All UNREASONABLE ideas violate some accepted wisdom.  Some norm.  Some convention.  Some formality.  Some age-old practice.  Some way of doing things, the contravention  of which would be inconceivable.

That’s what makes them unreasonable.

I’ve been wracking my brain to find a new one, but there’s no way around it. Although there are hundreds of specific approaches, when you distill them all down, there are only three ways to expand a business. Three main ways, and only three. What are they?

1. Sell more to your existing customers
2. Find more new customers
3. Merge or acquire your competitors

You might ask, “What’s the point of talking about three when there are ‘hundreds of specific approaches’?” That’s a reasonable question - it’s easy to think consolidating them obscures the opportunity. But in fact, it’s just the opposite.

You see, most people don’t think much, and when they do they never pay attention to how they’re thinking -so they never develop tools for how to do it. Generalization is one of those tools - a powerful one allows you to crunch a whole bunch of information into a few manageable pieces you can more easily manipulate in your mind.

That’s what we’ve just done here. Now that you realize there are only three ways to grow a business - whether it’s sales, or cash flow, or market share… whatever, you can examine each of these three more carefully and see how they apply to your business.

And that’s what you should do next.

To say that time management is a huge problem could be understatement of the century. Except for Tim Ferris, the author of The Four Hour Workweek, I don’t know anyone who feels they have enough time for everything they’re supposed to do. Full disclosure: neither do I - expanding Axcelus (our international business acceleration consulting company) definitely takes a ton of time. But that’s the key word — supposed. The ultimate secret to time management is this: only do things you want to do, and only do things you are pretty sure will help you accomplish whatever it is your care about.

That’s unreasonable time management because there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of things you’re supposed to do each week; things other people think you should do. Maybe even things you read in a magazine, or in a blog somewhere.

But in the unreasonable world, there are no shoulds, no supposed-tos. There is nothing you have to do because it supports some else’s world-view. There are only the things you want to do and only the things that will make a difference. If something is not at least one, or better yet — both of these things — DON’T DO IT!

Take a look at your task list, and delete everything you either don’t want to do, or don’t think will make a difference in your current cause. Only do what’s left. Of course, this doesn’t insure you have enough time for all these things and you still have to choose among the remainders, but at least you’ve pared down the list.

You have two choices for the rest of those things: delegate them to someone else if they are important enough, and if not, just dump them. (Here’s another time management secret: if you dump things, and they end up being important, someone will remind you later.)

Met a really unreasonable guy yesterday. His name is Mike Long, and he’s a behind-the-scenes internet marketer. What that means is that he’s helped a number of very successful internet marketers become successful. Extrememly so.

His new website is http://www.area51marketing.com/, and it’s definitely worth a visit. It currently isn’t selling anything — although of course, it may down the road. Right now, he’s giving away excellent free content (”content” is a Mike Long word) about how to do certain marketing things better. What’s particularly interesting is that he’s controlling the “free” content so that it cannot be redistributed, which runs contrary to the way most internet marketing marketers work.

He probably doesn’t tell people this out loud (I’m not sure if I’m supposed to repeat this), but Mike says that his true goal is “Total Understanding.” In other words, he is successful to the degree that his work improves the general level of understanding — in whatever domain he is applying his efforts. Not more sales, more profits, more happiness, more sex. Simply more understanding. I think that’s being unreasonable.

There’s an old saw. Wait – more than an old saw – it’s truth – right?  “The customer is always right.”  You’ve heard it, and most likely, you’ve incorporated it into your business philosophy.  Everybody has.

But you know what? This truth isn’t always true.  Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s in London, is credited with starting this idea as a way to inspire a higher level of customer service in his employees.  And it may be a great bit of wisdom for retail and other product-oriented businesses

But in my world – the world of high performance consulting, the customer (or client, as we like to call them), is definitely not always right. If they were, they wouldn’t need a consultant. If they were “right” then they would never take my advice. 

