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Big Business or Small?

Guest post by: Chellie Campbell

Article Overview: I’ve been happy as a poker player with pocket aces with my little workshop business, helping people, getting kudos and getting paid. I find people to invite to the workshop by going to networking groups where I’ll see old friends and make new ones. I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for a living. I hold my workshops in the den at my house

Big Business or Small?

"Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reason."—Douglas Noel Adams, author of “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”

I’ve been happy as a poker player with pocket aces with my little workshop business, helping people, getting kudos and getting paid. I find people to invite to the workshop by going to networking groups where I’ll see old friends and make new ones. I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for a living. I hold my workshops in the den at my house. I put the coffee on, ten to twelve people show up, I teach them, they go home, I turn the coffee off. I love my income. I love my overhead. I love my commute. I love my life.

T. Harv Eker is the president of Peak Potentials Training. He’s in the workshop business, too. He has a big vision, a big company and he’s making big money. His game plan is masterful—he contacts the presidents of various networking groups and offers free passes to his Millionaire Mind Intensive 3-day seminar for each member of their group. They do all of Harv’s marketing for him by advertising this wonderful free benefit to their membership. It’s a classic win-win-win scenario: Harv wins, the organization wins, and the members win. Brilliant!

So I got my free pass and I went to the seminar. There were some twelve hundred people at the one I attended in Los Angeles in 2004. For three days, Harv gave an informative, fun, involving seminar. “You have a millionaire mind!” everyone high-fived each other on cue. And for three days, from eight o’clock in the morning until ten at night, he sold you—masterfully—the next ten programs that you are going to need if you are really committed to improve your money and your life. The programs come with high price tags—I remember one was $3,995—but then he gives you a big discount because he really cares about you and wants to help. So he slashes the price to $2,995, throws in the $1,000 CD set for free along with it, and then discounts the whole price again. But you have to take advantage of this offer right now, because this course is almost sold out and he only has 50 spaces left…

Need I tell you that hundreds of people jumped up out of their seats and ran to the back of the room to give the waiting employees their credit cards? Because they “have a Millionaire Mind!” And Harv has a Millionaire Bank Account. He told us he makes over a million dollars a weekend. Fabulous. I was watching a master at work. I saw what was possible when your vision was huge.

Do you think I sound jealous or sad that my business is so much smaller than his? Well, I admit I wasn’t too fond of him in the beginning when one of my favorite networking groups started touting his financial seminar from the podium every meeting and not mine. He was Oz, the Great and Powerful, and I was Dorothy, the Small and Meek. Was my vision too small, I wondered? Should I be doing what he’s doing? (I hate it when I should on myself.) But I got over it. Some people would rather come to me and sit with 12 people in a living room for 8 weeks than go to a hotel and sit with 1200 people for 3 days. Some will prefer personal attention over mob psychology. I will always find “My People”. Harv will always find his. You will always find yours. There’s no such thing as competition.

Listen, my hat’s off to Harv. You go, Harv! (Hand clapping, fee stomping, whistles!) He’s figured out a great program and a way to sell it that is gangbusters. I believe he’s helping a lot of people with his programs, too—I know some of them. I think you should go buy his book and go to his free seminar, if only to see these kinds of sales techniques in action. And tell him I sent you—my ambassador code is 108029. I’ll get a commission, by gum! Harv is a master of the big picture seminar business, like Tony Robbins and Werner Erhard before him. Hey, if you want that big picture, go ahead and get it. Have 48 or 4,800 employees. Get 25,000 emails a day. Train thousands of people. If that’s what you want, if that’s what Zillionaire means to you, then go for it! It’s your movie and you can write the script that way if you want.

For me, I’m rather more in alignment with comedian Steven Wright, who said, “Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy. Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.” The Big Blockbuster Movie isn’t my movie. I am too aware of the big price one pays for the big picture. T. Harv Eker names it in his book:

“Are you willing to work sixteen hours a day? Rich people are. Are you willing to work seven days a week and give up most of your weekends? Rich people are. Are you willing to sacrifice seeing your family, your friends, and give up your recreations and hobbies? Rich people are.”

No, non, nein, no, no. Nope. Not me. Not willing to pay. If you want the big goal, good for you. Be my guest. Go read one of the big boys’ books. But make sure you take a good squint at the price tag for that life, too. The big vision doesn’t come cheap. Sign me up for the Small Independent Film, the smaller vision, a smaller goal, and a smaller price, thanks. I don’t have ten workshops, I just have one. One workshop that works is all I need. I say what the price is and that’s the price all the time for everybody. I purposefully did not create a business. I created a job for myself.

The downside is that when you just create a job for yourself, it is totally dependent on you and without you it ceases to exist. So I think about Harv’s model and my model. And when Michelle Anton calls me up and says, “The next level for you, Chellie, is to train other people to lead your workshops. Here’s your $2 million plan: You do two trainings a year with 100 people, at $10,000 a person.” I listen. That game plan would shift my focus from training individuals to training trainers. I can still work on a scale small enough to suit my skills and my needs and yet increase the reach of my work through others. (Note: I cooked that idea on the back burner and then started training Financial Stress Reduction® Coaches in 2008.

Every time I examine my business and whether or not to expand, I filter everything through my goal within the goal: I want to be small and happy and rich. I want a life full of fun, hobbies, family and friends every day that I’m alive. I want to have dinner with my buddies. I want to play poker. I want to go to the movies with my 85-year-old daddy while he’s still here with us. I want to help plan the baby shower for my niece. I want to be happy every day. I want a business that I run, not one that runs me. I want work that gets me to a life, not work that is my life.

$200,000-300,000 a year sounds just ducky to me. If that sounds good to you, you’re in luck—I have the program for that.

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Article Tags: earn coach, financial, financial stress, money



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