When you want something and there’s somebody out there that had that something you want and you knew what they want, that’s called politics. When you get elected, your party talks about the opposite party as the enemy, not that they’re bad people but their views are wrong. But when you walk into this room with people of both parties, you realize they’re really good people. They just have different ways of getting to the same goal.
They don’t hate each other; they don’t flip each other off in the hallway. They’re just colleagues and as you live your life, you realize it’s just theater. It’s a lot like business. People in business look at a competitor as an enemy. The reality is sometimes your competitors in the same industry are your greatest allies. Learn the four-step process to grow a business through politics.
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Politics: The Four-Step Process To Grow A Business
We have an interesting podcast and the title of this is Politics. I did so because I was picking up my son from school and he’s ten years old. He started asking some questions and I realized, “Kenny, this is actually called politics.” He’s like, “Why? What do you mean?” I said, “We’re talking about a topic where you defined that you wanted something, and you also defined that there was somebody out there that had something you wanted and then you knew what they want.” I said, “Kenny, that’s called politics.”
I want to start this by saying I brought up to my son’s attention that in 2013 the Republicans did not stand up at the State of the Union address for Barack Obama during almost anything that he said. They sat on their hands. A lot of people thought that was rude. Donald Trump was doing a State of the Union and not a single Democrat stood up. Nobody, no matter what he said, it didn’t matter. They sat on their hands and of course everybody thought it was rude. I brought that up to Kerri, and my wife as many of you know has been an elected official for a long time. She had an interesting comment.
I said, “That’s for show.” When you get elected, you walk in because your party talks about the opposite party as the enemy, in a sense. Not that they’re bad people, but their views are wrong. They have no idea I have a need to go in there and correct and take over. When you get elected and you walk into this room with people of both parties and you realize there’s really good people, they really are. They’re people who have different ways of getting to the same goal. Whether or not that they want a street built, how they go about it would be totally different than I would go about it.
The point is we both want that road built or doing a negotiation with pay checks. I want the employee to have a better life. How I want it done isn’t the same as how they want it done. What you see is really show. That’s all it is. Today, tomorrow, the next week, they’re going to start talking to each other. They don’t hate each other. They don’t flip each other off in the hallway. They’re just colleagues and it was just for us. As you live your life, realize it’s just theater.
A lot of people in business look at, let’s say a competitor, as an enemy. The reality is sometimes your competitors in your same industry are your greatest allies. Here’s what I’ve got for you. One of the fastest ways to grow a business is through politics. In the core definition of this word, and I’m going to define it in a four-step process. From a subjective standpoint, politics is asking the question, “What am I willing to give up to get what I want?” I’ll give you a couple quick examples.
In the internet marketing business, most Search Engine Optimization experts know what holds up a website more than anything is a quality mention from another quality site in the same industry. If we’re building a medical site and we can get WebMD to mention us, that’s a live link. Internet marketers call it a backlink or a link back. We know if we can get a number of backlinks for some great sources, Google is going to look differently at our site as more trusted, more responsible and just better.
Here’s how this works. In the old days, one of the ways people would quickly build a website is they would literally get on the phone, call five to fifteen websites in their industry and flat out ask, “You know what I need to do to get this site off the ground? Would you mention my site? Would you link to it somewhere from your website?” 99% of people are going to hang up on them and say, “Why in the world would I do that? I don’t know you. What’s in it for me?” and they would hang up the phone.
What if you went about it a little bit differently and you looked at this from a political angle? Here are the four steps to politics. Number one, what do we want? You could replace we with I if you’re a solo entrepreneur. What do I want? Number two, who has it? Who has what I want? Number three, what do they want? Here’s where politics comes into play. Like Kerri said, they’re sitting on their hands for show. They have something the other people across the aisle want and they know it. They’re showing their hands.
Number one, what do I want? Number two, who either in my section of the aisle or across the aisle has what I want? What competitor has what I want? What ally has what I want? What third party not even in my industry has what I want? Number three and this is where you have to think, what do they want? The person or the company that has what I want, what do I know for a fact they want?
Number four, do I or we have what they want? Can we exchange it like good old fashion, exchanging goods for goods like trading? Do we have to bring in a third party company or third party person to do a triangular trade? Let me give you a quick example. Let’s say you’re a growing business. You’re brand new out of the gate and you need leads but you don’t have a red cent. You’re broke but you need leads to grow your business. If you don’t get leads, you’re going to die. You do a quick internet search.
If you do it properly, you will almost always find the opportunities can be found in your competitors. Click To TweetYou find three companies that claim they’re great at providing leads. You ask yourself, “What do I want? I want leads. Who has it? This company over here.” Number three, what do they want? They want to be paid for their service. They want cash. It’s time to bring in a third party. Call a bank, an angel investor, your father or somebody. Here’s the trade. You want leads. Find a company that has it. They want money.
Find a company that has it and do a triangular political trade. They want leads. Go get the leads. They want money. Go give them money. The bank wants money on their money called interest. The leads grow your business. You get more money. You pay the bank plus their interest. Everybody’s happy. The question is, let’s get really real, what do you want? Brian Tracy says, “If it’s not written, it’s not real.”
Do you know what you want? Is it written? Have you ever done what is called the reverse SWOT? Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The O in opportunities, if you do that exercise properly, you’ll almost always find the opportunities can be found in your competitors. A lot of your competitors have what you want. I highly recommend you dig in to that old episode.
What do you want? Who’s got what you want? Often, it’s a competitor and you’ve got to put on your political hat and play the game. What do they want? I don’t have it but I know who has it and then we can do a three-way trade. How about growing your business politically and supercharge your company? Hope this helps. Take care.
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