Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of drive time. Unusual for me since the commute is usually about 55 steps from garage side door to office/warehouse to inside Slanty, where I spend the majority of the day.
When you have time behind the wheel or flying in the sky, you have a lot of time to read, think and listen to great continuing education. You have a lot of time to consider what you’re doing, why, and with whom. Most don’t have the luxury of investing that much time into thinking.
One of the books I read during some downtime, Bold, by Peter Diamondis, reminded me of a principle I used to teach a lot and focus on a lot more than of late. It’s the idea of having your Dream Team assembled and ready to work with and for you, on your vision, to help you reach where it is you want to go.
Because, as he said, “You can’t do it alone.” Achieving a high level of success or big, wild, hairy goals can rarely be accomplished in isolation. Proof? Look at any recent success story in the media and what’s not mentioned is the incredible advisory team the person’s created or aligned him or herself with. Do you think our current President, or any before him, got there alone?
When I was heavily involved in real estate, I had an extensive and somewhat complex group I relied on. There were a number of reliable real estate agents to find deals for me, and sell when we were ready. I had a number of appraisers who’d work quickly and knew, after a few times working with me, what I wanted and didn’t. They also learned that I’d actually check their work to make sure they were using appropriate comparable properties. An appraiser I hired once valued a piece of property at $395,000 when it should have been closer to $750,000 because he missed TWO key comparables. I pointed this out to him asking if he’d considered them – his answer, “I didn’t find those in my research.” That was obviously important since I made my decision to buy the property in part based on those two comparables. He re-did his appraisal and it came in above $900,000. That’s a HUGE discrepancy and obviously problematic. And this was a seasoned pro. He’d just made an honest mistake.
On that “Dream Team,” I also had a couple of builders, attorneys (seems as though we can’t escape them) that specialized in land use development, tax law, and contract law, and, I can’t forget the architects, handyman guys, and landscapers.
A Dream Team is a group of individuals aligned with the same goal in mind – helping you achieve your goal. They are loyal. Responsive. Effective. They work in your best interest. And, they understand what it is you are about, how you work and in general, make life and reaching your goals far easier, far faster.
To succeed at a high level, with a Dream Team, you can’t tolerate or permit any mediocrity or deviation of behaviors that are counter-productive to you achieving your goals. You must fire fast and replace quickly. You must understand that all horses, no matter how great right now, will go lame.
It’s the nature of humans.
Your dental office and your immediate employees/staff are an important part of your Dream Team. Beyond your DAs, front office, team leads, hygienists, and perhaps associate dentists or employees, you have a CPA or two, an attorney or two, a business coach, a marketing coach, a life coach (ask Gold Member, Dr. John Busby about those), and maybe even your spouse. Mine is an excellent sounding board. She attempted to save me from myself one time in 2005. I didn’t listen and it cost me a bundle. The final decision is mine to live with, good or bad, but what I’ve noted is her uncanny ability to sniff out problems with her Spidey Sense and keep me out of future troubles.
You should also surround yourself with smarter, wealthier people. If you’re the smartest guy in the room, or the wealthiest, as the saying goes, you’re in the wrong room.
I’ll make one last comment about Diamondis’ that, “you can’t do it alone,” and that’s to make sure you’re honest with yourself and identify where you are weak and align yourself with someone strong in that area to counter-balance your weakness.
There’s nothing wrong with not knowing a particular skill set in business. What is wrong is not admitting it and taking actions to add a counter-balance where you need it.