The A to B Process
“Everyone has a starting point and everyone has a ‘desire to get to’ point. The key is defining each and then crossing your chasm.” -Jared Yellin
What if…?
What if achieving your desired outcome in any area of life or business was as simple as going from A to B?
What if your clarity around where you ARE and where you want to GO is the difference between making it and not?
What if you realized that you have many A’s and many B’s and they are all interconnected and predicated on one another in a very distinct order?
What if there was a process to go from A to B?
Let me set the stage for an exercise that might become the single SIMPLEST way to get what you want.
Hello, my name is Jared Yellin and I am most known for being a Dad to my two rockstar children, Taylee and Ryker. They are my be-all and end-all, and every decision I make to go from A to B is predicated on how much additional freedom I will be able to gain so that I can immerse myself in my children even more.
I am able to achieve this freedom because I am what people call a Parallel Entrepreneur.
I launch companies simultaneously because I love the process of going from…
IDEA to PRODUCT to MONETIZATION to SCALE and then handing it over to people who love operationalizing businesses.
This is why CILA Labs is such a blast for me.
We help non-tech entrepreneurs build their tech ideas AT COST!
Yes, non-tech entrepreneurs who have a vision to build a technological solution to solve challenges in their industry, community, or even in the world come to us and we partner up!
We Create, Innovate, Launch, and Accelerate ideas that matter.
Ideas that move things
Ideas that disrupt
Ideas that create change
Ideas that MATTER!
Now you might be wondering, what does CILA have anything to do with going from A to B…
EVERYTHING because with each portfolio company we Create, Innovate, Launch, and Accelerate we start at A and then cross the chasm to our B.
A = TODAY
B = SIX MONTHS FROM TODAY
B is NOT your be-all, end-all.
B is NOT your ultimate vision.
B is NOT your absolute IDEAL everything.
B is progress towards all of the above and where 99.9999999% of people go wrong is that they mistaken vision-casting (an EXCEPTIONAL exercise might I add and a future blog post) with PROGRESS!
Your vision requires the following equation….
PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS =
YOUR VISION!
If I measured my success based on my vision becoming real I would have given up over a decade ago, but since I measure my success based on PROGRESS (aka A to B aka Crossing Your Chasm), I know I am trending in the right direction and at the perfect acceleration.
PLEASE, don’t mistake NOT being at your vision YET as failure.
As long as you are going from A to B every six months, you will GET THERE!
Okay, now let’s get dirty and do some work together on your A to B.
Crossing Your Chasm Chart
Here is the chart we use at CILA Labs with all of our partners and portfolio companies and I would be overjoyed if you decided to use some or all of this on any idea, business, etc. that you are working on, planning on launching, or whenever the need arises.
Quality of Life
Everything must start with a clearly defined A to B for the quality of life you desire to have and create with the next six months. Far too many people think that their quality of life will come ONCE they accomplish their goals, but what if…(I repeat - what if) you could have it ALL the entire time because you define where you are and where you want to be from the get-go!
Here are some quality of life questions and I encourage you to answer them for your A (which is the present) and for your B (which is the future, six months from now). When you’re done, place your answers in your Crossing Your Chasm Chart.
Some of the above items might NOT be relevant for your Quality of Life and some could be missing so please fill in what matters to you and then measure it.
Product
I absolutely love this piece of Crossing Your Chasm because productizing ideas is liberating.
Let me repeat this…
Productizing your ideas is LIBERATING.
The number of people who have countless ideas that never reach the light of day is painful beyond measure because they simply don’t know how to make their idea a product.
People can only purchase something that is productized.
Please don’t mistake the word productized as a tangible item, it has nothing to do with being able to touch it, it has to do with someone's ability to PURCHASE it.
Here is my recommendation for the PERFECT product set for any business over the course of time because this WILL take some significant time to materialize.
Product 1 - Online Educational Programs
Product 2 - Limitless Scale Software Solution That Becomes A Utility For The User
Product 3 - Live Events Or Interactive Experiences
Product 4 - Certification Program Or Something That Allows You To Scale Without You (Licensing, Fransing, Etc.)
Product 5 - Done-For-You Version Of Whatever You Do
I will dig WAYYYY deeper into productizing in a future blog post because there is a myriad of distinctions that matter, but the final point I want to share prior to initiating the exercise is that each of these products have different outcomes - all of which ranging from high volume scale to low volume scale to high touch to low touch and the corresponding revenue/user as well. The chart below explains this in greater detail which is important as you now enter the Crossing Your Chasm exercise for Productizing.
