Who Not How

I learned something interesting about horses today.

Did you know that a Draft Horse can pull around 8000lbs?

Draft horses are the big heavy horses you’ll find on farms pulling heavy things. Think Clydesdales.

OK so here’s the interesting part. One Draft horse can pull about 8000lbs, but two Draft horses pulling together can pull 24,000lbs.

That’s triple the output with just double the horses.

That’s not all.

If two draft horses train together as a team they can pull 32,000lbs.

That’s four times the output of what one of them could pull on their own.

Where does that extra power come from?

Dan Sullivan is a coach and the author of the book “Who Not How”. It’s one of my favorite books because it teaches entrepreneurs to think in terms of “who” can solve problems in their business instead of “how” they can solve the problem themselves.

For most businesses this is simple.

Most business boils down to two things.

Client Acquisition & Fulfillment

Client acquisition is everything from marketing to sales and the collection of payments.

Fulfillment is everything from delivery of the product or service and customer care and after-sales.

So if you’re focused on sales how do you do fulfillment?

Simple.

You don’t.

If you do your sales will eventually suffer because all of your time will be taken by fulfillment.

So the question entrepreneurs should be asking here isn’t “how do you do fulfillment?”; the question is “who can do fulfillment for me?”.

The answer?

Find another Draft horse who wants to move a larger load than they could on their own. Train, and pull the load together.

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