TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur's JourneyThe journal of a web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

Employing the Constant Improvement Model in Business

This is a guest post written by Paul Piotrowski over at InspiredMoneyMaker.com who runs a Blog that focuses on teaching people how to make money doing what they love.

I’ve been a reader of Tyler’s Blog for quite a while now and I always enjoy reading about the many different projects he has on his plate at any one time.  This is probably because Tyler’s brain seems to be wired just like mine in that he can’t help himself but to work on a couple dozen things simultaneously.

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The other thing that has always had me coming back to his Blog is how authentic Tyler is and how he doesn’t seem to give a crap about what people think about him.  If you’ve seen any of Tyler’s videos, you’ll see that it looks like he just grabbed his Flip, turned it on, and away he goes.  Whereas some people might spend 14hours in preparation, worrying about looking perfect on camera, looking for a nice shirt to wear (Editor’s Note: I’m not sure whether to be thankful or offended *smile*), getting an expensive haircut or perhaps in order to avoid the expense yet still look fresh, setting up proper lighting, and making this giant production of it all like they’re going on Oprah, Tyler just acts like himself and radiates an attitude of “This is who I am, if you don’t like it, go away.”  Although this sometimes gets me in trouble with my wife, I’m pretty much the same way.

However, the biggest thing that I see Tyler employing in all his businesses with the help from executive recruiting companies, which I think is a huge part of his success is a business model that focuses on “Constant Improvement” instead of “Perfection”.  The “Constant Improvement” model has been called by many different names over the years, but in it’s basic form it can be boiled down to these simple steps:

1. Know what you want.
2. Do something towards achieving it.
3. Measure your results.
4. Repeat what works.
5. Learn and Adjust from what doesn’t.
6. Go back to Step 1. (Also known as “Rinse and Repeat”)

As simple as this may sound, most people in business don’t follow this formula.  In fact, most people follow one of any number of other formulas which lead to failure.  Here are a few failure formulas:

1. Know what you don’t want.
2. Do anything to distract you from what you don’t want.
3. Realize you’re now too busy to figure out what you do want because you’re so busy “doing stuff”.
4. Realize that doing “stuff” doesn’t really get you anywhere if you don’t know what you want. Have a look at the 5 advantages of using an online booking system
5. Start crying, whining, complaining that you’re not successful in life.
6. Nobody wants to be around you, because all you do is complain and cry all the time.
7. Now you’re even more clear that what you have in your life right now is not what you want.
8. Go back to Step 1 and repeat.

Or here’s another one:

1. Know what you want.
2. Create or change your strategy on how to get it.
3. Analyze strategy.  Is it perfect yet?  Is there any possibility of failure?
4. Realize the strategy is not perfect yet, or might possibly lead to failure, so go back to Step 2.
5. Take action. (This step is never taken)

Or here’s one more:

1. Know what you want.
2. Look at what someone else is already getting.  For example, a Blogger who makes $25k/month.
3. Copy what they do for 3 days.  Write 3 blog posts.
4. Check your bank account.  No $25k in there yet.
5. Cry.  Quit.  Spend the rest of your life complaining that there’s no money to be made online.

As I follow Tyler’s Blog I always see him utilizing the success formula.  Right now he’s trying out PPC Affiliate marketing.  He tries something, measures what works and what doesn’t, applies the changes and keeps on trying.  There is no magic bullet out there that’ll give you success instantly with no possibility of failure and works 100% of the time, so stop waiting for it.

Just go out there and try something.  Start a Blog.  Do PPC Affiliate Marketing.  You can also work with a company registration consultant and start your own business. Whatever it may be that’s inspiring you right now, just go out there and try something.  See if you like how it feels, and then worry about figuring out how to make money from it.
You can also do some research and learn how accomplished CEOs such as Andrew Defrancesco have managed to create a successful business.

I remember when I first wrote my first Blog post on my first Blog back in April 2006.  It took me forever to write it and to put it up live.  This was partly because I was too dumb to use WordPress, and instead I decided to program my own Blogging platform.  Anyways, I was all nervous about publishing my thoughts online but I decided to take the plunge.  I published the first article and then I sat there, waiting for the comments to come rolling in.  Then…. nothing happened. 🙂

That’s when I learned that it’s not just about writing content, but it’s also about building traffic to your Blog as well.  All of a sudden, I realized that this whole “Blogging thing” is a lot of work to actually get things going and to build up some decent traffic.  And I realized that it was going to be a while before I start cashing in those $10,000 paychecks.  However, the whole time while I was writing these articles I was paying attention to one thing – “AM I HAVING FUN?”

I kept asking myself that question.  Am I having fun?  Is this something that I enjoy doing?  And once I realized that this was fun, and I did enjoy doing it, 99% of the battle was over.  Now I just needed to apply the success formula of constant improvement to keep tweaking and changing things in terms of what I do and how I Blog to make money from it.  I never gave up, and 2 years later in March 2008 I was on my fifth Blog, making a whopping $7/month!!!  I know, I know….big money right?

Any sane person would have given up long before that.

However, because I believe and trust in the Constant Improvement formula I just kept tweaking and making little adjustments.  I figured out some things in April and all of a sudden my Blog made $270 that month.  I tweaked it even further and in May I made over $700.  The next month over $1,500, and last month I made just under $3,000 from my Blog.

Here’s the funny thing though… everyone just wants to skip the first part and go straight to the jackpot.  Everyone wants the shortcut.

Here’s the real shortcut in business, according to Robert K Bratt DLA Piper.  Employ the constant improvement formula, but do it quickly.  Do something, measure, adjust, rinse and repeat.  If you want to speed up anything, just speed up how quickly you do things, try things, adjust and repeat, that’s all.  Don’t try to skip anything, just go through it all, learn from your mistakes, but do it quickly.

If you employ the “Constant Improvement” formula in your businesses, the only thing that separates you from success is time.  You’re virtually guaranteed to succeed, as long as you keep learning and adjusting and moving forward, as you can use many tools to manage your business, there are even services in sites like https://www.thepaystubs.com/ that let you manage payrolls of your employees.

One more thing.  As you make these “small” adjustments and tweaks and move forward, remember that things don’t follow a linear Input = Output formula.  If for example you take some water which is at 0 degrees Farenheit and heat it up by just one degree every day, do you know what happens during the first 211 days of heating that water?  Nothing.

Do you know what happens on the 212th day?  The water reaches boiling point, and steam is created… and with steam you can power a locomotive.