The Real Reason I Hate Computers

I've been talking about what successful people do in the last several articles. Now, I want to share with you two very important key factors in their success.

First, let me start with my favorite… keeping control!

We are finding that highly successful people are doing a better and better job of blending new technology with keeping control. Now there's a lot of businesses and a lot of people who get trapped, being controlled by the technology and that's why many of us often sound anti-computer, for example. But the truth is the reason that I don't like a computer is because I can't get it to cringe.

You know the staff's out of the room now so I can say that. Most of the staff people, even though they are family, it only takes me about five or six minutes to totally intimidate them but that machine just sits there and blinks and I emotionally don't like that. But beyond that we are very, very careful and very, very picky about technology controlling us or are we controlling the technology?

You know one of things I find when people get computers is they begin to use them for more than they ever intended to use it for just because it has the capability to do it. The Xerox folks are constantly in our office saying, ?You know you're not using this system to its fullest capability.? I say, ?I know, I know. We're not ready yet to use that capability.? We start doing that now we are going to lose control of what's going on like you guys. That's why when we call you we can't get service because you have plugged so much into your system that nobody knows who we are.

But the successful people have faced the fact that they have to use technology. We talk about Federal Express you see that system couldn't exist without highly sophisticated technology. One of the reasons they are so successful is they can track their packages. Within minutes they can tell you where any package is in their system ? millions and millions and millions of packages a day and they can tell you where that thing is within minutes but that's technology and that's technology properly managed. And so we have to do a good job.

You know I say I'm semi-computer illiterate and I am. I used to be completely computer illiterate and probably some of you in the room are completely computer illiterate and are technology illiterate. Those times are gone. You're going to have to get with that in order to keep pace but control it not let it control you. And successful people and successful companies are able to do that.

The 2nd key factor in what successful people are getting better and better at is the organizer function ? being a great organizer of resources of people, of time, of money, of energy. Organization is so much more important today for a number of reasons:

First of all there's the costs of doing business today ? you may have noticed this has sky rocketed and they are continuing to go up. It costs twice as much to mail a letter as it did just a couple of years ago. Costs a lot more to make a personal sales call than it did five years ago. It costs a lot more to put out a brochure. It costs a lot more to hire staff people. The wage level in this country, in case you didn't know it there's a formula for calculating wage levels in real household income, which I won't bore you with but real household income has outpaced inflation. Those are people in sort of middle level jobs and us entrepreneurs have to run and build empires have to hire and have to have around us. They're doing better than ever economically and that means that the cost of doing business is higher than ever.

You know Domino's Pizza ? Tom Monahan told me he said, ?You know we could have 9,000 units instead of 3,000 units just as easily. The only thing stopping us is we can't get anybody to work to deliver the pizzas.? And they pay a premium in some market areas to people to deliver a pizza.

But look at what that has to do with cost of doing business in that business. And so it is more important than ever before to really be organized in your use of all your resources and your time and your money because you can't afford to waste anymore. You can't afford the slump. A little bit of waste will kill you. Margins are tighter than they have ever been so that's one reason that it is very important. The second reason it is very important is because if anything, what we do in our functions as motivators of people, you and I, whether you have yourself to motivate, one person around you, a small staff or a big staff that's tougher than ever before too. Why? Because it's so easy to apparently do well doing so little.

Take for example the psychology that existed with the first round of great industrial and business empires that were built in this country ? what was the psychology of the people who worked in those empires? The psychology of the people who worked in those empires was the American work ethic. I do the job LED Hut specialists in dimmable LED bulbs well no matter what ? that existed. The psychology existed that it was a sin, it was a sign of weakness, of poor character to lose a job. The psychology was to stay in one job; one career with one company for a lifetime wasn't it? See those psychological factors don't exist in today's marketplace.

For those reasons and others there are more demands than ever on your time. If you are or as you develop yourself into a leadership position in business you will find that the demands on your time are very pressing so use your time well. You know there are some people for whom a desk is a wastebasket with drawers and there's a problem with that. And many times we joke about that kind of thing and we think that's funny and we say that a clean desk or clean office is the sign of a sick mind.

We see those kind of posters and that's kind of comical and we kid about that but I'll tell you something I defy you to find a highly successful business leader who is not supremely well organized. There aren't too many of them around any more because the demands on their time have forced them to eliminate that waste too. We got to be a little sharper than we ever had to be before.

In the next Amazing Marketing Strategy article, I will share with you my final key component of success.

Dedicated To Your Further Success.