The Ten Times Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

Chapter 14
Expand—Never Contract

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As of the writing of this book, our country is still experiencing very serious
economic stress. Unemployment numbers and financial uncertainty are reaching
heights not seen since the Great Depression. During major economic
contractions like these, the world becomes convinced to reduce, save, be careful,
and stay cautious. Although this mind-set focuses on self-preservation and
protection of assets, it is the very kind of thinking that will guarantee you never
get what you want. And although the majority of the world has entered a state of
contraction, small percentages of people and companies are still capitalizing by
expanding. These people understand that these times of tightening are unique
opportunities to take from those who are taking a defensive posture by reducing
spending.
Because contracting is a form of retreating, it violates the concept of the 10X
Rule, which demands that you continue to act, produce, and create in massive
quantities regardless of the situation or circumstances. I will admit that it can be
very difficult and counterintuitive to expand while others are taking protective
measures. However, it's an approach you must adopt in order to take advantage
of opportunity. Remember: Regardless of what is happening in the world at any
given time, most people are not taking massive action. Although there are, of
course, times when you must defend, retreat, and conserve, you should only do
so for short periods of time—in order to prepare yourself to reinforce and attack
again. You would never contract as a continued business effort. Although we
frequently seem to hear reports of companies that failed because they expanded
too fast, the case for many of them probably wasn't so simple. Most companies
fail not because they stay on the offensive but because they don't properly
prepare themselves for expansion and cannot dominate the sector.
The idea of constant, unwavering expansion is counterintuitive and even
unpopular; however, it will separate you from the rest of the pack more than any
other single activity. The task of expanding when others are contracting should
not be reduced to some simplistic concept. This is a very difficult discipline to
apply in the real world. Yet once you get into the groove of making it your innate
method of responding, the ability to continuously, relentlessly attack any activity
will give way to forward movement. Any disagreement with this comes because
most people only attack to the point where they meet resistance—and then back
off. It's kind of like challenging the schoolyard bully and then running away; it
always turns out badly. If you approach trials in this way, the market, your
clients, and your competition will not believe that you're committed to a

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persistent attack. Therefore, they will threaten or criticize you—and you will
back off. You'll figure that it didn't work—but the only reason why it didn't work
is because you didn't stick with it long enough for the market, your clients, and
your competition to finally submit to your efforts. Repeated attacks over
extended periods of time will 
always
be successful.
You must implement the tactic of expansion regardless of whether the
economy and those surrounding you encourage you to do so. I say this because
we live in a society that promotes contraction most of the time, and when it does
support expansion, it is typically too late in the cycle—hence the recent
meltdown. News of contraction should serve as an indicator for you to do the
contrary. You never want to blindly follow the masses; they are almost always
wrong. Instead of following the pack, lead them! The way out is to expand, push,
and take action—regardless of what others are saying and doing.
I watched others in my sector cut staff and promotion dollars during this recent
recession—which served as a green light for me to augment my own forces. I
didn't cut employees or promotional spending. Instead, I increased both. Even
though I saw our revenue shrink with the rest of the world's, I opted to cut my
own salary as an alternative. I redirected those monies to promote the business,
which helped to increase my footprint and take market share from other
organizations that were retreating. In fact, I spent more money on advertising,
marketing, and promotion in the course of those 18 months than I had in 18
years! I realize how counterintuitive this was. I fully admit that it was scary and
that I often second-guessed my actions. Yet I knew that if I could continue to
keep pushing forward, I would gain tremendous ground.
Even more important than the money I spent were the demands I made on my
staff and myself to repeatedly expand the use of our most valuable resources:
energy, creativity, persistence, and contact with our clients. By doing so, we
immediately increased production in every area: phone calls, e-mails, e-
newsletters, social media posts, personal visits, speaking engagements,
teleconferences, webinars, Skype conferences, and the like. Over that year and a
half, I published three books, introduced four new sales programs, produced
more than 700 segments of training material for a virtual training site, did 600
radio interviews, wrote more than 150 articles or blog entries, and made
thousands of personal phone calls. While the rest of the world withdrew, we
expanded on every front possible.
Pretty much everyone in the world was convinced that their only saving grace
was to save—so they did. It's always intriguing to me that when people start
saving money, they immediately begin saving everything else—almost

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automatically. It is as though the mind is unable to distinguish between saving
paper bills or numbers in a bank and conserving energy, creativity, and effort.
The whole world held back in its expenditure of both dollars and effort while
just a few people expanded. Who do you think came out on top?
People have asked me how—and why—I decided to expand when things were
so uncertain. My answer to them was, “I would rather die in expansion than die
in contraction. I would rather fail pushing forward than in retreat.” Consider this
yourself: At which of the four degrees of action introduced in Chapter 7 do 
you
choose to operate? If you allow the economy to determine your choice, you will
never be in control of your own economy.
The solution? Get off the sofa, get out of your home, and make your way into
the market! Get in front of clients, seek out opportunities, and show that you are
advancing in the market. Only retreat for brief moments, if necessary, in order to
shore up resources so that you can prepare to expand with even more action.
Your energy, efforts, creativity, and personality are worth more than the dollars
that men create and machines print. And although spending money is the most
common way for businesses to expand, it is certainly not the only way—and is
not nearly as valuable as taking 10X actions consistently and persistently.
Remember 10X, baby. You want to expand with the goal of dominating your
sector and getting attention by taking massive action. Only then will you be able
to expand your contacts, influences, connections, and visibility with the goal of
creating new problems. You will then continue to expand until everyone—
including your supposed competitors—knows you are the dominant 10X player
and always associates your name with what you do.

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