How to Use the Bottleneck Breakthrough Method to Grow Your Business – In Just 7 Minutes with Josh Long

Check out episode
  • Determine why achieving success is scarier than fear of failure for most business owners
  • Learn how to clear your path if you are plateauing or getting burned out for trying to do so much for your business
  • Learn about the Bottleneck Breakthrough Method and the importance of figuring out and identifying your time-suck activities that hinder your business growth

Resources/Links:

Summary
Ready to unlock growth that lasts?

Your business and bottlenecks are unique. There’s no 1-size-fits-all solution that will work to help you blast past your current revenue ceiling and make it a thing of the past.

Josh Long is the author of Business Bottleneck Breakthrough and has been helping business owners unlock bottleneck, overcome revenue plateaus, reduce risk, and experience rapid growth.

Since 2008 when he worked with Chet Holmes to help launch his consulting agency. He quickly became the marketing director of Business Breakthroughs International with Chet and Tony Robbins and has since worked with other thought leaders like Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Perry Marshall, and Keith Krance.

In this episode, Josh shares how he helps B2B business owners hone in on the critical leverage point and bottleneck in their business that needs the most attention and improvement.

Check out these episode highlights:

  • 01:56 – Josh’s ideal client: “My ideal client is typically B2B business owners that are somewhere between one and 10 million, and they’re trying to grow and they don’t know how. And they’re open to getting help to grow past that point.”
  • 02:14 – Problem Josh helps solve: “So, the problem I solve is I help them figure out what is the one major thing holding them back at their current revenue plateau?”
  • 03:10 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Josh “So, the reality is, they’re running out of time. They’re running out of confidence. And they’re highly frustrated that things are stuck.”
  • 05:40 – What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Josh and his solution?: “They buy a lot of software that they think is going to solve their problems. The reality is, and when people say, “Well, what’s your favorite CRM, or what’s your favorite email program?” And my answer is always the same, “It’s the one that gets used.” They’re all good. They’re all the same. They’re all effective. Yes, we can split hairs that some are better than others, but the one that gets used is the best one.”
  • 06:38 – Josh’s Valuable Free Action(VFA): “Log what you’re spending your time on to figure out where the time suck is, where the inefficiency, where the friction point is, in your business that’s consuming all of your attention.”
  • 06:49 – Josh’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Join Bottleneck Breakthrough Method Facebook Group: Join now: http://www.bbg.li/fb
  • 07:58 – Q: Why don’t more business owners figure this stuff out on their own? A: I think ignorance is not bliss. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have enough training for small businesses in America on how to actually grow them. We have a lot of hype in media in Cinderella stories that are unreplicable. And I think the reality is, if you’re a small business owner listening to this, most small business owners really don’t want to grow and it causes a stretch of growth internally to actually grow their company.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Log what you're spending your time on to figure out where the time suck is, where the inefficiency, where the friction point is, in your business that's consuming all of your attention.'” -@joshualong Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland: 0:09
Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland, joined today by Josh Long. Josh, good day, sir, a very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Josh Long: 0:19
Sitting here on the big island of Hawaii.

Tom Poland: 0:21
Hawaii. From Hawaii to Castaways Beach, we cover the whole globe.

Tom Poland: 0:26
For those of you who don’t know Josh, I was referred by a client of his most excellent book, Bottleneck Breakthrough: How to find and fix your number one business challenge to unlock sustainable growth fast. Also did the assessment on Josh’s website which is a must and was gob smacked I got a personal response. Pretty, pretty impressive. So, I thought, hell, what the heck, we’ll reach out and see if Josh would be good enough to appear on that little show here, which he does. Because he has.

Tom Poland: 0:54
For those of you who don’t know Josh, he’s the author, as I said, of Business Bottleneck Breakthrough. He’s been helping business owners unlock sustainable growth since 2008, so as the time I’m recording some 12 years, when he worked with Chet Holmes, is one of the world’s greatest marketers and business minds ever, to help launch his consultancy agency. If Chet Holmes hires you, you are absolutely blue-chip gold plated.

Tom Poland: 1:19
He quickly became the marketing director of Business Breakthroughs International with Chet and Tony Robbins in their partnership. He since worked with other key thought leaders in marketing such as Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Perry Marshall, Keith trance. Omg. This is a who’s who of some of the world’s best business minds and marketing experts. So, Josh, a real privilege to have you on a little show here. The title today is, “How to Use the Bottleneck Breakthrough Method to Grow Your Business.” You’re going to tell us how to do that in just seven minutes.

Josh Long: 1:47
Solve all your problems.

Tom Poland: 1:49
That’s it and in only seven minutes. So, our time starts now. Question number one is, who is your ideal client?

Josh Long: 1:56

My ideal client is typically B2B business owners that are somewhere between one and 10 million, and they’re trying to grow and they don’t know-how. And they’re open to getting help to grow past that point.

Tom Poland: 2:10
So, question number two then, what’s the problem to solve?

Josh Long: 2:14

Yeah. So, the problem I solve is I help them figure out what is the one major thing holding them back at their current revenue plateau.

Because businesses get stuck, predictable revenue plateaus. And I give it on page six in the book called the Bottleneck Matrix. And they are so consistent, I could read your mail about it. And nobody talks about this. I’ve never met anybody out there ever, ever, ever to talk about this.

Tom Poland: 2:41
Oh my god, there’s too much, but I just love the way you make it so simple in the book. And yeah, the matrix and the way it’s all, looks like its hand-drawn, etc., but it’s so damn true. Vision mindset, strategy marketing, management systems, you’re going to have a bottleneck somewhere there.

