How to 10X Your Business, Income, and Life

May
9, 2019

7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This is a guest post by Steve Costello, head of membership and co-founder of The Oracles, a mastermind group composed of the world’s leading entrepreneurs.

Grant Cardone is a top sales expert who’s built an $800 million real estate empire and teaches the 10X principles that led to his own success at the 10X Growth Conference, an event that brings together some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs to share their top strategies for massive growth in business and in life.

But Cardone doesn’t just preach the concept of 10X. He’s not afraid to take the plunge—literally—when it comes to 10Xing everything he touches.

Grant Cardone is the founder of the 10X Growth Conference and best-selling author of “The 10X Rule.”

Image credit: 10X Growth Conference

On the first day of the conference, held in Miami in early February 2019, Cardone literally skydived into a stadium packed with 35,000 attendees.

Over the next three days, the best-selling author and business celebrity shared the stage with an impressive speaker lineup—collectively worth billions—including Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel, social media master Tai Lopez, rapper Snoop Dogg, Shark Tank’s Daymond John, and more.

Here are some of the top lessons I learned at the event about sales, marketing, and execution.

1. Keep your sales simple.

Everyone is in sales, no matter your job or business, Cardone told attendees. And many entrepreneurs and professionals overcomplicate it.

Sales is a contact sport. It’s about finding the person who can buy, who has the power to decide, and who’s interested. Then you approach them with an offer, talk price, and make an ask. It’s really that simple, though not always easy. The most successful salespeople focus on simplifying their sales process.

2. It’s all about the prospect.

Sara Blakely started women’s foundation company Spanx with just $5,000 and grew it into the global brand it is today, making herself a billionaire in the process.

Clearly, she knows a little bit about how to sell.

Her advice to attendees?

Focus relentlessly on the person on the other side of the table. This encompasses everything from what a prospect says to how they say it, to the body language they use.

So, in any pitch, communicate as quickly as possible what’s in it for the other person—and why you can deliver what they want better than anyone else.

“Focus relentlessly on the person on the other side of the table,” advised Spanx founder Sara Blakely.

Image credit: 10X Growth Conference

3. Pressure is a privilege.

Blakely’s husband, Jesse Itzler, also a successful entrepreneur, sold his company Marquis Jet to Berkshire Hathaway/NetJets. He then invested in ZICO coconut water, which he and his partner sold to The Coca-Cola Company. He’s also the best-selling author of “Living with a SEAL,” a book about his experience enlisting Navy SEAL David Goggins as his live-in life coach.

Itzler says that one of the best ways to succeed in sales is by putting more on yourself, not less.

“Pressure is a privilege,” he emphasizes. “It forces you to work faster and better.” Itzler talked about how he once used the principle to train for an ultramarathon in 90 days—an accomplishment that for many takes at least a year.

For instance, if your sales quota is 20, double it. Then figure it out. You’ll be surprised by what happens. Pressure has a strange habit of turning coal into diamonds—and it’s one of the best gifts you can give yourself if you want to sell more.

Entrepreneur Jesse Itzler said that putting pressure on yourself “forces you to work faster and better.”

Image credit: 10X Growth Conference

4. Your biggest problem is you.

To crush your goals, Itzler said, you need to crush your fear of embarrassment. Self-imposed limitation is the No. 1 thing holding back entrepreneurs and salespeople.

Often, people think they need more experience before they can tackle big goals or take their businesses to the next level. Experience is overrated, Itzler told the crowd. He needed no prior experience to start any of the successful businesses he sold.

Blakely echoed this, pointing out that we often sabotage ourselves because we’re too self-conscious. She recommended entrepreneurs ask themselves a simple question:

“Do you feel you deserve to be successful?” Your answer should give you a gauge of just how much you might be holding yourself back.

5. Money follows attention.

Who knows you is more important than who you know, Grant Cardone told the crowd on the second day of the event.

In fact, money follows attention. Your parents taught you never to talk to strangers, but strangers have everything you want. Learn how to get, keep, and multiply their attention, and expect to get rich, Cardone said.

Cardone advised that it’s impossible to spend too much on marketing and advertising because you can solve almost any business problem with attention. Cardone himself spends $1 million a month on ads alone; and he showed the crowd how his income rose in correlation with his ad spend, topping $55 million a month in 2018.

However, too many people don’t invest in marketing because they’re trained not to, their goals are too small, or they don’t know how to convert marketing into sales.

Don’t be one of them.

6. You’re probably making digital marketing mistakes.

Not investing enough in marketing is a cardinal sin, but even when you do invest, you can make some serious mistakes.

Tai Lopez is an investor, partner, or advisor to over 20 multimillion-dollar businesses—and he has a social media following in the millions across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. In the process, he’s seen exactly what works in digital marketing and what doesn’t.

In a talk to 10X Growth Conference attendees, Lopez analyzed individual and company websites and dished out some tough love. Entrepreneurs and businesses, he said, are making basic mistakes when it comes to digital marketing.

These include not putting all the best content “above the fold” of your website—meaning it’s immediately visible. Websites, he said, should also be fast; so make sure you speed test.

He recommended you add a video to your site explaining why someone should work with you. The more complex your products, the longer the video should be.

7. Work on yourself daily.

To 10X your life and business, Cardone said, you are required to work on your life every day. That means demanding you and your team improve daily through skills training.

Once you have a target for yourself or your employees, then you must insist on reaching it. If the target seems too high, raise your energy. Never lower the target. Target attainment is the one thing that will make you happy.

Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel said that most people don’t work hard, are entitled, and complain and worry about what everyone else is doing. Simply work hard and be better than the person next to you.

Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel reminded the audience of the importance of working hard.

Image credit: 10X Growth Conference

Most people also have the wrong types of role models. Pick role models based on where you’re going and where your role models are in their current cycle.

For instance, Steve Jobs said money wasn’t important, but he was already wealthy at the time he said it. When he was starting out, his priorities were different. Choosing him as a role model when you’re starting out may not serve your goal to grow a business.

The lesson? Choose your role models wisely based on what you’re trying to attain.

Then don’t stop until you get it done.

That’s the 10X way.

Get the official recording of the 10X Growth Conference 3 here or register to attend the next 10X Growth Conference here.