8 Force Multipliers for Entrepreneurs via Anthony lannarino

Anthony Iannarino is a high-performing entrepreneur, podcast host of In the Arena, international speaker, bestselling author, and adjunct professor at Capital University’s School of Management and Leadership. He draws an average of 50,000 readers every month to The Sales Blog, because his advice is of the utmost value to entrepreneurs and sales executives looking for actionable ways to grow their business.

Anthony also publishes a weekly newsletter that often showcases the force multipliers he thinks move the needle best. 

Take a peek…

What is a Force Multiplier?

Executives, entrepreneurs, and business professionals have limited time and energy. Force multipliers give them the added advantage of scaling quickly and successfully.

For example, let’s say you want to grow your startup, but you’re currently reaching only one customer (market, partnership, etc) at a time. That approach will never be competitive enough to scale in light of the robust framework that bigger players in your space maintain.

“The idea of a force multiplier is that you possess some attribute that enables you to be far more effective than you would otherwise be without it,” says Anthony. They contribute to your ability to compete with the bigger players.

A few examples include reducing product costs, boosting employee morale, and creating (or using) a new software tool that helps clients talk with sales teams.

Anthony’s 8 Force Multipliers for Entrepreneurs

As entrepreneurs, we want to enable greater results. That’s obvious. What these do is multiply those results. And who doesn’t want that?!

1. Leadership: Leadership produces better results faster. Whether it’s group performance or individual performance, leadership is a serious multiplier. Whatever results you are producing now, leadership will increase that result by 10X.
2. Disciplines, Processes, and Systems: The aspects of your business operations that you do without failure generate outsized results over time. That’s because consistency – in and of itself – is a multiplier. Consistency requires discipline, so having consistent processes and systems in place is a form of discipline. Doing the right things in the right way at the right time multiplies the effectiveness of these processes and systems over time.
3. Esprit de Corps: Esprit de corps is an attitude about who you are and why you do what you do. It’s a commitment to one another through the “soft stuff” that leaders build, and it is the foundation of high performance. It is unit cohesion at its finest.
4. Growth Mindset: The belief that you can be more, learn more, do more, and contribute more increases your overall effectiveness by a factor that is impossibly difficult to measure. It’s what actuates your initiative and resourcefulness, allowing you to increase your capacity to take on greater challenges. It’s what contributes to business growth.
5. Agility: We live in the Disruptive Age. Our world is changing faster and faster by the moment, and we are all constantly contributing to that acceleration. Agility means being able to adapt to the changing environment. In business, this environment is increasingly disruptive. Speed multiplies your effectiveness. Being fast is more valuable than being big.
6. Psychological Safety: The ability to fail without being chastised or punished allows for experimentation. When you can question why things are how they are, you can explore what you might change and how you might change it. The ability to question the status quo and create new possibilities multiplies your effectiveness.
7. Accountability: Accountability is an underestimated aspect of business success. Accountability is keeping your commitments. It’s doing what must be done without fail. When everyone is accountable, no one has to worry about what is being done or if it is being done right. This multiplies results by creating the confidence to act, which brings us to the last multiplier…
8. Courage: Being willing to act in spite of uncertainty or known difficulties massively improves results. It allows for action where fear creates paralysis. The ability to move forward without knowing the outcome multiplies your strength.

Summary

We all have limited time and energy. It’s tempting to want to jump right in and start implementing Anthony’s force multipliers all at once.

But this may do more harm than good.

Instead of trying to give all of these force multipliers your attention, ask yourself, “which of these attributes would multiply your effectiveness?” and “which attributes could you use to build a multiplier effect in your team?”

Answer these questions with extreme focus in order to decide what activities and tools are the most valuable to you and your business needs.