664 – Break free of inertia: Tom interviews Bill Prater

Episode 664 – Bill Prater
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom with episode 664 of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Bill Prater and he is the host of the Supercharging Biz Success Podcast, and I had the great pleasure being on there. He doesn't take as long as I do. Man, we just blew through some great tips there. And and you want to check that out now. Hope you didn't miss episode 663. That's one of my a couple hundred training sessions. This one is on Chrome extensions and how they really help you do a lot of things that you couldn't do easily and it's totally free, all these things. And I want to thank everybody that's been we just started a Patreon account with all the proceeds. Of course, less the patron fees going to my scholarship program for persons with disabilities. So thank you for that. And anybody that doesn't know about it. Check it out at screw the commute comp, Patreon Patreon. And like I said, all the money will go towards scholarships for persons with disabilities. It's nothing. None of it's for me. All right, let's see make sure you get a copy of our automation e-book. Just one of the tips in this book has saved me. We actually estimated about 8 million keystrokes and probably carpal tunnel syndrome. So. So make sure you do this, because I want you working with prospects and and clients and developing products and services and not fighting with your computer. And this book will teach you how to do it. We and this isn't a three page report. This is like a 60 page book of all the processes I use to be lightning fast in taking care of people.

[00:02:02] All right, so grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. Put it on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:02:19] All right. Let's get to the main event. Bill Prater is here and he's the founder and CEO of Business Mastery and he's the creator of Scaleology. Very cool name. Now, Bill earned his reputation as America's business alchemist and by helping business owners and entrepreneurs break free of inertia and accelerate into the future they dream of now, he loves nothing better than sharing what he's learned by working with those who are dissatisfied with the status quo. And he's eager to, and they're eager to transform themselves in their businesses. And before I continue with this, this guy works in billions. So we're going to have to actually pull them back down to us. Pitiful country bumpkins here that only work in millennials so well. Yeah, he's raised more than a billion bucks for businesses. That's amazing. Amazing. And he created scale ology and the business mastery system as the core foundational principles of dynamic and continuous business growth. And a typical client of his sees their company rising to a position of preeminence. And and they're not satisfied with just getting to the next level. So, Bill, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:03:41] I'm ready to screw the commute, Tommy.

[00:03:43] Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thanks so much. So what I want to know is how did it seems to me when IBM gets a hold of somebody, they never let him go. They just they just stick him in a cubicle the rest of their life. How did you bust out of that that deal when you got recruited by IBM?

[00:04:01] So, yeah. So that would fit into exactly what your show is all about, actually. So yeah, I was a fast track guy at IBM and when I was a systems engineer, then a sales guy, then I was in sales training and then I was in management. I did all of that within seven years. Yikes. And and what I discovered was when I was on the front line as a as a sales rep, particularly, and I was very successful. And when people referred to me, they would say Bill Prater did this or that or the other thing. And then when I became management, I morphed into Palo Alto, did such and such. Yeah. So that's a typical corporate environment, Tom, as you know, the you know, they're all oriented around various internal buzzwords. And in the case of IBM, it was where the branch. Officers were located, which if you think about it, it did allow people to figure out what was going on where. Whereas an individual contributor, I had a chance to have my name known by people. So I started feeling at that point in time that that career path was not really for me. So I asked for the keys to the door and left after actually eight years with IBM.

[00:05:35] Yeah, yeah. My, my favorite. Well, you know, like I said, they took all the credit for your hard work, so. Yeah, my, my favorite saying about corporate stuff is your friends will stab you in the chest instead of stabbing you in the back. And I tell people, coming out of corporate work, they're worried. You know, they want to be an entrepreneur. I tell them they're worried about, you know, the camaraderie and stuff. I said, Just buy yourself a water cooler and stick it in your house and then go over and gossip to yourself. And then there's the corporate.

[00:06:05] There you go. Beautiful.

[00:06:08] Now, you made the statement that superheroes are bad for business. Can you explain what that means? And also about the Invisible Wall?

[00:06:19] So superhero. Well, first off, I'm not against superheroes. I'm a fan of superheroes. But what I meant by that, Tom's referring to a TED Talk. I did a while back about why superheroes are bad for business. And what I mean is entrepreneurs get in their heads that they're supposed to be the do all and end all and cure all for their businesses. And candidly, if you're a solopreneur, you are in that position of having to do it all. But what happens is often as businesses grow and and they start to add some employees and staff and management and so forth, the inclination of the owner is all too often for her to feel like she's got to jump in and do things. And really having that attitude of of putting on the robe or the cape or whatever is detrimental to the growth of of the business, for sure. The I like to say to people that if you're really genuinely going to be the owner and not the operator, all you really need to do is three things and that is one is to dream up and communicate your vision. Number two, to, to, to establish the culture and live the culture. And number three, intercept entropy when it shows up.

