"The 10X Rule" By Grant Cardone - Book Review

The 10X Rule was recommended by one of my book club friends. I thoroughly enjoyed the audible version of the book and I thought of sharing my learning here. The premise of the book revolve around how do you get 10X growth results and what are the differences between an average vs high performance sales approach. The author Grant Cardone shares his personal journey coming from humble beginnings and goes on to build a billion dollar real estate company by taking massive action, making commitments first and following up with perseverance.

"10X Rule -Massive action with a goal to dominate the sector is the right target. "

Grant emphasizes the importance of why 10Xers work to dominate and not compete. That is exactly what sets them apart. They focus on creating an unfair advantage breaking tradition with unconventional thinking and unlimited creativity. When the competition retracts, you expand and you do things that the competition just won't do.

My Learning from the book -

• Create Universal Desire: 10Xers create universal desire for products and services and become omnipresent with massive actions. This is what Ford motors, COX, Disney, Visa, Google, Facebook, American Express, Amazon, Xerox as companies and Mohammed Ali, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Warren buffet as individual did. There name became omni-present and interchangeable with their offerings. Helping one person is just not enough good enough.

Dominate your sector. Burst through obscurity. Do so relentlessly with a higher purpose.

• Make big commitments & Take risks: Make a big splash. Be unreasonable. Be dangerous. Working at 10x levels does mean putting yourself in high risk situations. Have monster goals. Don't be the one who fight for scraps. Creativity follows Commitment. Small business succeed because the "passionate" commit and persevere. Not over analyzing is big strength. Don’t reduce your goals or get derailed with details. Take the action. People who make it big know that it take massive action over a long period of time to reach to 10X levels of success.

Make Selling = My name.

• Customer Acquisition top business priority: Customer satisfaction is not the right target. Increasing customers is the right target. Instead of thinking of customer satisfaction think why did you lose a customer. By doing so, you will get far more strategic input. Also, you are doing your customers a disservice by not acquiring new customers. Low new customer acquisition means your services and products are not experiencing step change. You cannot get to 10X levels without getting to masses.

10X Rule: Customer Acquisition is top priority then Customer satisfaction. Most get this sequence wrong.

• Keep the fire burning - Maintaining high levels of enthusiasm and energy is tough in the face of reality. Push yourself in back up. Continue to add wood to your fire by continuous massive outreach. Forget the past. People are so caught up in negativity and past that they forget to create future. Go after 10x goals, thinking, rules and action; This is not about intelligence, economics and who know you, it’s about massive actions. So create a fire so big that it is impossible to ignore.

In world of average thinking, exceptional unconventional people who take massive action win!

• When in Fear, Take Action: In moment of fear, take action. Failure comes in many forms which include actions and non actions. Countless individuals take no actions for useless reasons. Take fear is a sign to do whatever you fear and do it quickly as fast as possible. Plunge even if you think you are not prepared. Taking massive action will prepare you to mobilize teams to deliver and while taking bigger market share. 
• Invest Time in Non Buyer Surveys - Survey the people who you were not able to acquire. Exits survey from non-buyers will give you way more strategic inputs to introduce step change than existing customers. This is a must have for bringing revolutionary evolution to your offerings. Ask why and where there was a break down. Companies fail because they stop improving customer's businesses.

Step changes in services and products comes from seeking feedback from people who didn't buy your service! 

• Get rid of excuses: Excuse is something which motivates a lack of action. It is a revision of fact that why one didn’t take responsibility. Bad Excuses include - I don’t have money, I have kids, I'm married, I'm single, I'm not ..... Cross all of these out. It is your duty, responsibility and obligations not to make any excuses. Nothing happens to you. You happen to something. Ask some who has achieved extraordinary levels of success, how they did it. They will never say work less. They know it took massive work to achieve what they have today. Excuses are so plentiful and hence are useless. Anything rare is valuable. Massive action is rare and hence is valuable.

If its to be, it is up to me!

• Communicate in a problem solving manner: Successful people know problem solving is challenge. Bigger the problem, bigger the opportunity. Prospect right in term of challenges. Every challenge means fuel for success. Success begets success. Successful people persists regardless to those who make the list.  

Memorable quotes from the book -

Go from best practice to only practices. "Only" something you would do.

1. "It takes courage, commitment to make money at 10X levels."
2. "Obscurity is your biggest problem. No one knows you."
3. "You are underestimating what it takes to get noticed." 
4. "The more people you help the better placed you are." 
5. "Competition will raise your visibility as you start dominating the space."  
6. "Average is the enemy of abundance."
7. "Over exposure is better than obscurity."
8. "Squeeze fear by taking time out of the equation." 
9. "If you are not experiencing fear, you are not doing enough."
10. "What is the best way to get revenge is massive success."
11. "Motivation is inside job."
12. "Expand time by squeezing every second to get more from your time."

Story from the Book - Grant shares that early days of running a campaign for his services, his insights sales member asked "People are unsubscribing as we sending these post. Should we reduce our frequency?". His immediate reply back was to double the outreach. The hypothesis is that if people are criticizing your services, they are still noticing you. Obscurity is the biggest problem one has to deal with to get to 10X levels. In 10X Sales campaigns, First you annoy people by reaching out. Then they criticize you for going over aboard. Then they start admiring you for persistence. Then become your customer!

Obscurity is your biggest problem. It takes massive action & unlimited creativity to get noticed.

Story from the Book - In another story, we hear about how Grant's able to secure a Television series by taking massive action. Mid-stream in his career, he gets a call from a renowned production team that they were looking for someone like him to host a sales TV show. Grant immediately share high willingness to participate and asks where the show was being produced. The callers say "New York". Grant says "Oh, I was coming to New York next week. It will be great if I can meet your producer." Next Grant doesn't wait for the team to call back. He calls the top producer in a couple days himself and shares what a great fit he will be for the part and by the way between now and then he also has lined up a few sponsors for the series and will be in New York and would like to meet. He gets the meeting with the producer and the show!

10X Success requires committing first, followed by creating an environment where working together on a problem is just meant to be !

Hope you enjoyed the review.