The 100 Lessons from Tony Robbins' Business Mastery

I should have done this ten years earlier. With many friends I attended Tony Robbins' Business Mastery last week at the RAI in Amsterdam. Everything about how to do business, how to deal with challenges, negotiation tips and tricks, mentality, mental strength, and much, much more.

Tony Robbins, let's call him a life coach and motivational speaker, has spent recent years interviewing 50 self-made billionaires in depth, asking them for their magic formulas for successful entrepreneurship. He shared the common threads and lessons in this programme. In this blog I want to share the 100 most important lessons, tips, tricks and tactics from this five-day intensive training with you. Enjoy, learn and pass it on!

1. We are gladiators! After 5 years, 80 percent of companies no longer exist. After 10 years, 96 percent no longer exist. When you start a company, you step into the arena and you are a gladiator! Will you survive, or not?

2. In total, 5% of companies reach a revenue of 1 million or more. Only 0.4% of companies reach 5 million or more. And 0.01% reach 10 million in revenue or more.

3. Develop an exit strategy and keep it ready. Always! You never know what will happen!

4. See your business as an asset. Diversify here too and never bet on one horse.

5. The most flexible one controls the system. The story of two monks, a young monk and an older one. They are not allowed to touch women. They set out for a day and come to a river. Two women are standing there, wanting to cross. They cannot swim. The old monk picks them up and carries them to the other side. They say nothing. Half a day later the young monk asks: "How could you do that?" He has been chewing on it for half a day and is frustrated. "Are you still occupied with that?" the old monk asks. "I let go of it the moment they got off my back. You have been carrying it for half a day now..."

6. Together you get further. Steer your team on numbers and on goals. Not on emotions.

7. Fall in love with your customer. Not with your product.

8. Invest in your business, in your savings account and in shares (index funds for the long term; rarely does anyone beat the market themselves, and if you trade yourself it costs a lot in commission).

9. Improve every part of the funnel by a few percent and you will quickly double your returns.

10. Numbers and measuring are the key to optimisation. Play like Michael Jordan and measure your performance continuously, or go play somewhere else.

11. Cut costs by 10 percent: your profit will quickly double.

12. Love Numbers. Love spreadsheets. They love you. You love them.

13. Be a business owner, not an operator! Set the goals and numbers yourself. Ask the team how they are going to make it happen.

14. Beliefs and limiting beliefs. Use the following three-step rocket in question form to knock down limiting beliefs:

• Question 1. Is that really true? Create doubt.
• Question 2. What would it be like if you did not have that? How would that feel?
• Question 3. What would it be like if the new belief were no longer there? How would that feel?

Then a choice is made. Often the new and better situation. And then it is like "Lighting up like a Christmas tree".

15. Ask the team questions, do not give answers. As a leader you only set goals.

16. Stay in a beautiful state. Solve problems systematically, not ad hoc. Look for the problem in your company's value chain. Everyone is jointly responsible for that value chain and, with it, for the brand.

17. Organise in your company both the duty to ask and the duty to bring information. This applies to everyone.

18. Call! Visit in person! Email and text messages suck as means of communication. And when you do visit, make sure you have a good question and a good story: do not sell nonsense and be well prepared.

19. Create perceived value for your customer. Like a little note on your wife's pillow saying "I love you", that can be of enormous value. Quick and inexpensive to do. Show you care!

20. Always exceed your customers' expectations.

21. Add extreme value, more than anybody else.

22. Not satisfied, money back! Add a money-back guarantee so the risk becomes smaller for the customer.

23. What business are you in: state the benefit straight away.

24. Ask yourself: What is your X factor? Which benefit for the customer makes your company truly unique?

25. Create warmth and connection within your team.

26. Speak with every member of the team at least twice a year.

27. 90 percent of all business in B2B comes from referrals!

28. Generate 20 percent more leads. Optimise the calls, meetings, conversion and prices by 5 to 10 percent and you double your revenue.