[00:07:51] Oh, you got to tell us what that means. We're like I said, we're country bumpkins here.

[00:07:55] I knew you were going to say that, and you're going to say that. So, so, so entropy, which many people frankly, don't know what it means. It's it's a term in physics, which basically means left alone, everything turns to crap.

[00:08:15] I get that.

[00:08:16] Yeah. And you can actually see that in real life. So just envision you'll see a shopping center or a big box store or something that's been closed down for whatever reason. And so people are not using the parking lot. And after a very short period of time, certainly within a year, you'll see weeds and cracks all over the parking lot. That's called entropy.

[00:08:39] Got it? Got it. Yeah. Or people smoking weed outside the building. So now what about this invisible wall?

[00:08:50] So that is that we all have a wall or a barrier or a limit or something physically there that is always holding us back. And I use the word invisible because very it's very rare when somebody is aware that that is in front of them. That is what's in fact holding them back because it's normally an internal construct of some sort or another, a limit, a limiter. That's what I mean by an invisible wall.

[00:09:24] Got it. Yeah, it's it's not the glass ceiling because everybody kind of knows that's there. But but this is it sneaks up on you, you know, because it's invisible. Then you just because.

[00:09:35] It's invisible.

[00:09:36] You wallow and you don't get the growth that you've that you help people do because you're just putting out fires every day instead of doing the things it takes to grow. So how did you come up with the name scale ology? Cool name.

[00:09:51] Thank you. Thank you. So. Well, I think this actually speaks to the whole notion of developing authority on some topic. And most of most of our listeners right now probably have a very high level of very highly developed skill that other people want them around to be able to deliver. That includes people that are employees for somebody else. They're there because they can deliver. They can deliver results in some space. Solopreneurs will have some sort of skill that that they either are or hope to sell to people. And I had that too. And I felt and as I've since proven that I needed to have some construct to what I did, so I sat down and created a I just kind of listed what do I do when I actually engage with one of my clients. And I felt that it was it was all sort of instinctive that I could see what was happening and I would then be able to help them as a consultant break through the their invisible wall and then start dynamically growing. But what I discovered, though, is what I needed to do, Tom, is I really needed to sit down and chart out or diagram the process that I went through. A friend of mine said to me, Even though you don't know it, Bill, you do have a process, you have a pattern of some sort. So I developed that pattern and after I get done with doing that, this same guy actually said, Bill, you need to have a name that means this thing. And it's better to have a name instead of saying something like Bill's process, Right? Come up with something else. And and his business happened to be called leads ology. He helped people sales leads. I don't know if you know him. Tom Poland.

[00:11:58] I've heard of him, but I don't know.

[00:12:00] Yeah. Yeah. So. Tom Poland. So Tom said to me, Hey, come up with a name, sort of like mine. And so I got on Google and started thinking about various names and knew that what I helped people do is, is double triple ten x their business, i.e., scale it. So scale ology came out of that. Then I had another client of mine actually who had trademarked the word Y. Registered trademark. He's got Y circle R, if you will, registered trademark. And so I figured if he can register the word y, I should be able to register the word scale ology. So he introduced me to the to the woman that helped him get that registered trademark. And so I got that done, too. So step one, figure out the process. Step two, come up with a certain number of steps. In my case, it was it was three, three steps or stages, and then third come up with a name and then fourth optionally trade market or get a registered trademark for it. So that's where that name came from. And it represents the model that I use, which the three components of which are one envisioned pillars to your business, three pillars. One is, is having a growth strategy or simply a strategy. And number two is to have a system or a method of management. And number three is to leverage high performance teams. Now, when I talk about teams, sometimes people get hung up because they think, well, I'm a sole, I'm a sole business owner. I don't have a team. Well, actually you do. You have you have many people that are willing to be on your team and form alliances with you and so forth. You can have a a virtual assistant, for example. You can get vendors and suppliers to partner with you. All of those people I call team. So a strategy, a system and a team.

[00:14:16] All right. So yeah, my next question was going to be about a kind of a combo of hitting that invisible wall and trying to be a super hero. I wanted to get your opinion on outsourcing to to help with this growth. You just named a virtual assistant. That's technically an outsource.

