What type of family were you brought up in? Did your parents have an abundance mindset or were they always tight on cash?
Were things mostly seen in a positive light or was the glass half empty?
Certainly, the part of the world I grew up in played a big part in establishing the mindset of my parents and myself about life.
I grew up looking at the glass half empty, and if something did come good from a situation, it was to be thankful for it, but never expect anything good.
The common mindset among many, which I continue to see in the next generation, is that things like money are scarce and every last penny is a prisoner.
This thinking and scarcity mindset is something many, including myself, grew up with and is reflected in all types of things in life and in business.
When I first started selling managed IT services, my mindset tuned finally into this scarcity mindset; the reception was crystal clear.
A lack of leads was a big pain point I had in running the business, which in part was due to the scarcity mindset, but it bled into other areas of my business.
For example, when I finally did get a meeting with a prospect, and it was time to quote, my thinking about the value and price of the services I offered would skew the profit I made and the prices I quoted for all manner of IT services, hardware and project work.
Only now, 45 years from my inception, am I learning that what you think plays a very big part in how you see the world.
That thinking is learnt and, like a bad habit, is hard to break for new ways of thinking.
The goal of my business is to transform the way MSPs grow their business as such a big factor at work in helping others achieve a steady flow of leads and book appointments in the calendar.
The scarcity/abundance mindset comes into play here, and I will demonstrate to you that your thinking about the lack of leads and low volume in your sales pipeline is, in fact, due to the way you might have learnt from those who influenced you in your past and present.
The Story of Aluminium
A writer, Pliny the Elder, from the year 23 AD, tells the story from his four-volume encyclopaedia about a goldsmith who brought a dinner plate to the court of an Emperor. The plate was amazing,. It was made of a new metal that was light and looked like silver.
The emperor was one of Rome’s great generals who had amassed a stash of gold and silver. He was not a financial expert, but he thought his savings would take a significant hit if this new metal rarer than gold, became popular. Therefore, the emperor had the goldsmith beheaded!
Aluminium’s rarity is due to its chemical interactions with the earth. It’s actually the third most abundant element in the earth’s crust – the issue is how to extract it from the other chemicals it interacts with.
By 1886 an industrial method of extraction using electrolysis made the metal cheap to produce, now aluminium is used everywhere in our daily life from the beer you may partake in to the cars we drive.
No more beheadings required!
This is just one of many stories that history teaches of things that were once rare and are now common in our everyday life.
Scarcity is often contextual.
The Orange Tree
Imagine a giant orange tree that is ripe and ready to pick fruit. You can get all the oranges you want from the lower part of the tree but then you can’t reach any more of the oranges higher up.
Effectively I have no more accessible fruit.
But what if someone comes along and shows you a process and apparatus for picking all the oranges off the tree?
In this case a ladder.
What once was scarce is now abundant.
Change your position to receive.
In both these stories making a change to the environment led to an abundant source. In both cases the scarcity that something was perceived to have played big parts in how people people lead their life. Even to this day we see scarcity played out in regions of the world from lack of water to oil rich countries savaged by war.
Scarcity is life and death and, in many cases, especially in business this need not be the case. The only requirement is that you’re thinking and a process within your business needs to change.
As such I would love to show you the apparatus you need to change your business and receive an abundant source of leads in your IT business.
Download the abundance checklist to start your journey.
Scott Millar
Scott has over 15 years in the MSP sector, both working in and running an IT business. Passionate about online marketing, he's dedicated to helping fellow MSPs clinch top search engine positions. Through IT Rockstars, Scott provides proven strategies to ensure a steady flow of warm digital marketing leads.