29. Talk about world affairs you both agree on. This way you communicate from the same beliefs, which creates rapport and connection.

30. How fast can you change? In a heartbeat!

31. Conversation with a customer: start with lots of energy and end calm. Skip the social start (this is a USA tip). Only do social talk after the first 20 minutes. Indicate that you have at most an hour and that things are very busy. Raise your status. Also let them know they cannot buy right now (for example: the waiting list for new customers, like at Ferrari).

32. Start every change in a beautiful state. Otherwise you make the wrong choices. From a positive state you make the best choices!

33. Raise your standards! Not just you. With your whole team.

34. As a leader, it is about fulfilling the 6 Human Needs and Values of the team and of the customer. The 6 Human Needs are:

• Certainty
• Uncertainty/variety
• Significance
• Connection and love
• Growth
• Contribution and giving back to society

Focusing on the last 2 gives the most fulfilment.

35. Work from the 7 forces. These are:

• An effective business map
• Constant & strategic innovation
• World class marketing
• Sales mastery systems
• Financial & Legal Analysis
• Optimization
• Raving Fans: Customers & Culture

Every week, spend 90 minutes on 1 thing from the 7 forces to optimise together with the team. 7x7 is 42 weeks.

36. Repetition: Are you a business operator right now? Fuck that! Be a business owner!

37. Ask yourself: Who is special. You, or your customer? Your customer, of course! Not you!

38. Everyone is responsible for the company and the brand.

39. Who is your ideal customer? Work and do everything for your ideal customer! Fire the customers you do not want.

40. You are not the business! A business is not fucking you!

41. Organise a strategic referral system for your company. 90 percent of business comes through referrals. It is cheaper, faster, bigger, fun, and it generates new referrals in turn.

42. Want plus 300 percent conversion in B2B? Ask every lead "What triggered you to request something from us?" You will then have a highly relevant conversation.

43. Create more distribution channels. Business geometry. Compounding. Improving small percentages quickly adds up to a doubling in revenue.

44. Constantly commit to make your business the best. If you do not, your competitors will.

45. Travel outside your comfort zone. Force yourself to look beyond your own industry and study other markets for inspiration.

46. Know exactly who in your sales force is the best at what. And then learn from each other.

47. Most teams are only 20 percent productive. So you can get 5 times more out of them.

48. Hire the best or develop people to become the best.

49. Negotiating: prepare (define your checklist) and determine your desired outcome in advance.

50. Negotiating in four steps:

• Keep your goal in mind.
• Look for points of agreement.
• Be Creative.
• Increase the pie.

51. Negotiating: build trust. Be kind. And make sure there is a foundation to carry out the collaboration with trust.

52. Clarify and verify. Always. This applies to everyone in the organisation. In other words, the duty to ask and to bring information at every link in the process.

53. Know that winter is coming! Prepare! And after winter, spring comes again.

54. The biggest opportunities lie in winter! Buy cheaply. Focus on extreme value for the customer.

55. Always keep your focus on the result.

56. It is about execution and about doing!

57. Live in your head and you are dead. Live and work from your heart.

58. Make the important things urgent. Not the urgent things which are not important.

59. Repetition is the mother of all skills.

60. There is no place in great companies for people who dont want to measure.

61. You optimise the funnel with the whole company, including delivery and customer care.

62. 20 percent margin (read: bottom-line profit) is the minimum to be truly healthy as a company.

63. Focus on 1 thing!

64. Sell benefits for the customer. Turn it into an experience you can feel.

65. Know your ideal customer's desires and fears.

66. If you always give 3 options, then double all 3. And make sure you deliver much more value to the customer. Then you have doubled your revenue and your customer is much happier.

67. Make sure at least 15 percent of your (personal) income is saved automatically or that you buy index funds. Preferably 20%.

68. Repetition: Focus on 1 thing for the first 15 to 20 years. After that you can go broader. Concentrate your power!

69. If you want to become a professional speaker, first pick 1 niche. And build from there. For me, for example, it is first: helping clients sell much more via the web. Then NLP, family constellations, meditation, yoga and so on, which I also love.