Tom Poland: 2:55
So, question number three, and we’ve got just under six minutes left, what are some of the typical symptoms that people experience with this bottleneck issue? And I guess there are going to be many and varied, but big picture level, what are some of the big ones? How does someone know they’ve got this problem?

Josh Long: 3:10

Yeah. So, the reality is, they’re running out of time. They’re running out of confidence. And they’re highly frustrated that things are stuck.

They’re putting out fires every day. And so, I just did a series for my Facebook group, but we can talk about that later. But what I outline that is not in the book is, just to make it really, really simple, I called it the bottom like hierarchy. You know, like Maslow’s hierarchy that there are these tiers that you move up as a business matures. The first is getting clients, you can’t get a client if you don’t have a business. Fulfilling clients.

Josh Long: 3:42
Once you can get clients and fulfill clients, then the fires show up and you usually are walking around with fire extinguisher in both hands, operating as a fireman or a firewoman every day. That is the bottleneck in and of itself. Organization, right? Leadership, management, things that most small business owners think are four-letter words, because they equate those to the bureaucracy they came out of. Slot of the government, departments, so the huge companies that they hate working with. But that’s how you move up.

Josh Long: 4:10

And so, the reality is, if your revenue is stagnating, if you’re frustrated if you’re spending a lot of time going around the same thing over and over, there’s a critical bottleneck that’s holding you back.

Tom Poland: 4:23
And that’s the thing that you identify and you get your clients focused on so they can get to the next level of growth. It’s so true.

Josh Long: 4:30
Yeah, because at the end of the day, without the certainty of knowing what to fix, we get distracted by the latest and loudest. Most entrepreneurs are quickstarts using a Colby term. We like the novelty of new things, but we don’t have certainty that what we’re working on is actually going to work so the new latest shiny over here is a distraction.

Tom Poland: 4:47
Yeah, yeah. Well, people who start working on job descriptions just might not be the problem at all.

Josh Long: 4:52
Exactly. They hear something that’s enlightened or is just new, or whatever.

Tom Poland: 4:56
Agile will solve all their problems. Let’s do that. Yeah. But it might not help with the bottleneck.

Josh Long: 5:00
Well, waterfall, storable, so we have to be agile. They can ban, right? Like all these buzzwords and by then, yeah, all of these things are useful. And none of these are bad on their own, it’s just the context.

Tom Poland: 5:01
So, the prescription without diagnosis is malpractice. And that’s one of the first things you find out where the issue is.

Tom Poland: 5:19
So, question number four, three and a half minutes left, when people have experienced some of these bottlenecks, they’re going to try stuff, we’ve mentioned a couple that they might try, but they often make mistakes until they find you and your solution. So, what are some of the typical mistakes that your clients make before they find your solution?

Josh Long: 5:40
Yeah. There are two real big ones. They buy a lot of software that they think is going to solve their problems. The reality is, and when people say, “Well, what’s your favorite CRM, or what’s your favorite email program?” And my answer is always the same, “It’s the one that gets used.” They’re all good. They’re all the same. They’re all effective. Yes, we can split hairs that some are better than others, but the one that gets used is the best one.

Josh Long: 6:06

So, they spend a lot of money on software. And then, I hate speaking against the industry of guys that I work with, but they spend a lot of money on masterminds that are ill-equipped to help them at their current stage.

Tom Poland: 6:21
Yup. Okay. So that’s pretty cool information, worth knowing, going to save a lot of pain for a lot of people. Question number five, we got just over two minutes left, what’s one valuable free action that someone listening this could take? It’s not going to solve the whole problem but it’s going to take them a step in the right direction.

Josh Long: 6:38
Yeah. Just literally take the last week of headaches and write down, I know this feels counterintuitive, “I don’t have time to write down what I’m doing.” Really log what you’re spending your time on to figure out where the time suck is, where the inefficiency, where the friction point is, in your business that’s consuming all of your attention.

Tom Poland: 7:00
Oh, what a good idea. So simple.

Josh Long: 7:02
Dan Kennedy said it best, that if I wake up more than two days in a row thinking about you and you’re not my wife, you have to go. So that’s an employee, a vendor, a problem, something. If you’re waking up stressed about the same thing over and over, it’s likely a bottleneck.

Tom Poland: 7:15
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, Dan, good on you. So, question number six, one minute 15 seconds left, one free resource that we could direct people to that’s going to help them further. A landing page of some sort, a homepage?

Josh Long: 7:28
Yeah. Bottleneck Breakthrough Method Facebook group, free content galore. I’m sharing more than you’ll ever get in a $10,000 program.

Tom Poland: 7:37
Fantastic. So, go to Facebook, search for groups. What was the name of the group?

Josh Long: 7:41
Bottleneck Breakthrough Method.

Tom Poland: 7:43
Yep. And we’ve also got a landing page, we’ll fill posts as well, bbg.li/fb. I guess that takes them to the same place. Thank you, sir. Lots of resources there. 45 seconds left. Last question, what’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t? And the answer, please.

Josh Long: 7:58
Yeah. So that question

I think is, why don’t more business owners want to tackle, or why don’t more business owners figure this stuff out on their own?

And I think it’s twofold. I think ignorance is not bliss. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have enough training for small businesses in America on how to actually grow them. We have a lot of hype in media in Cinderella stories that are un replicable.

Josh Long 8:23
And I think the reality is, if you’re a small business owner listening to this, most small business owners really don’t want to grow and it causes a stretch of growth internally to actually grow their company.

Tom Poland: 8:35
Interesting. Josh Long, thank you so much for your time.

Josh Long: 8:38
My pleasure, Tom, this is fun.

Tom Poland: 8:40
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.

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