When most entrepreneurs think of getting paid, they think about money--a cheque, a big contract, a client bringing in a lot of new business.
Here's a thought: If you want to create a much bigger future with exponentially bigger results in certain areas, including your business, there are other ways of getting paid that are actually more valuable than money. By being conscious of this, you can actually make choices and create situations that will increase your income faster and with less effort than you could by focusing on money alone. Though money is a way of keeping score, and it's important to any business, if you just aim for more turnover or profit, you're actually less likely to get it than if you focus on what generates it.
This is because money in itself is not a multiplier--it's a byproduct, albeit an important one. To make it easy to remember what's really growing my company, I've boiled it down to 5 C's that define why I do what I do. After sharing them with other entrepreneurs, I've found that, in some form, they apply to most businesses:
1. Capability
2. Credibility
3. Confidence
4. Connections
5. Creativity
When you're getting paid in these ways for the value you create in the world, you're focusing on the right things--what really creates increasing value for your clientele and what gives you the greatest resources to create increasingly bigger and more satisfying growth opportunities for yourself as an entrepreneur and for your company.
When assessing an opportunity, I look not just at the size of cheque involved, but also--and often more importantly, at the beginning--how it will increase my capability as an entrepreneur and our capability as a company. I consider how it will increase our credibility in the marketplace or with other prospects I'd like to attract, how it will help build my confidence to do even bigger things in the future, what promising new connections with big multipliers it will solidify, and how I will get to expand my creativity to provide even more value to my clientele as a result of this opportunity.
These other ways of getting paid will result in much more growth, both for me and for my company, in the long run. And yet, often, if we're not conscious of them--if we're focused only on the money part of the opportunity--they can be overlooked.
Money itself is not at the heart of why you're doing what you do. It's a tool and a resource you can use, and it's a byproduct of the other ways of getting paid. The 5 C's are about your own personal growth as an entrepreneur and as a human being. So, next time you're weighing the value of an opportunity, ask yourself, "How am I really getting paid?"