[00:14:33] Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So and that's another philosophical things that I help to help people with. A lot of people. Tom are what I'll call resource constrained. In other words, they'll say, I can't do this or that because I don't have enough money, or I can't have a podcast because I don't have a good enough microphone or I can't I can't hire an employees because I don't have enough work for them to do. All those kinds of things are resources. So I tell people they've got that backwards. So what you need to do is you need to have a creative game plan about what you want to do, and once you've got the game plan together, then you go get the resources. And the reason that I say that is most people think that you've got to buy resources. If you if you want a CRM system, you have to buy somebody's software. If you want to get somebody to help you with marketing, you've got to hire a marketing agency. Tom, you and I know this totally well. There are. A limitless number of people who would be who are extremely delighted to help you totally for free. Witness Tom, I'm on your podcast. You were on mine, right? We didn't have any compensation changed hands. We were just doing our damnedest to help out a friend. So outsourcing is, is part of that. And a virtual assistant does cost money. However, there are many people who will do many of the things a virtual assistant will do for zero because they want the education or they they just want to support your business, or they want to prove to you that they're worth hiring one day, etc.. So outsourcing in general is a very broad thing. And I used the term, in fact, I've got a course on it. It's called beg, borrow or steal. So beg, borrow, steal the resources you need before you think about buying them.

[00:16:56] Yeah. And I think I have been preaching a primitive form of that to employees and friends of mine. When I hear them say, I can't afford this or I can't afford something, I say, No, no, do not think of it that way. I said, Think about what you have to do to afford it, and that's it kind of switches it and yours is much more detailed than mine was, but it was kind of a mindset, you know, quit thinking I can't and think about what do I need to do, which is kind of a plan, I guess, that in your work.

[00:17:29] Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. A good tool along the same lines is I'll use this with people and they'll say, I don't have enough money to do this or that and the other thing. And I'll say to them, well, if you had to come up with if you had to come up with, let's say the price of 5000, if you had to come up with 5000 right now, what would you do? Almost everybody has an answer to that. Yeah, well, I'd sell. I'd sell that junker car of mine or I'd. I get on the phone and close a piece of coaching business with such and such. Alright, alright, alright, alright. I call it in simple terms, what's the fastest path to the cash?

[00:18:13] Say, I would say I'd become a gigolo, but people would laugh at me because nobody would ever hire.

[00:18:18] Well, that's that's why you that's why you only do an audio because you know anybody is.

[00:18:24] That's so. So I think this is kind of a spin off of a quote that I heard you say. I think I have it right. It's not what you don't have. It's what you think you need. You said that I believe.

[00:18:38] And yeah.

[00:18:39] Go into it.

[00:18:40] Well, it's pretty it is a spinoff of of the same thing. And I think the topic we're in now is is is a very interesting one because many people most people, I think. You have been programmed from birth, if you will, to always be in action, to take action to do something about this and that and the other thing. And that results a lot in doing a lot of work that's not very productive. Waste time, wrong ideas, big or more investments of time and money and energy. So really, if you can if we can spend the time to determine what absolutely is needed. In fact, I use the term vital. What's vital for your success in this matter? Vital to me would be a heart or a brain, whereas not vital nice to have not vital would be, for example, your left leg. Now, most people would prefer to have a left leg, but it isn't vital from you. And I know many people who have serious injuries and perform at extremely high levels. Yeah.

[00:19:59] That's for sure. So we've got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we're going to ask how a typical day looks like for you. And we'd like to know a little bit about Bill's gifts. He has gifts to to proffer. So we'll come back here and ask Bill what his days looks like as a super entrepreneur. And he's got a big gift for you. So, folks, about 25 years ago, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head, and the people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to teach what they knew. And I knew a lot of these people, you give them 50 grand up front, you'd never see him again. So I said, That's too risky. I'm going to turn this on its head and and charge an entry fee, but I'm going to tie my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you had to net 200 grand. Well, people kind of like this. And all these years later and 1700 plus students later, it's still going strong. It's the longest running, most unique, most successful Internet and digital marketing program ever. And I triple dog dare people to put their program up against mine. And nobody will do it because they're embarrassed about it. Because I'm a crazy fanatic. I built this massive retreat center in Virginia Beach where you spend an immersion weekend here with me.

[00:21:25] We have our own TV studio where we shoot your marketing videos. Everything is one on one. So you're not lumped in with people more experienced or less experienced. And so we can really dig in and get you some great progress and you get a scholarship to my school. It's the only licensed, dedicated digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And you can even gift that to somebody if you want to save them from wasting their money at the crazy indoctrination for your colleges nowadays. So. So they'll actually have a skill and not get an MBA and be working at Starbucks. Just a crazy powerful program. No pressure. If you want to talk about it and see what the details are, but check out greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. And I'm very accessible because I use all those automation techniques. I have time to talk to you. How about that? So check it out.

[00:22:17] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We've got Bill Prater here. He is just a prolific guy, creator of scaleology and the business mastery system of his. So, Bill, what's a typical day look like for you to get up early? Do you meditate? Do you have a morning routine? What do you eat? What's the deal?