Please remember, you don’t NEED to have all of these products in motion and it is perfectly fine to say Not Applicable for the A to B exercise for any of the five products from above if you do not plan on deploying resources into this specific concept in the next six months.
Relationships
The most overlooked opportunity to accelerate your A to B across many areas is a deep assessment and thorough analysis of the relationships you HAVE (Your A) and the relationships you WANT TO HAVE (Your B) in the next six months.
Every person is one relationship away from EXPLOSION (which is a GREAT thing) but the only way this acceleration will take place is if you begin organizing your relationships.
That is the purpose of this A to B exercise is to recognize, categorize, utilize, and catalyze your relationships that matter.
And a relationship that matters is one that yields a measurable WIN - WIN - WIN. Literally, WINs across the board for everyone involved.
There are four categories of relationships for you to assess before you complete the Crossing Your Chasm chart for this area.
Raving Fans - People that you have positively impacted (personally or professionally) and they want to see you win and will support whatever you are doing with their participation.
Wild Supporters - People you have transformed with whatever you do in business. These are your ultimate success stories and they feel like you have given them more than they have given you. These people want to invest energy and time to help you achieve your B.
Synergistic Partners - Some of the people in this category might be in your A right now and many will be in your B as well. Your synergistic partners are like-minded professional relationships that yearn and are committed to a WIN-WIN. They should exist in complementary industries AND match the energy you are bringing to your desired outcome because when you hit your target they will hit theirs as well.
Unknown - Some people call this category leads, but in my opinion, it’s an unknown. These people could fall into any of the other three OR none and it could happen quickly or slowly. The unknown category will be the largest by far and it’s a great group to become aware of because you never know what will happen with it!
Okay, now that you know the categories of relationships, let’s complete the Crossing Your Chasm chart!
One thing to keep in mind, the exercise of organizing and categorizing relationships is the most time consuming A to B if you have never stepped into this process and discipline before. But once you do it once, and you maintain it, the time investment becomes dramatically less. Regardless, this is a MUST as relationships tend to be the one area that impacts the most A to B outcomes.
Plus, we will have a much deeper discussion on the topic of harnessing relationship capital as the #1 way to scale your business and have fun doing it. Every business I have ever launched and accelerated has been the result of meaningful relationships where WIN - WIN - WIN became extremely clear to all parties.
Money
For many people, money is a point of contention.
There have been far too many inaccurate uploads over the course of your life that have led to brain tattoos and limiting beliefs and as a result, people tend to avoid the numbers within their business.
But if you are not tracking financial performance, there is ZERO possibility that you will get from A to B in pretty much any area.
Money is the mechanism to reach your B and the lack of money is the reason you won’t.
So, let’s get over any limiting belief, lack of interest, or fear of this measurable outcome and start associating money with impact.
The more impact = The more money
Deal?!
And let’s TRACK.
In addition, I will write numerous blog posts about the topic of profitability because by no means do I cut corners and I am definitely not cheap, but I am extremely intentional with decisions around expenses. I don’t count pennies by any means, but I do focus on having a correlation between the growth of the top line and an incremental growth in expenses. I don’t believe you need to spend money to make money NOR do I believe you need to save money to make money. There is a fine line between these two extremes and in future posts, I will share how I have learned to be disciplined to operate on that line.
Okay, now let’s get to work.
In the Crossing Your Chasm chart below, please list your current revenue for the past six months in the A column and then list your future revenue for the next six months in the B column. Then do the same for your expenses and your profit.
Just so you know, if you are pre-revenue or pre-expenses or pre-profit, simply put a $0 in column A and then put in your number for column B.
The other categories will help you hit your B but you need to know your B as it pertains to money or you won’t know what you are striving to hit!
Marketing
It’s time to chat about Marketing and I have a completely different view of marketing than most people because I ALWAYS put the relationship category before the marketing category because my marketing strategies are predicated on the relationships I have.
But…
There are many ways to market your business, idea, mission, cause, etc. and having a diverse plan is important, but I encourage you to NOT neglect your relationships.
Yes, there will be people in your industry talking about hacking funnels, lead magnets, retargeting, etc. which is all well and good if (and only if) you either know how to do it on your own or you have the right talent hired.
