The world of business has changed. Unfortunately, the worlds of most business owners have not.

- Brad Sugars -

Remember the saying “Do as I say, not as I do”?

Well, that’s the way of the traditional establishment. Rather it should be just “Do as I do.”

These days, however, the speed of business have left many owners behind.

One of the reasons I started ActionCOACH years ago was I realized early on the business world was moving faster than many owners’ ability to respond.

Most owners need to build profits, but they don’t have time to sit through an academic course in the theory of profit-making. They need a set of strategies they can use right now to build their bottom-line.

That said, many owners still live in the business “dark ages.”

So how have we — and the mindset of many owners — get to this point?

Well, it’s a mindset based on the old days. The real old days. Let me explain.

In feudal times, the leader of each clan was, to put it bluntly, the biggest and strongest person around. Why? Simply because the biggest and strongest was able to physically make their point heard to anyone who might consider mounting a challenge.

Things didn’t change much in those days and any one leader could rule for a lifetime.

Business was also very simple then, as the stability of the leader and the unchanging nature of the times meant everyone knew their place in life. Most people were content just to keep on producing over their very short life spans.

That was until the spear was invented.

Now, technology began to have an impact on the group. The most proficient spear-user became the potential new leader. Then the bow and arrow came along, followed by body armor. This development necessitated the invention of an even more sophisticated weapon – the gun.

The most effective user of this new technology (the bow and arrow, the gun, etc.) could now quite easily become the new leader.

As more and more inventions came to pass (and more and more products hit the marketplace) how to best stay in business and stay in charge began to tax the minds of the leaders.

Here’s where it all gets interesting …

The leaders realized one very important fact: If they were to stay on as leader, they needed to “think hard” rather than “work hard.”

You see, if the leader was the smartest, as well as the biggest, person around, something truly extraordinary happened. The leader enrolled the inventors, those who knew things the leader didn’t, as employees.

The leaders now made sure these spears were only made for them, and the guns were only made for them.

As a result, another amazing thing happened.

The leader taught each employee to be a Master Specialist. He then encouraged his Master Specialists (nowadays known as Master Craftsmen) to take on apprentices, so they could teach other people to specialize in the same skills.

These apprentices learned by closely watching what the Master Specialist did and how he did it. The Master Specialist became the apprentice’s mentor, and this system has worked very well through the centuries.

In fact, it’s still the way apprentices learn their trades today.

But the problem crept in when society moved from being predominantly agrarian-based to one that was largely industrial-based. The leaders, or white-collar workers, turned away from the mentor system towards a more academic system of learning. The motto here was do as you’re told, with the emphasis being on repeating, parrot-fashion, as much as possible. Schools were built to teach people from early in life how to be good, how to do as they were told, how to fit into society and how to get a good job (as a Specialist).

The mentor system had long-since gone out the window. The lessons of history had all but been forgotten.

Luckily, all this seems set to change as more and more business people the world over are realizing the advantages of watching and following the example of successful businesses.

They are re-discovering the mentor system, and they are learning that if one system works for one business, it should work for others.

They are also seeing for themselves that they don’t have to blunder around in the dark trying to reinvent the wheel – all they need to do is find a successful mentor and learn by example.

So how do you find other successful businesses to emulate? How do you discover who has a winning formula? After all, business people are notorious for playing their cards close to their chests. It’s a competitive business they’re in and it’s often a case of the survival of the fittest.

You can’t just walk into the office of a prosperous-looking company and ask the owner if you can go through their accounts or take a look at their marketing and business plan.

That’s where this website comes in. Here, you can read about the experiences of real business people and how they’ve overcome some of their most challenging issues. These case studies are their own accounts, written largely in their own words.

See for yourself how they’ve turned the seemingly impossible into the easily achievable. Marvel at how they’ve transformed struggling businesses that were nothing more than millstones around their necks into thriving entities that are now the envy of many.

And, best of all, you’ll begin to understand that if you learn from their experiences, your business can also flourish beyond your wildest dreams.

So let’s get going and visit some businesses that have done just that. We’ll start with Tim Roberts’ business, The Club Shoppe, based in Australia.