One power of leverage is contacts. Knowing the right people, and being known by them, wills open doors for you that will save you years of hard work. The quality and quantity of your contacts and your relationships will have more to do with your success than perhaps any other factor. Knowing one person at the right time and place can change the course of your life.
Here are three things you can do to expand your list of contacts. First, make a list of the 25 people, locally or nationally, you feel it would be most useful for you to get to know. Develop a strategy to meet each one of them over the next 12 months. Then make a list of 25 more.
List the people who head up the major corporations who would be useful for you to know. List the mayor, your congressman, and your senator. List the important people that it would be helpful for you to know and then make a plan to get to meet them.
The second way to expand your contacts is to network at every opportunity. Join your business and trade associations. Attend meetings.
Get involved. Volunteer for service on a key committee. This action alone has cut years off the career path of many people, including myself.
Once when I was giving a presentation for the Chamber of Commerce, I was noticed by a senior executive on one of the key committees. He approached me later and hired me away from the company I was working for at triple the salary. As a result, I jumped ahead in my career by five years. It is very important that you network at very opportunity.
A third way to expand your contacts is to get involved in community service organizations. The best people in every community, the people you should know and who should know you, are usually involved in public service in some way. Start with the United Way in your own city, or get involved in any charity that you care about or that you’re interested in. Get involved with your church or your political party. You‘ll be amazed at the quality of people that you’ll meet doing voluntary work.
The better you are at your job, the more you will be paid. The top 20 percent of salespeople earn as much as ten and fifteen times the average earnings of the bottom 80 percent. The top doctors, mechanics, lawyers, technical specialists and leaders in every field earn vastly more than the average performer.
There are three keys to developing the leverage of skill. First, make a decision to be the best at what you do. Pay any price. Make any sacrifice. Go any distance to become excellent in your field. Second, dedicate yourself to continuous personal and professional improvement. Never allow yourself to become satisfied or complacent at your current level of skill. As Pat Riley, the basketball coach, once said, —If you‘re not getting better, you‘re getting worse!“ And third, always strive to exceed the expectations of your customers, your boss, of the people you serve. Make it a habit to always do more and better than you’re paid for. If you commit yourself to doing more than you‘re paid for, you will always end up being paid more than you‘re getting today.
The type of leverage you can develop is money. Money is powerful source of leverage and usually follows the development of knowledge and skill in your field. You have heard it said that, —It takes money to make money.“ The main reason that it takes money to make money is that your ability to save and accumulate funds is an essential step in the development of the personal qualities and character that you must develop if you sincerely want to achieve financial independence. In other words, you become a person capable of becoming wealthy by disciplining yourself to save the money that is necessary for you to achieve it. As W. Clement Stone wrote, —If you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you.“
Here are three things you can do to develop the leverage of money. First, begin a systematic savings plan, putting away at least ten percent of your gross income every month. Second, pay off your debts, starting with the highest interest debts such as credit cards and finance companies. Aim to live largely debt free aside from your home mortgage. And third, proceed to build up a cash reserve so that you are ready when the opportunity arises. Most people stay broke all their lives because even if a wonderful money making idea comes their way, they have no funds to invest.
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mindset,
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The one type of leverage is knowledge. Specialized knowledge gives you leverage because it makes you worth more, and makes your contribution more valuable. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, experienced sales people, all have practical knowledge that is of value to others. This superior knowledge enables them to get better results faster. As a result, people prefer to use their services and are willing to pay them more. Here are three ways to develop leverage through knowledge.
First, resolve to become an expert in your chosen field. Make a decision today to joint the top ten percent. Set it as a goal, make a plan and work on becoming better every day. Read the best books in your field, take every course and seminar you can find that will help you, even if you have to travel to attend. Listen to audio programs in your car. Become an ongoing —do-it-to-yourself“ project.
Second, specialize in those areas that of greatest importance and value to your company or to your customers. Apply the 80/20 Rule and focus on the 20% of activities in your work that contribute the most value to yourself and to other people. Specialize in excelling at those areas of specialized knowledge that customers care about the most.
Third, know your product or service inside out. Aim to be recognized as the industry expert in your field. Remember the person who has the expert knowledge can make a far more valuable contribution than the person whose knowledge is just average.
