Mark Bullock, Co-founder of Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net, explains the concept of people being either predominantly a starter or a finisher and how identifying yourself as one will help you determine what traits you’re lacking in so you can focus on filling that void in other ways.
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Transcript:
A question for you — Are you a starter? Are you a finisher?
Hi, I’m Mark Bullock. I’m the co-founder of Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net.
And the reason that I asked this question — well, let me take you back a step. So, Jack Canfield wrote a book — It’s one of his success books, I can’t remember the exact title — several years ago, and one of the self -evaluation components of that was ‘Where do you fit on the scale of being a starter or a finisher?’
So, let me give you a couple of pieces to put in play so that you don’t become defensive about it, right? So, everybody who’s a starter can finish and everybody who’s a finisher can start — just put that on the table. So, but we’re all on one side of that scale or the other. We might be close to being a little both, but we all have a tendency to be much stronger at either starter or starting than finishing. How does all this come into play with business, etc ?
Well, starters, generally speaking, tend to be entrepreneurs; tend to be artists; tend to be inventors; tend to be people who are really good at coming up with ideas, and the stronger the starter is, the more of an idea machine that they are. And the further out on the scale they are, the more trouble they have with crossing the ‘Ts,’ dotting the ‘Is,’ following the plan, getting the checklist taken care of.
Finishers, on the other hand, have a tendency to resist new and innovative concepts and ideas because they like process. They like to cross those ‘Ts,’ dot those ‘Is,’ check things off of their checklist, as an example.
So, as a solo entrepreneur… if you’re a solo entrepreneur and you’re strong either as a finisher or as a starter, it’s valuable to know that because you’re actually missing — I don’t want to say handicapped, but you’re really gonna struggle with whatever the other side is, and that’s the area that you’re going to need to focus.
And I’m going to suggest as soon as you can afford to, as soon as it’s available, you get somebody on your team, virtually or actually on your team, that is… can counterbalance you. Because it’s the combination of the two, isn’t it? We all need the next great idea and we need the processes and the structures to get us there. So, instead of, you know I think there’s another book called ‘Discover Your Strength’ in which they were like — okay, really focus on what you’re really good at, and get others to help you in the areas that that you’re not.
So, I’m a starter and unfortunately — or fortunately — most of my team — in fact, all of my team — are starters as well. We’re just not all out at the extreme end, but we know that the next person that comes into the organization is going to be a finisher because we’ve had finishers before and we need that… we need that process, we need that structure.
So, you can appreciate when you’re on one side of the other what the other side does, but it does end up being a struggle to get there if you don’t have people that are helping to counterbalance your strength with their strength to move forward.
I hope you found that a little bit valuable, anyway. Again, Mark with Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net , and you’ll find lots more tips like that at Videosocials.net/Academy. Have a great day.