70. When it is winter (a bad economy), it is summer somewhere in the world. Take advantage of that.

71. Know more about your client than anybody else.

72. Create raving fans: Care in every step!

73. Seek and you will find. Ask the right questions with focus on goals.

74. Business is about innovation and about marketing.

75. Make sure the Gladiator is always in charge. No Matter What Happens.

76. Narrow your marketing! Focus on a specific group (your ideal customers) and do that extremely well!

77. Spend your marketing money on your ideal customers.

78. Proximity is power. Who do you spend the most time with? Where do you work and live? Be near people who do and have what you would also like. Then the chance is greatest that you will get there too.

79. At the age of 50-55, sell 50 percent of your company. Then let a younger generation make it bigger, so that at 65 you can sell the other half for much more, instead of selling the whole company at 65 when its value has already declined considerably.

80. Make sure customers essentially cannot get what you have. That creates hunger. Think of a waiting list, for example.

81. Cut 75 percent of the slides from your presentation. Focus, be relevant and give benefits for the customer.

82. Structure your presentation around the hero's journey. Through these phases, people recognise the phase they are going through themselves. Successes and setbacks.

83. In the first 20 minutes of a conversation, people have by far the most attention.

84. Always remove objections in advance.

85. Why do people not buy?

• Risk
• Friction
• Succes (no certainty for succes)
• Difference between you and anybody else (USPs/competition)

86. The bucket list of happy people:

• Experiences that matter
• Free time
• Mastering skills
• Give back to the world

87. Lesson for the CEO: focus only on output. Numbers. Goals. Let the team grow by being creative in their own path.

88. Teach and train, train again and again.

89. Raving fan Culture: its not only you. It's the whole team.

90. REPETITION: Alongside your business, also invest in shares! Preferably in index funds. Diversify. Do not bet on 1 horse. Not even on your own business. Spread the risk.

91. In times of stress or big challenges: "over" communicate.

92. Structurally plan "silence" into your calendar. To think things through and avoid impulsive choices. This is a tip from Warren Buffett.

93. CANI attitude: Continue And Never Ending Improvements. Keep improving continuously in small steps.

94. Live in a beautiful state. Everyone strives for perfection. And this is usually also your self-image. But is the world perfect? Of course not! If, for example, you hold an image of what a perfect relationship looks like, you are often dealing with a reality that is different. Then you quickly end up in frustration. Your own image and reality do not match. Perfection = imperfection. If you change and accept your self-image, negative emotions and frustrations melt away like snow in the sun. Enjoy the imperfection.

95. Business is a spiritual game. Focus on growth (personal and team) and on giving back to this world (contribution). The result is then not only success but also fulfilment. It is terrible to have success without fulfilment.

96. Moving is one of the fastest ways to get into a positive state. Go for a walk, for example. Together. Or alone.

97. Alongside your own beautiful state, create a beautiful state company culture. Together. A warm environment. Where it is safe. Connection. Where everyone is allowed to be who he or she is. Where everyone knows the world is not perfect.

98. If you do feel frustration, do not explode. Say "Interesting..." and tackle a problem or frustration so systematically that it is solved forever.

99. Living in a beautiful state is a choice. Everyone strives to live in a beautiful state. And to a large extent, of course, we all already do. The question is "how can you live even more in a beautiful state?" So from, say, a score of 8 to an 8.2. What needs to happen for that?

100. In the end, everything comes down to love. Fall in love with your team. Fall in love with your customers. Enjoy the journey. And build a beautiful business.

So that was all of them. I hope you have learned an enormous amount from them. It is absolutely worth going yourself!

Lots of success and enjoy!

Klaas Kroezen

P.s. If you want to know more about me, how I climbed Kilimanjaro with Wim Hof, how I brought Tony Robbins to the Netherlands by naming a tulip after him, and more about the unique Living Dreams company culture, listen to my podcast episode with Thijs Lindhout (in Dutch).