I have another simple but powerful concept I want to share with you today.
It’s something that I’ve taught for a long time. You may have heard me talk about it before. But since it’s such an important time-saving, speed-enhancing concept, and because it ties back into Tuesday’s letter about needing resources versus being resourceful as you’ll see in just a minute, I thought it would be great to share this concept one more time.
This is about information and how you learn. I’m not talking about how you absorb and process information – whether your a visual, or auditory, or kinesthetic learner. I’m talking about information and when you learn it.
You see, there’s an important distinction. It’s called “just in time” information and “just in case” information.
This distinction deals specifically with the type of information you go out in search of. Whether that information is immediately useful to you, or whether you’re just looking to amass knowledge.
When it comes to doing deep, intensive research, you should only be looking for information that relates to moving forward to the very next step you need to take in your business.
Spoiled Milk and A Sure Sign of Resource Dependency
“Just in case” information and learning is a clear sign of a dependency on resources. While “just in time” learning demonstrates your resourcefulness.
Too many people buy courses; buy products; get interested in topics for “just in case” reasons. They do this based on the belief that when they need it, they’ll have it. The problem with that belief and behavior, is that information is kind of like milk.
It tends to go bad over time.
So if you’re doing a lot of “just in case” research right now on let’s say, pay-per-click, everything you learn could change in an instant with the addition of one new feature by Google a month from now. That makes all the work you did pointless. And all the time you invested would be wasted.
You really need to approach information gathering, studying and learning as it relates to your business, in a “just in time” way.
My coaching programs, the Founders Club and BGS are sometimes considered to be “just in case” programs. But the reality is, they’re not. In fact, they’re sort of the consummate “just in time” learning because they are the essential elements to grow a successful business.
When you look at something that you might be buying or might be studying, the first question to ask yourself is “am I doing this because it’s just in case I’ll need it later” or “am I doing this because I need this to move forward right now.”
This is one of the key aspects of being strategic in your business. It allows you to do less while getting more. Of focusing on only the things that are absolutely necessary.
I think now you can see how these concepts integrate into what we talked about in the last post. Being resourceful leads you to search for the information that would be helping you solve specific issues, specific challenges, specific obstacles to getting to your goals.
If it’s something that’s being promoted right now and you’re thinking that well, I might buy that now because I’ll have it later – that’s just in case.
Putting the Car Before the Driving Lessons
Here’s an example. A while back I got a couple of questions about a content platform that was being launched. I didn’t really know whether it was a good platform or not. I could assume it would be a good platform. But it didn’t really matter. Because the questions I got were asking me if they should buy it now even though they didn’t have a customer acquisition process, they didn’t have a front-end product, etc.
My only thought was “Why would you even think about buying a content delivery platform right now when you don’t have the fundamental parts of your business in place? Delivering content is not really your problem right now. Getting customers is. And if that’s your problem, then you shouldn’t even be thinking about making an investment in anything for delivering content.”
Would you spend $50,000 on a car before you even knew how to drive?
So that’s the lesson for today. Whenever you’re thinking about spending time or money on any kind of information or product. ask yourself “am I getting this information from a just in time perspective or a just in case perspective.”
Focus on the just in time for a couple weeks and see how much faster you’ll start making progress.