[00:22:35] Yes to all of that. So I'm in Arizona. We don't have daylight savings time. So right now I'm on Pacific Time, but typically I'm in Mountain Time Zone. But I usually wake up at a quarter to five. I don't use an alarm. I just wake up at a quarter to five, get up, spend a half an hour of exercising, stretching, primarily go off and play a game with some buddies at 6 a.m. The game's called pickleball.

[00:23:10] Oh yeah, it's going crazy pickleball.

[00:23:13] Yeah, it's a very, very popular game. Yeah, they're quick. They're quick games in an hour. I'm usually there for an hour to 75 minutes and I and I usually get 6 to 8 games in. Wow. And then, and then off I go back up, have my breakfast, I have breakfast every day. Typically it's a protein drink or something similar. And then I'm I'm kind of then I get at it. So routine was. I do this every day, actually, multiple times a day. And that is that I'm always oriented towards one of my philosophies, which I call focus on the vital few and ignore the trivial. Many focus on the vital few and ignore the trivial many. And so I go through a routine to to determine what my vital few are for the next day. And the limit to that is five. But typically I have one or two vital things to do. And then I will execute on those 2 to 5 things. And what would the result of that is? I get 3 to 5, maybe ten times more done in a day than a typical person does using that routine time now. But by things done, I don't mean number of things done. Tom, you and I are business guys. So I measure results in revenue and profit. So I focus on 3 to 5 things that produce the most revenue and or profit for me and for my clients on a daily basis. That's my day. So my day.

[00:25:04] Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I just want to see if something major comes up that disrupts that. How do you adjust it?

[00:25:13] It always does. Yeah, it always does. And so the question is this is this major thing that came up more vital than anything on my list. If the answer is yes, then I'll deal with it. Most of the time, though, it is not more vital. And I'll. Delegate it to the vital few. The vital few pile. That's it. Now what? I use that filter all the time. Is what I have now been exposed to more vital than what's on my what I'm currently working on. If the answer is yes, then occasionally it is. Then I will deal with. Otherwise I stay. I stick with the my vital few for the day.

[00:26:01] Got it. Got it. So you have something really powerful to give our folks, right?

[00:26:08] Well, yeah. And in fact, in fact, without me knowing, you actually ask the question which teed up the free gift. So I just told you how I spend my my day. So what I what I've got is a 15 minute, by the way, I believe, totally in speed and ease. By that I mean, I want things done fast and with as little possible effort I can possibly come up with. So speed needs. So I get a 15 minute workshop. I use the term workshop because the the participants in the workshop will leave the workshop with two tools that they can implement immediately and two tools that I find nobody ever, ever puts in the toolbox. They use them for the rest of their lives. So it's the name of the workshop is How to get a full day's results in one hour and in 15 minutes you'll know how to do it. You'll get two tools which will enable you to do it from this point forward. And you can get your hands on that gift by going to getbillsgift.com, and you'll get your hands on that free gift.

[00:27:34] Beautiful, beautiful, get bills. Gifs.com of course, that will be in the shownotes folks. And tell them about your podcast real quick.

[00:27:42] So the podcast is supercharging business success. And I'm a little a little less than 300 episodes.

[00:27:52] Oh, you're a baby. You're a baby.

[00:27:54] You're wet behind the ears listening to you. I'm thinking, Yeah. And and it it speaks to what we talked about earlier, and that is outsourcing. So I've built my business. It's it's been around since 1999. Tom is right. I've produced billions of dollars in revenue, cash flow and business value. As a consultant. I'm more of a consultant, a coach. What I mean by that is people ask me to mentor them, if you will, versus telling them what to do. I actually I actually get in, get involved in their businesses and help them out. And the podcast is where I talk to subject matter experts from all over the planet who are in a position to provide tactical solutions to my client base. And so what I do in a very short period of time, ask them who their ideal client is, what problem it is that they solve for them, and what they would suggest our listeners do immediately. And then they all hand out a free gift, which is a tactical solution in their area of expertise.

[00:29:08] And he did in 7 minutes. I wasn't even warmed up yet.

[00:29:12] 7 minutes. 7 minutes.

[00:29:16] Oh, wow. Well, yeah, it was it was great. So that's supercharging business success. I think sometimes it's abbreviated QB's, so. Right.

[00:29:27] Yes. Yes.

[00:29:27] Yep. Yep. That's better than the kind of BS I speak a lot of time. So. So thanks so much, Bill, for coming on.

[00:29:35] You're very welcome, Tom.

[00:29:36] Yeah. This guy can really help you kick it into another gear that you didn't even know existed. So make sure you go over to getBillsgift.com for that 15 minute workshop that'll show you how to make. What is it? What was it?

[00:29:52] In one hour old days? It will enable you to produce a full day's results. I told you, I measured results in revenue and profits. Full days Results in one hour.

[00:30:05] Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, thanks so much, Bill. And everybody get over there to getbillsgift.com and we will catch you all in the next episode. See you later.