the 3 phase success framework, proven strategy for business growth

Summary

ideas are cheap. execution is everything. and mastery is what most entrepreneurs never get to because they keep chasing new ideas. that’s the gap.

the 3-phase success framework I run every project through:

1. fast execution. ship the idea fast and ugly. that’s how you find out if it has any signal at all. most ideas die here, and that’s the point. you killed it cheap.

2. high standards. once an idea survives execution, you raise the standard. better hook, better delivery, better positioning, better follow-through. this is where most people quit because the work gets boring. that’s the wrong instinct. boring is where the compounding happens.

3. mastery. repeated execution to ever-higher standards over time. years, not weeks. I was a strength and conditioning coach long before I was good at it. mastery is what gave me a business. the idea didn’t.

when I was a strength coach, the idea was obvious. the mastery took a decade. that’s the gap most people will not close.

this framework works at the macro level (the whole business) and the micro level (a single piece of content). diagnose which phase you’re stuck in, then go fix it.

Transcript

why ideas alone don’t matter

I really don’t care what your ideas are. If you can’t execute quickly and you’re not actually very good at what you do, you’re not going to make it very far. So today, let’s talk about a simple framework that’ll help you move through succeeding a little bit faster. Now this framework works in the big picture.

If you are not succeeding as an entrepreneur, meaning you’re not making the impact that you’d want or you’re not making the income that you’d want, it’ll help you move through it big picture. But also, at a smaller level, if there’s some strategy you’re trying to implement and you’re not succeeding there, it’ll help you go through success more quickly in that level as well.

how execution builds momentum

Maybe you’re trying to produce more short form content or you’re trying to dial in your email newsletter and you’re not quite seeing the results that you want. This is a simple framework you can follow for just about anything. So when I first started as an entrepreneur, I had a lot of ideas. And like most entrepreneurs, you probably have a lot of ideas.

But your ideas don’t really matter that much. It’s actually very novice entrepreneurs who think that the idea is everything. The idea is not everything. You actually have to get good at what you do and then you also have to have some vision. And we’re gonna talk about all these things, but the idea is not everything.

And when I first started as a strength and conditioning coach, I had a lot of great ideas. And I could even execute quickly. But I wasn’t actually very good at what I did. So I had to go get good at what I did and what I do for the customers, the end user, before I ever started to see success. And people are skipping that step like crazy today.

I know I tried to and it just does not work. So let’s talk about how this all fits together. So first, you can have the great idea. And the great idea needs fast execution. Okay, so the quicker you can execute on an idea, the better it’s gonna be. And what that gives you is momentum. And two things, entrepreneurs need momentum.

why fast implementation > waiting

We need enthusiasm. We need something that keeps us going. So when you have that good idea, you need to execute quickly, not just for the momentum. Momentum is incredibly important and will keep you going. The other thing it does is it helps you find out and weed out the bad ideas. Sometimes when you’re sitting around, you’re like, oh, that’s a good idea.

Once I execute that idea, I’m gonna nail it. It’s gonna be awesome. But chances are, it won’t actually be that awesome. It’s not gonna be the secret, that’s for sure, but it might move the needle a little bit. So you need to go ahead, execute that idea, and then move on to the next one. And then you get another idea, execute it quickly, and move on to the next one, so on and so forth, so you can actually start to move your business forward.

So if you’re sitting around on ideas without the fast execution, you need to speed up that process as much as you can. One, to weed out the ideas, and two, for that momentum, that psychological momentum we really and truly need as entrepreneurs to move forward. Now eventually, that momentum will fade, it always does.

using vision to sustain you

The excitement is not there anymore. So we have this great idea, and then we get to the execution part, and the work isn’t all that fun. Maybe you’re just the person who likes to have the idea, and you don’t like the details. Well, maybe at some point in your business, you can just be the idea person, but until then, you have to execute.

And what keeps you going once the momentum fades is going to be a vision. And I’m a firm believer that if you have a great idea with an incredibly high standard, that is good enough to get started with a vision. So you have this great idea, and you have the vision for what it could look like, or you have these high standards of what it could look like for someone, your product, your service, how this could really help, how this could really impact the world or your market, that’s vision.

Sometimes people talk about vision as this big, broad thing, like we have to know every intricate detail of the vision. That’s not always the case. Sometimes you just need to have the great idea and set some really high standards on that idea, and that’s good enough of a vision to move forward. So if you’re starting a new coaching program, and you have this great idea for how you want to implement it, how you want to coach people, now you go set the standards of what will a person get?

execution + standards = mastery

What results can they expect? How will this transform them? And you set all those as standards, not the arbitrary, well, we’ll see how it goes. Now you’re starting to build vision, and vision keeps you going once momentum fades. So once that momentum fades, now you’re looking to the vision. You’re like, okay, I’m in the weeds now.

