In some other part of the world, another guy wants to know how you come up with your decisions that make your company scale fast. This shows that you know what you and your company’s value is and how you offer it. When you know your value, you know who your audience is. Through this known audience, you can put out your service like it’s the easiest decision you’ll make for that day. But how do you let the world know your value? You don’t. The number one ninja value hack is to let people do the talking about you.
Listen to the podcast here:
Ninja Value Hack: Know And Sell Your Value
I’m subtitling this, Know and Sell Your Value. You have to know deep down your value or psychologist say, “If you don’t, it allows you to enter into depression.” If you know your value and I’ve heard a great story of, if you take $100 bill and you crumple it up, is it still $100 bill? Sure it is. What if you step on it and smash them dirty? What if you even put oil on it? Can you then somehow find a way to get that oil off? Is it still $100 bill? Yeah. The value no matter how it’s kicked on, beat on, dirt on, spit on, it’s still $100. As a person, you need to know your value. As a company, your company is a living, breathing organism. Entropy’s killing it. Everything is against it. It’s like a person. The company, especially the leaders at the top of the company, they’ve got to know their value. There is a way to track your value. I like adding up the overall value that you add to others and remember that it’s cumulative, which means this year adds to the previous year which add to the previous year. Then as time goes on time compounds the value because you learn more each year and the techniques used to deliver your products and service and what you deliver changes in direct proportion to the changes of time.
I’m going to do something that I have agreed not to do for over a year, but I’m going to do it. I’m not ashamed to do it. It has to be done. In 2009, we did $493,000. I don’t mind doing this because now it’s all public on the Inc. 5000 List. In 2010, we did $859,000. I’m talking about in the division of Income Store, as a division of TGC. In 2011, we did $1.4 million. In 2012, $2.4 million. In 2013, $3.3 million then we jumped to $6.6 million, $10.2 million. In 2016, we did $13.9 million and then in ‘17, we came in at $28.04 million. Why do I say this? I say this because in 2009, we had fifteen sales reps. We were selling a completely different product than today. Today, we have two sales reps selling a totally different product than 2009. In 2009, we were marketing ourselves through franchise trade shows.
Today, we put up $5,000 to $40,000 and we sponsor events where my wife and I can speak to an audience that is an exact match to our potential audience, our potential clients. We are going to be in Vegas for a week. We sponsored two days at the seven-day mastermind group called A Bug Free Mind where people come in from all over the world and Carrie and I are going to speak twice. We’re sponsoring the entry party and we’re going to make a lot of new friends. Why do we do this? I’m leading somewhere with this. I’m doing it because it is an exact match of our audience. This audience is people that have money and no time. They’re looking for tips, techniques. It’s a mastermind group. They want to talk to people that have been there, done that and are where they want to go. These people as a collective group want to better themselves and better their family and protect it with some form of second, third, fourth revenue stream.
It is a literal perfect fix. Once they hear us speak, they’re going to realize, ” This company has 115 SEO wizards and site managers. They are going to want the comfort that we guarantee a contract or a website’s revenues, and if for some reason the revenues fall or the site craps out, they’re going to find out that we have to go into our operating capital and buy a brand new site for that person that we wrote a contract up and said, ‘We will manage your website in perpetuity and guarantee X amount of performance in perpetuity.’” People want comfort. They want security. They want to know that we’ve done this thousands of times. I’m building to something. We are sponsoring an event with a proven audience. It’s like fish in a barrel and we’re going to drop ourselves, we are the bait. My wife and I, we’re going to drop ourselves right in the middle of the barrel. We sponsor events that have the exact audience profile looking for the done-for-you package in the comfort and the security. Here’s a big tip. We know our exact audience. Do you know yours? You need to know your value and once you know your value of what you can provide, you then know, “I can drop this value into this barrel of fish.”
Carrie and I spoke to 200 plus entrepreneurs in the country of Columbia. We spoke to the Alternative Investment Division of the Government in Dubai. Why? The demand for my wife and I’s business management knowledge is in direct proportion to the amount of value we add to other people and other companies. People want and need to know how Carrie and I doubled this company each and every year. How do we manage offices in the United States, in Romania, and pretty soon in London? How do we hire and train? How do we guarantee a website? How do we grow website? Every single person here, here’s what I can promise. If the world knew exactly what you know, there would be a number of people out there willing to pay for your life’s wisdom. “Ken, I’m just starting this. I’m getting ready to do a kick-start.” Here’s what I promise you. There was that something led to your decision to start whatever you’re about to start, somebody would pay to know, “How did you come up with that decision? Who mentored you? Who coached you? What books did you read?” I can assure you somebody out there needs what you know.
Here’s the trick. Without being pious or tacky, how do you let the world know what you know? How do you let the world know what your division of your company knows? How do you let the world know what your company knows? Here’s the key. You don’t. You have to let other people do it. It’s called social proof. If in ’09, ‘10, ’11, when we were doubling, doubling, doubling, getting into the millions, could you imagine if I stood on a soapbox and said, “I’m Ken. I’m awesome. I keep doubling my company.” You’ll never find on video or text that I ever said it once. I can’t say it. If I say it, it’s braggadocious. It’s pious. It’s tacky. I have years and years ago, created a section on our website called Press. You can go to Archive.org, type in www.IncomeStore.com. I think we launched it in 2012 and click on one of the blue circles under 2012 and it’ll show you what our website looked like back in 2012. I remember what it used to look like. It used to have a puppet as the national spokesperson. Our Press Room showed off newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, podcast interviews, some testimonials, endorsements. It did not have Ken or Carrie telling the world how great Income Store was, not once. You have to let other people do the talking.
Today, the Inc. 5000 List, when people figure out, “The Inc. 5000 List scrubs 18 million US companies, does a four-year tax return audit. These companies are growing faster. These are the 5,000 fastest growing companies out of 18 million.” If you hit that list, let alone we’ve done it five different times, that’s social proof. In the beginning, we didn’t have that. We went three, four years and never hit the Inc. 5000 List. What do you do in the beginning? To see what you should do, do what we did. Go to Archive.org, click on the Press Room of Income Store and notice it wasn’t us saying, “Here’s what we did.” As a matter of fact, it was a bunch of thumbnail photos with links out to press clippings and for any reason Archive.org doesn’t work, go to IncomeStore.com, click Press Room and go to bottom and go to oldest entries and start there because some of that press is years old and the newer stuff is up the top. We let the Press Room do the talking.
Back then and still today, the Press page is one of the most viewed pages of our website. People don’t care what you sell until they know who you are. They’re only going to trust who you are based on what other people say about you. They’re not necessarily going to trust you. Here’s your homework. Make up an imaginary scoreboard of your personal value and keep track of it. It could be gross revenue times how many years of business, it could be number of products sold compounded annually. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Build on something so that you can assess for you, your division, and your company, the psychological value of what you hold for intellectual property, for keeping that together and grow it.
Then, once you realized your value, find a way to get some press. I have at least three other podcasts that talk about how to go about getting social proof. It’s free. Just go after it and do the work you need to do. It takes 30 to 60 days to get it done but do the work. I think there’s a that has also some extra social proof in there. Could you imagine if I was on a soapbox telling the world our gross revenues? I’ve never said it before, we’re 340 podcasts in. I’ve never mentioned company revenues and I will probably never mention them again. To give you a concept of how you can’t brag, you have to let others brag about you, I had to state those numbers. I hope this helps. Go after understanding your personal value then get some social proof and share with the world what your value actually is, then go out and make some money. Hope this helps. Take care.
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