Think about it.  Why would an intelligent business owner hire an expert, of any kind, if all they wanted was validation of whatever way they were currently doing things. (Sounds a bit like Corporate America hiring McKinsey or Accenture as a CYA strategy, doesn’t it?)   No, the customer is not always right, and it’s a good thing too.

It’s time to blow the whistle on this lie and stop acting like it meant something. Any consultant who thinks he or she should pander to what their client thinks is “right” should be fired immediately.

Here’s something unreasonable: a success book that uses the words “cash” in the title and “millionaire” on the cover, not hawking one more worthless get rich quick scheme.

I just got a copy of Loral Langemeier’s new Cash Machine For Life, and it’s pretty neat.  It lays out a step-by-step foundation for building a real business that can provide cash flow and profit for a long, long time. I call it get rich slow - definitely counter-trend.

The book covers a lot of ground, from idea generation and brainstorming, finding a model of what you want to create, setting up a plan, building a team, marketing, sales, operations, finance – the works. My own Earn Twice As Much With Half The Stress, covers some of this same ground with exact step-by-step formulas – but Loral does it differently. If you or someone you love “needs” to build a business, first try to talk them out of it. But if they’re really serious, get them this book. Loral can be found at http://www.liveoutloud.com/blog/.

20^th century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is famous for saying, “Less is more.” In the 21^st century most businesses — large and small — seem to think the opposite; more is more rules the day.

Books have more pages than ever before. So do magazines. My wife’s latest copy of Vogue is over 400 pages. There are more TV channel choices and more radio stations. There are more car brands and more car models. More custom-fitted premium blue jeans. And when you get to the internet, there are an infinity of blogs (like this one) and news sites and information feeds and, and, god knows – everything anyone could ever want…

But do people really need more? History books that run more than 800 pages? Come on; is an 800 page book really better than one with 350 pages? 20 CD sets that contain the same information formerly found in four-hours. Even multi-hour special event TV shows are rarely better than their slimmed-down 1 hour sibling.

Among my pet peeves are the products sold by internet information marketers. The operating theory, called “thud factor,” is that you should do whatever you can to make the product seem larger. That includes double spacing, wide margins, printing on one side of the page, including lots and lots of vainglorious interviews, full motion video of things that could be demonstrated with one photograph – the list of bulking-up techniques goes on and on and on and on and on…

Who’s got time to read all of this? Author and marketer Joe Vitale once sold a $125 report that was five pages short. Wow, Joe – what a breath of fresh air. Just the raw facts. Just the information I need and nothing more. (Full disclosure: My company sells instructions on how to systemize and turnkey a business that has only 240 pages — yet each page is so packed with information that people routinely pay almost $5,000 for it.)

And what about all those choices and options?

I don’t think people don’t need them. Exhibit “A” for this argument is the steady increase of attention deficit disorder. Most people who think they have ADD really just have too many things on their minds.

This profusion of variety doesn’t add anything to our lives, but rather it diminishes our effectiveness and our quality of life. Barry Schwartz’s 2005 book, The Paradox of Choice says that all these choices not only make us unhappy, but much further, by forcing us to “invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, and dread” they actually erode our psychological well-being.

Be unreasonable. Think about how you can simplify and shrink your products and services. Don’t try to overwhelm people and fool them into thinking they are getting value when all they’re really getting is volume. Provide real value instead, and make it concise.

More is not more.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, suggests that the secret to happiness is to “want what you have.” That very reasonable, stress-reducing practice damps down the unfulfilled cravings which can lead directly to dissatisfaction and unhappiness. But those cravings which, when frustrated, can make you unhappy, can also — when properly channeled — lead towards action which creates progress.

There’s another way - the unreasonable way. Being unreasonable, you simply want what you want, and figure out how to go get it. By gaining clarity over what you want, and asserting that one way or another you will be, have or do that very thing, and not giving up until you get it — you make something happen. That’s the realm of invention, the realm of creation, the realm of leadership: wanting what you want.

Some people think that they have to know everything before they go public.