The Brain Eating Robot

There are TWO fabulous shows I always watch:

1.       The Profit

2.       I Hate My Buttocks Region

Wait, that second one was a very short-lived infomercial, and I only watched it to confirm the hate heaped upon their buttocks region.

So my real favorite other show is, “How It’s Made”.

If you’ve not ever seen this, it shows a product going from raw form to finished and ready for a new owner. Though you may skip the thrilling episode on mop-making, the more complex builds are absolutely incredible.

It tends to prove why hyper-efficient robots continue to get hired over an insolent, I-phone addicted workforce demanding a Starbucks in every lobby. The trade-off is that when robots have to go through the metal detectors, it does make them late for work.

I recently watched an episode that proved two things that GUARANTEE human beings cannot ever be fully replaced.

Done correctly, these 2 things can also guarantee that YOU are never replaced, even if your customers are faced with less expensive, eager competitors.

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The first one is: It took a human to design and build the robot.

Soon as robots can design and build themselves, I’m going to another planet (like Montana) where the robots can’t find me.

Yet as long as human beings study how machinery can maximize the build, installation, or service, you can be sure of this: When the human mistakes or inefficiencies are more costly than the robot, you can extract a human (or several thousand) from that process.

Since this efficiency quest will likely never cease, it shows the value of being a ‘systems thinker’ instead of a ‘task thinker’.

And though you’re in little danger of a robot taking your contracting job (but there’s always tomorrow!), much of your day is systemizable. From when/how often you check email to how you diagnose a ‘no service’ call, to how you hire/motivate a new staff member, it’s all a process.

If you treat all of these as events instead of processes, you'll be forced to repeat them, likely forget or stray from the way the process should work.  All this adds to costs, stress, and your eventual replacement… by a systems thinker.

The second one is: It takes people to help and train other people.

We all know what happens when machines try to intervene when a human would be welcomed. I want to meet the guy who invented the phone Auto Attendant, put vise grips on his armpit skin, then make him “Press or say ‘one’ for excruciating pain”. 

We may be able to train the people who program the robots, but never the other way around.

A recent episode of ‘How It’s Made’ showed the incredibly skilled workforce that builds the Bugatti Veyron, a now-completed run of $1.6m 250 mph supercars. Robots built and cast the engine pieces, did the aluminum welds, yet humans sifted through the leathers, assembled the engines, and performed the final tests.

Even with this much hand-building going on, one thing was very evident:

The workers had been trained, and trained, and re-trained by human beings. They worked together in choreographed perfection. If not, the process (or even the product) was ruined. They could do this at this level only because they’d been coached well and practiced it relentlessly.

Coaching for Consultants

I have often mentioned that I’m in three coaching programs. One for copywriting, another for ‘Information Marketing’ and another that focuses on different topics each few months. And I tend to wonder, “How can ANY consultant not be in constant learning mode outside of themselves?”

Maybe it’s my fear of becoming what has happened to those who don’t. One day, irrelevance moves in where competence had once resided. For 3 years, I ran a Coaching program just for Contractor Consultants to raise the standards across the board. 

Think of your experiences…

Could your children teach themselves? Your techs? How do YOU continue to grow beyond the incremental experience of the day? Are you getting better, or just ‘same ol’ same ol’?

It would take someone very arrogant to believe they’d ever learned enough about their work to quit learning. Heck, every NASCAR driver, professional golfer, and top CEO’s have coaches.

Coaching for Contractors

When our daily on-site consulting rates went to $7,800 (cheap by some standards) I realized that the contractors who needed marketing help the most weren’t getting it. Further, annual seminars are great but they’re a single-dose-by-fire-hose approach that carries little momentum.

That’s why we created The Mega-Marketer Coaching program, (and I’m about to show you how to take a no-cost test drive). It gives you the ‘seminar experience’ in our Monthly Coaching Call without travel. Plus members get regular, ongoing marketing training on:

1.       What’s working now

2.       How to systemize what’s working (put marketing on ‘auto-pilot’)

3.       What trends are ending (Get out before it costs you any more)

Just taking the time to read articles (like this) puts you ahead of most competitors, yet I’ve been wanting to find a way to give you a taste of real coaching… to see what it’s like to have someone “on your side” helping you through the marketing minefield.

Right now, we’d like to invite 10 new members to join us. To see if this is a ‘fit’ for both of us, you can take a zero cost test drive FIRST.

You get 1-to-1 support, feedback on marketing initiatives, advice on ‘What to use now’, plus the monthly call. All at no charge for a full month. So go here to check it out.

The main thing is that we all need a coach. We all need encouragement, experience, and training outside our four walls. Every person with a willingness to improve should try to access that improvement. And if you hate your buttocks region, I know a show you can watch.

Adams Hudson