.
And then there are the rest of us, the investment minded and intellectually curious who want to surround themselves with other high performers.
The difference between these two types of people is night and day. As is the difference between the state of their businesses.
If you fall into the latter category, this is the place for you: