Builder

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast, made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds ... those among us who can't turn it off, and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat, because you only lose if you stop. And we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average, and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few, who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive, human evolution, and we always will be.

Builder ... the next level of the billionaire code is Builder. Remember, the first level was Seeker, 0 to $40,000. The second level is Starter, $40,000 to $100,000. The last level that we talked about was Promoter, $100,000 to $300,000. That's where the entrepreneurs go full-time. You're automating your lead generation. That fall-back question you're asking is, "How do I get ahead?" It's where you're leveraging lead generation. And when you generate leads and convert consistently, you graduate to Builder: $300,000 to $1,000,000. This is right before what Russell calls "The Two Comma Club."

And in the United States, there's 1.9 million Builder businesses. In fact, there's only 1.7 Promoter, there's 1.9 million. The reason is this Builder level, $300,000 to $1,000,000, is a trap for countless attorneys, and doctors, and practitioners of all kinds, and veterinarians, and sports rehab clinics, and all kinds of different places where one person's expertise drives the revenue. And they become better and better at what they can do. They max out their calendar. They max out the time they can sell, and they get trapped in Builder. Do not let that happen to you.

The fall-back question in Builder is, "How do I get further ahead?" In Promoter, you're asking, "How do I get ahead?" In Builder, you're asking, "How do I get further ahead?" And where in Promoter, you're leveraging lead generation, in Builder you have to start leveraging sales. Because from $300,000 to $1,000,000, here's what most entrepreneurs are doing up until now: they're doing all of the sales, everything, themselves. And from $300,000 to $1,000,000, you have to get help somewhere. And in most cases, it's building leverage around sales.

And you're going to get leverage around one of three things. It's either going to be through a person, through a process, or through a project. So, in most cases with sales, it's to leverage through a person, unless you have a better process, like a better webinar. Or, you have a project like a launch that you're going to do. But you have to get leverage around sales so that you can continue to press through Builder.

And the reason why you want to keep one funnel, one avatar, one deliverable, one product all the way through $1,000,000, and beyond if you can, is because volume will create complexity. This is something that most entrepreneurs don't forecast. We're not good at telegraphing this, or seeing that it's coming ... is that volume will create complexity.

See, one of the things that we have a job to do as an entrepreneur is as we grow our company, we have to constantly be clearing space in our lives for what we're going to have to be doing. Not for what we're doing now, but for what we're going to have to be doing. And as your business grows, volume will always create complexity, even if you have a crazy simple model. You're going to be serving more people, you're going to be processing more money, you're going to have more money coming in, you're going to have more deliverables, you're going to have more people counting on you, you're going to have more people paying attention to you. That increase in volume will cause complexity on its own. So keep everything as simple as you possibly can, because at Builder, you're going to have to start getting some early outsourcing, that people as process. And in a minute, I'm going to give you a big shortcut on Builder.

But, for your business, early outsourcing, people as process, and then getting an executive assistant as fast as you can ... somebody who can help you build processes, and checklists, and flowcharts, and spreadsheets, and process documents. Because if you do that at Builder, where most people don't, even if it's part-time, you will have this accelerator in building the systems that you can outsource and find people to do what you do. You're going to find people to do parts of what you do. So, contractors, virtual help, outsourcing ... that will help you accelerate through this level so that you aren't trying to do everything yourself. You're focusing on what you do well, and you're building processes, systems and processes, around what you do well.

And all too often, what people do in the Builder phase is they don't create systems and process. They just keep doing more, and they bring in people to help them try and do more. But if you bring in systems ... if you start building systems and processes, you start building checklists, process documents, flowcharts, or you hire an assistant to help you do those things, then you can bring people in and they have a road map to actually help you out of the Builder phase.

Because these days, you absolutely can build a company to seven figures with very little help. But you will have a hard time maintaining and getting past seven figures without getting help. And, the fastest way to do that is to build process early.

Now, you need the space and time to build process. Here's how you do it. If you're in Builder and you're making some money, here's a really fast way to buy yourself time so that you can go build process: Look at everything that you're doing personally, and start asking yourself, "How can you get that done by somebody else?"

Now, early on, you can do things like looking at grocery shopping, and buying stuff for your house. Get that on Amazon, and use Instacart so that you have a delivery service for your groceries. Have Amazon deliver all of the stuff that you need for your house every month. Those are the easy things. Start looking at bringing in somebody to cook for you, bringing in somebody to do your laundry for you. What can you have someone else do, so that you can devote the time you need to build systems and process around what you do well.

Because you are doing well. If you get into Builder, you're at $300,000 to $1,000,000. You are just ... you're looking at seven figures, where only 3% of entrepreneurs get. So you have to start asking for help in a profound way.

Now, I didn't always do this. In fact, early on in my career, this was one of the biggest mistakes I made, was not getting help in my personal stuff. I thought being frugal as a business owner was what mattered. I thought saving all of my money was what mattered. I thought making sure that I didn't spend money on myself was what mattered. So I barely spent any money on myself. I didn't buy a lot of clothes, I didn't get a lot of help ... I tried to do everything myself.

And as a result, I didn't eat well. I didn't ... I was wasting time doing things like laundry, and doing my personal stuff when I was paying other people hundreds of dollars an hour to work for me. And I was doing work that ... I mean, I was doing the highest level work in our company, and I was still doing all of my own housework, all the stuff for my ... for everything, and trying to cook. So as a result, I just did it all really poorly, and it never was done. And I never felt comfortable. And I know now, today, that was a massive mistake that I made.