I’m executing quickly. I’m doing the work. I’m not as excited anymore. You need to now rely on the vision of what this could be, either how big it could be, how much money it could make, how much impact it could make, whatever keeps you going, but the vision is going to get you there. It’s gonna keep you going after that momentum fades.

But now let’s talk about how execution and standards relate to one another. So if you’re good at fast execution, and you have high standards, and you can go through that loop, what we call that is mastery. Mastery. Most people don’t even think about that word anymore when it comes to their profession.

But mastery is very important. It’s not the only thing that you want. Some people think, oh, I just need to master my craft, and that’s all I need. I just need to be really good at what I do. And that’s not true. I’m sorry. Yes, you need to be good at what you do, but it’s not what’s going to scale a business.

why mastery requires repetition

It really isn’t. Because you could be fast execution to a high standard, to a high level, and you’re just really good at a job. I mean, that’s how some senior level positions in multiple different companies, I mean, they’re just really good at their job. They can execute very quickly and to a high standard, so they have a really good profession.

But, so that’s why you need everything else as an entrepreneur, like the ideas, the vision, the momentum, all of these things. But ultimately, here’s the deal with mastery. It’s not just, okay, I’m gonna execute quickly to a high standard. That’s not really possible. Just think about a golf swing. You can’t just, like, I can’t just hand you a club and be like, okay, I need you to implement everything I’ve coached you on.

I’m not a golf coach, but I need you to implement everything I’ve coached you on, and you need to do it perfectly. So you’re executing everything I just taught you, and you’re going to do it to a very high standard, and now the ball should come off the club perfectly, right? That’s not how it works.

It takes reps. It takes a lot of frickin’ reps, and we can move away from golf and move to any other example in entrepreneurship. You have to go through that fast execution to a high standard over and over again, and it’s really more like fast execution to some sort of standard, fast execution to a higher standard, higher and higher and higher.

business coaches without experience (a warning)

You have to go through that loop probably 10,000 times before you’ve actually mastered your craft, and this is where I see entrepreneurs just aren’t doing it anymore. Like, I ran businesses in scaled companies for over a decade before I ever started to coach someone else in business. I never felt like I had earned the right to coach someone else or consult someone else before I had seen success doing other things.

All these online coaches who are just online business coaches who’ve never actually ran a successful business are kind of funny, right? Like, and I don’t mind them. We can flood the marketplace with them. They’re not gonna last very long because they’re not very good at what they do. They’re not gonna get people results, and so it’s just this mastery that’s missing in most elements here, and now we can talk about this in any kind of strategy you’re trying to implement.

Again, big picture, but we can go small picture if you’re trying a new content strategy, and you’re like, hmm, this is a great idea. Okay, I know what this could be. I’ve got the vision. I’ve got the standards, and now you have to go through that execution to a high standard over and over again before it gets better and better and refined and more refined.

applying the framework to micro strategies

Then you go through that process. Now you’re starting to go down the road of mastery, and the unfortunate news I have for you is that it can take years to develop mastery, but if you think about it, a good idea executed to a high standard is hard to beat, so a good idea executed quickly to a high standard, that’s incredibly hard to beat, and that’s what’s going to help you be successful.

If you can take your good idea and you execute so you get the momentum, and then once the momentum fades, you’re relying on the standards of the great idea and what this could actually be, and now you have the vision, and you’re executing quickly to this high standard, you are absolutely going to become a master of your craft if you do this enough times.

So if you can do all of these things, you have the great idea, you have the fast execution, you have the high standards, you’re gonna have the momentum, the mastery, and the vision needed to actually be successful. Now I know this is kind of a philosophical or bigger idea framework for you, but sometimes we’re getting stuck somewhere in here.

how to use the success loop to move faster

Sometimes we’re stuck in the idea phase and we’re not executing fast enough, or maybe we’re executing a great idea, but we don’t really have very good standards, or the product’s not very good and people aren’t coming back, so we’re not getting repeat customers. And maybe we just aren’t focused on the mastery element of what we’re trying to do.

We’re not executing quickly to a high standard, so we’re never really getting better at what we’re trying to accomplish. But if you can look at all of these areas and notice where you’re deficient and start to correct, you will be moving faster and faster down this success loop and you will see more progress.

You just have to implement faster. Do it, do it now.