Know The Value of Your Work And How To Start Your Profit Generating Engine

A business is like a giant ship and the engine is the profit generating center of that ship.

If you engine is not running your ship is not going anywhere, much like a business that is not making profits. You need a profit generating engine to move your business forward.

A long time ago. Many small business owners pooled their money together to buy a giant ship. For many months they had been preparing it for a long journey, with plans to fill the ship with many affluent passengers, charging exorbitant fees for passage across the mass blue ocean, making them hefty profits.

They filled all the fuel tanks, fresh water tanks, stocked up tons of food, cleaning and painting the ship, hiring staff to attend to all the passengers, getting everything ready for the journey.

Finally they were ready to leave and the giant ship's engine failed. The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine. For months the ship just sat there not able to go anywhere, costing the owners tons of money and lost opportunity costs.

So they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was very young. All the experts that couldn't fix the engine said he was the best and many of them had been mentored by him. He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived he immediately went right to work.?

He inspected the engine very carefully, from top to bottom. Asking the staff members and all present many questions.

Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, fearfully hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over very thoroughly, inspecting everything and asking many questions, finally the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer.?He gently tapped something on the side of the engine and instantly, zoom, the engine lurched to life. He carefully put his hammer away and headed out the door.

The engine was fixed! Everyone was ecstatic, they couldn't believe it was running again!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for $100,000.

"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!" As most people would say when they get a bill like this, I can't believe he would charge us this much...

So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please, send us an itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer.......................?$? ? ? 20.00

Knowing where to tap.......................... $ 99,980.00

Effort is important, many people work very hard in there business, but knowing exactly where to make an effort in your business can make all the difference in the world.

Knowledge is power, they say. I would add to that, expert experience is invaluable. If you don't know how to fix your business engine, maybe you need an expert.

Now there is a two fold message here. First of all, if your business is stuck and your profit engine is not running have you considered talking to an expert? Second, obviously the old man new the value of his experience. He had been in the business of ships for at least 50 years and he knew exactly how much profits the owners were losing by the ship just sitting there and the cost they were inuring during that time period.

This is valuable information you should know before setting a price for your expert services, you see he would not have charged a small boat the same cost of a major operation with many more moving parts and staff members, he probably wouldn't of even had time to work on a small boat as he was requested all over the world to repair unfix-able engine problems of giant ships.

If you are an expert, find the value of your experience, the value of the service you provide and charge accordingly, weighing all the information and complexity of the problems you fix before determining a cost. Also considering, just like when the owners found the old man, without his help the ships engine may have never started again, generating the business owners zero profits.

One part of this equation that I did not mention earlier is, how much the owners were losing from the ship just sitting there, you see this was a giant ship that held nearly 10,000 passengers and they were going to charge a $1000 or more per person ticket cost. The test voyage, was an exclusive high end business mastermind trip with many business influences and billion dollar CEO's already booked to be onboard.

There were many other trips planned after the maiden voyage. So the monetary value alone equates to $10,000,000.00 per trip and plans to make 4-6 trips a year, not even counting for the lost business and networking value that would come from a trip like this...

Now that you know the true value the owners were losing by the ship just sitting there, not to count the staff and all the preparation costs, do you think the old man was charging to much for his service and expert knowledge?

What would the value of the large ship be without an operating engine, much like a business

that can't generate any profits for several years, it is going nowhere and ultimately is more of a liability than an asset.

If you are not generating any profits in your business do not throw in the towel, this is not meant to discourage you. You may get your profit generating engine started today!

There is also a much deeper message here, you see the ships owners were not down below in the engine room trying to fix the engine, constantly working hour after hour to get it started.

No, they knew their role as the owners. Now maybe they tried to fix it at first, to no avail, but quickly realized they were not trained in the mechanics of the ship and this was not where their strengths or knowledge lied. So they quickly pivoted their focused to the search for an expert that could fix their engine, even though many tried and failed they continued their search until they found the right expert who really understood how their engine worked and with one little tap, their engine fired right up ready to start generating profits!

So in closing I say to you, if your profit engine won't start I suggest you go find an expert that knows where to tap...