Because when I finally figured it out ... and it took me forever. It was only through demonstration that I figured it out. See, in my early twenties, I got into the consumer electronics industry. And a lot of my friends that were around me, a lot of the people that I got to know, a lot of the companies that I helped grow ... I was helping people grow companies that were growing faster than mine. They were bigger than mine, they had much better margins than mine. So my friends, I was watching them live at a different level.

And I had a friend where ... I remember, early in our careers, I would go visit him. And I was working out of my home in Orlando, and I was building offices in other parts of Florida and in other parts of Latin America. But I wasn't getting help myself. And I went and saw him, and he had an executive assistant, and he had a person that delivered stuff to him, and there was help all ... it just ... I saw that he was getting help with a lot of different things. And I sat there and I thought to myself, "Oh, man. He's not frugal. He's not saving his money. He's not being a responsible business owner." And then, I would go home and try to do everything myself, now, to continue to build this business, and work seven days a week, and just try and do everything myself.

And I started getting more and more unhealthy. And I had a hard time getting good foods. I tried to do ... I tried to cook everything at once, and then I wouldn't have time to eat. I just ... I didn't get any help. I didn't have an executive assistant. I kept building the business. I was my own executive assistant.

If you're an entrepreneur and you don't have an executive assistant, you are one. And you are robbing the opportunity from a person who's really good at all of that stuff, to help you with it and to feel incredibly fulfilled. A good EA can double your productivity. I didn't have that. I didn't know any of this stuff.

And I would go ... and then I remember going to see him again. And the next time I saw him, he had more help. And he had more people around him. And then, I would go back to Florida and do the exact same thing I had been doing. Then, I'd go see him again, and even more help.

And I remember, at one point he had an office, and he was having like, food served to him. And in between conversations, people are putting stuff in front of him to sign. And the amount of stuff that was going on around him blew me away. And then it finally started to dawn on me. He was crushing me as far as successes went. He was outdoing me like, ten to one.

The next visit after that, I flew to him, went to his office, took a helicopter to the airport, took his private plane, and that's how we ... I was on a plane flight with him to spend time with him.

And now, at 45, thinking back over a business career that's had all kinds of ups and downs ... and when I look at my twenties, and that business that I built, some incredible things happened in that company. But I wonder if early on, had I started getting help personally, if early on had I started lowering the pressure and noise on myself, if early on I had gotten someone to help me, to be there just to help me, what would that business have looked like? How much more money would I have made? How much more clearly would I have been thinking when I built it? How much more present and aware would I have been with the team that I had?

And so, for you ... if you're in this place, in Builder, your time is the most valuable in the company because you are driving all of the growth. So outsource the easy stuff first, the personal stuff. And then, put the time in the business. Start building the processes and the systems. And then, you'll find the people who are at this process to help you through so that you can get past $1,000,000.

And, at Builder, a crucial component of the business becomes almost a mandate, almost a necessity. It's what less than 1% of companies have. In fact, you can go listen to my podcast on what less than 1% of companies have, and it's a forward planning system. It's the system where you project forward, "Here's where we're going to go. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to get there. This is what we're going to measure along the way. And this is how we know if we're successful." Because in the vast majority of businesses, over 99%, there is no forward planning system of any kind.

And once you get to Builder, here's what happens. With each next level of the Billionaire Code, and really from the beginning, but at Builder it becomes crucial, your skill level in anticipating what you need or will need, and then having it ready in the company before you need it ... so that you don't stop to slow down on one of the five core functions, that will be the skill level through which your business grows. And so, at Builder, where you start really looking at growing past $1,000.000, putting a forward planning system in place changes everything.

And, at the end of this series of podcasts on the Billionaire Code, I'm going to go deep on the forward planning system, because it is the biggest accelerator through the Billionaire Code that there is ... is being able to show everyone in the company where you're going.

I always use the analogy, you walk into an NFL locker room, you ask the most entry level rookie, "Hey. Hey, man, what are the goals around here?" And he'll tell you, "I want to get to the Hall of Fame. I want to win the Super Bowl. I want to win the season every game this month. I want to ... here's where I line up against this weekend, and here's what I have to do today to get there." And the reason that NFL rookies play with the conviction that they do is that they know that every single day, what they do for the company has the possibility of getting them all the way to the Hall of Fame.

The challenges in most entrepreneurial companies is you bring in help, there is no system that shows everybody the Hall of Fame. They get asked, like, "Hey, what are the goals around here?" They say, "Survive." They don't know that process. They don't know that system. So what we're asking people in our company, every day, is to step off a cliff and hope that more dirt has been filled in.

So, one of the biggest accelerators past Builder, and beyond, is putting a forward planning system in place in your company. And if you're in Builder, $300,000 to $1,000,000 ... or, maybe even over $1,000,000, our company has just created a new level of our Billionaire Code coaching programs called The Billionaire Code Leverage. And it's for Builders who are at $300,000 to $1,000,000. And it will show you that forward planning system that will help you anticipate what you need next, understand where you should get help, and show you how to get the help you need ... and then, predictably, put it all together so you can consistently grow your company, get to $1,000,000 and beyond. We will show you how, because in our company, we have the next level for you to step into. And we will help you get there.

So, if you're at Builder, or if you're at $300,000 and higher at all, at any size, go to BillionaireCode.com. Answer a few questions. We will send you a full summary of the Billionaire Code. And, one of my team members will be in touch just in case you want to set up a call to talk about our new Billionaire Code Leverage Program. Because if you've gotten to Promoter, at $300,000 ... or, sorry ... if you've gotten to Builder at $300,000 or better, you are well on your way to seven figures and we want to help you get there.

Go to BillionaireCode.com, and get the full download. And, hop on a call with a member of my team and let us show you how we can help you have the $1,000,000-plus business you've always known you should.