TESTIMONIALS FROM EARLY READERS AND TESTERS OF CLOCKWORK
Clockwork had a radical impact on my personal approach to business. One of our companies acquired a record-breaking 22,000 customers in just five days, and our other one just had its three most profitable months in eight years of business, with no sign of slowing down. Oh, and both happened during an extended sabbatical largely made possible by internalizing and working toward the designing phase (the fourth and highest D).
RYAN LANGFORD,
CEO, Ultimate Bundles
Implementing the Clockwork principles into our business this past year has been a total game-changer. As the visionary and chief content creator, Ive been freer than ever before to do the things that only I can do, while I trust my team to take care of the rest. Weve eliminated bottlenecks and learned how to use tracking and measuring to make much smarter decisions. Even bettermy team is actually happier as a result!
RUTH SOUKUP,
author and CEO and founder, Living Well Spending Less Inc.
Since implementing the framework and principles taught in Clockwork, my business has released me. I am no longer being run by my business; rather I am running the business. Thanks to Clockwork, we are about to set off on a four-week trip as we travel across Canada work free for the summera dream come true to be able to fully step away from the business and the business still fully operational.
ASHLEY BROWN,
owner and creative director, She Implements and Nuvitzo Dance Studio
I was constantly spinning my wheels coming up with more ways to convert sales and hit our quarterly goals. Thanks to Clockworks ACDC bottleneck method, I realized I was converting people just fine, but what I did have was a prospect problem! Using Clockwork principles, I created a system to track how many people were coming through my doors and where they were coming from, which empowered me to make the right decisions on what to focus on each week. As soon as I started focusing on bringing more people into our business, we nearly tripled the number of prospects!
CARLEE MARHEFKA,
CEO, Eat The 80
As a business owner, I often overcomplicate things, so the techniques in Clockwork helped me clearly identify where I was getting in my own way and what aspects of my business I needed to outsource to grow (and still get to sleep at night). Doing this alone has made a massive difference in what can be accomplished with the same or even less time working on my business.
TARA HUNKIN ARYANTO,
- CEO, My Child Will Thrive
ALSO BY MIKE MICHALOWICZ
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
The Pumpkin Plan
Surge
Profit First
Portfolio/Penguin
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright 2018 by Mike Michalowicz
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Michalowicz, Mike, author.
Title: Clockwork: design your business to run itself / Mike Michalowicz.
Description: New York City : Portfolio, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015553 (print) | LCCN 2018021396 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525534020 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525534013 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Small business. | Time management. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Entrepreneurship. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Small Business. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Time Management.
Classification: LCC HD2341 (ebook) | LCC HD2341 .M524 2018 (print) | DDC 658.02/2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015553
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version_1
For Jake Michalowicz. Wuz up, my brah?
INTRODUCTION
Its two a.m. and I am writing you out of desperation.
That is the opening line from an email I received from Celeste, an entrepreneur who reached out to me for help. Over the last eight years, Ive received countless emails from readers and from people who have heard my message about eradicating entrepreneurial poverty in my books, my speeches, an article, or on a video or podcast. I respond to all of them and save quite a few, and this is the one that lit a fire under me to finish this book.
The email continued: I own a preschool. We make no money. I havent taken a salary since we started. Im racking up debt. And tonight, I am broken. Not just financially, but in my soul. I am convinced an immediate termination of my life would be the fastest resolution to my predicament.
Reading that email, I felt as if my heart dropped to my stomach. I was concernedno, terrifiedfor Celestes life. At the same time, I recognized her vulnerability.
Please understand, I am not sending you a suicide note, Celeste went on, and I am not at risk for such stupidity at the moment. That decision would just leave the burden to my family. But if I was single, I would be gone. You see, I have double pneumonia right now. I cant afford someone to clean our preschool, and for the last four hours, I have been scrubbing the floors and cleaning the walls. I am exhausted. I am crying, and stop only because I am too exhausted to cry. I am starving for sleep. I am so ill, yet I cant sleep because my worry keeps me up. The only thing I have left to give my business is my time and that is now depleted, too.
My heart broke for Celeste. Id been in a similar state of mind a few times in my life as an entrepreneur, and I knew countless others who had been lower than low, desperate for a solution. The last lines of the email will stay with me forever:
What has become of my dream? I am trapped. I am exhausted. I cant work more than I already do. Or maybe I can. Maybe my work is the slow suicide I am thinking of.
What has become of my dream?