Hello,
Here you are, on the first day of your new career as a fruit picker.
The peach tree towers over your head, branches groaning beneath the weight of fruit.
You’ve already studied the industry – through my friend Dale Beaumont’s new book: Secrets of Fruit-Pickers Exposed, no less – and you know there are four distinct layers to the peach tree!
Immediately you cast your eyes skyward, they keep rising until they finally come to the top of the tree, where you see the top level, the upper strata of high hanging fruit.
The peaches there are magnificent, gleaming a beautiful fleshy pink colour in the bright Spring sunshine, surrounded by healthy green leaves that ripple gently in the fresh breeze.
This is the peach aristocracy, the crème de la crème of peach society. Peach Utopia!
These peaches are bigger, juicier and better tasting than their cellar-dwelling kinsmen and they fetch a premium price.
They are also by far the least accessible.
Below this level is the second layer of peaches, medium hanging fruit which are of lower quality but easier to get hold of.
And below this is the third layer of peaches, which are significantly smaller and of lower quality but also much easier to grab. These low hanging fruit can be easily picked by simply stretching your arm into the air.
Finally, lying on the ground at your feet are the fallen peaches. Over-ripe and half-rotten, these are good for little more than the making of cheap jam.
Now we’ve set the scene, are you ready for this week’s Success Tip?
Here it is: do not, under any circumstances, try to pick the peaches at the top of the tree on your first day!
This is a mistake many entrepreneurs and businesspeople make when they start out.
Their imagination runs far ahead of their abilities, experience or starting capital and they soon find themselves in trouble.
It’s true that each peach at the top of the tree is worth a dozen of those in the middle, and whole bucket loads of those on the ground, but they’re also the hardest to reach, take the most time to get and carry the most risk.
You could spend a whole day up there, precariously balanced between branches, out on a limb, and only bring down a few handfuls.
Worse, those you do manage to retrieve are damaged and worth less because you haven’t learned how to handle them properly.
And even worse still, the risk of falling is very real and could forever end your business aspirations, to the sound of a blood-curdling scream and a squishy thump.
You have to start where you stand.
It’s no good dreaming about caviar dinners when your family is at home, hungrily waiting to see if this fruit-picking thing works out and wondering if they will get to eat tonight at all.
You need to take more money home today, so swallow your pride and get to work scooping those sticky, bruised and sometimes smelly peaches off the ground.
The jam they make will be enough for you to get by on, and that’s all you need right at this moment.
OK, here comes the neat part.
Once you’ve sold enough jam you will have the money to hire people who can pick up the ground peaches for you.
This is great, firstly because it means you don’t have to bend over anymore, but also because you will develop the contacts and resources to now switch your attention to pulling fruit off the lowest branches.
Once that starts to pay off, hire some more people and set them to work plucking peaches at eye level while you buy a ladder and climb to the middle of the tree.
At each step in this process your profits will increase exponentially, until you eventually have enough money to buy a state-of-the-art cherry picker and start harvesting the very upper limits of the tree.
Right about now you can probably give yourself a break and stand back to watch the fruit flowing off every level of the tree, each peach putting money in your pocket without you having to lift a finger.
That’s how you build a business: steady, consistently, one laborious step at a time, and without ever stretching your arm further than you can reach.
Action Step: What options are available to you to immediately put more money in your pocket this week?
If you’re in a job and there’s overtime on offer…take it!
If you’re a consultant and you can handle extra clients, or appointments…do it!
If you mow lawns, mow some more, plus start cutting hedges!
Get busy today gathering more of the peaches lying at your feet, build cash flow and the dream "high hanging fruit" will come.
Stuart