Otherwise, you will be spending money and time in a domain that will NOT yield your desired outcome which is to go from A to B.
I define marketing as education and relationship-based consistent communication. This looks like focusing on my existing relationships (and new opportunities as well) and integrating each person or company into something I am doing from an educational perspective.
For example, I recommend the following marketing initiatives each year…
12 webinars
4 live workshops
2 online challenges
2 appreciation experiences
2 referral programs
I am 100% certain that you will perform more optimally inside of these types of strategies versus hacking funnels, retargeting, and lead magnets since this requires advanced technical skill sets that the average person typically does not have.
Plus, all of the above is FUN and enables you to arrive as the authority within your zone of genius and if you truly commit, the consistency around education and relationship-based marketing will enable your momentum to build on momentum.
And to just further this point a bit…
One of my companies is called SYNDUIT, the first marketing platform with content for your industry, and SYNDUIT has 10,000’s of users and we have never spent one dollar on acquiring business via hacking a funnel, retargeting, and lead magnets. Not that these strategies are bad, but we invested and continue to invest all of our energy and time into relationships and ongoing consistent education. One thing you should know about me - I never say things that I don’t practice and do. So if I am telling you that relationship and education-based marketing is what I recommend for you, it’s because I am deploying this as we speak across all companies.
Now for some fun.
Let’s Cross Your Chasm of marketing with the chart below. Remember, A is where you stand this very moment and B is where you want your marketing to be in six months.
Please add or remove anything from this chart so that your A to B for marketing is 100% relevant for you. And really push yourself to see into the next six months and where you have the desire to get to within each strategy. For example, if right now you have done ONE webinar with 11 people (Your A) and your six-month target (Your B) is to do 6 webinars and get 25 people on each, now you have a direct target that can be measured and monitored over this period of time.
And here are my final thoughts on marketing for now...
Deploy things you LOVE!
It always perturbs me when I hear people express their hatred and frustration around marketing.
It has nothing to do with the umbrella of marketing, but rather the selections they are making. There are 100’s of potential strategies you can deploy, the key is picking the top 5 that brings you joy, you can track, and you are eager to execute.
If marketing becomes FUN for you, I guarantee the likelihood of hitting your B is drastically increased.
Team-Building
Team is such a critical chasm to cross because I have met and supported more businesses that DIDN'T get what they wanted due to either the wrong team or not enough team.
VERY few people are able to build their vision without key players who see their lives inside of your vision and are able to build their vision inside of your vision.
Team-building is the only objective way to determine your quality of leadership.
And here’s why…
Businesses grow to the capacity of their leader to lead because 99.99999999% of leaders are unqualified to perform specific responsibilities to make their business operate. Therefore, if their capacity to lead is poor, the business becomes completely suboptimal.
Anti-leader characteristics are guaranteed to halt your momentum and they include the following:
Ego
Lack of integrity
Abstract vision
Micromanagement
Narcissistic behavior
Loose cannon
Void of trust
One of the greatest compliments I have ever received is from a team member and I am going to share it right below so that you can understand why leadership matters…
Leadership is critical, and I am talking TRUE leadership. You showed me what that truly meant. You showed our team what that meant.
You are a leader in every aspect and on the highest level in every category.
You lead with decisions.
You lead with clarity.
You lead with purpose.
You inspire.
You act in actual integrity.
You believe in whether or not people are better off with you than without you AND whether or not YOU are better off with them or without them.
You lead by example in every possible way.
You care about people and love their souls. You even care about them achieving their dreams in life.
YOU unite humans under a mission and have people feel like they are apart of something much larger than themselves.
YOU believe in living and acting with intention and guide and encourage your team to do the same.
And so much more.
I say all of this because...
1. I want to reinforce what YOU already know. You are truly an all-star in every way. Truly.
2. I wish the world modeled your leadership even by a quarter of the leader you are.
3. I hope we see content around leadership from you in the future in all forms.
4. YOU are the leader I want to be someday in whatever capacity.
You know I don’t say anything I don’t mean. All I ask is that you don’t remain too humble about this. I don’t mean to be arrogant. What I mean is be true. You always are in every aspect. You speak truth. Always.
You EMBODY leadership. I just think that it just needs to be taught to the world by YOU. Every entrepreneur, every president/CEO, every team lead, every parent, every sibling, EVERYONE.
This was completely unsolicited, but I am sharing it NOT for you to celebrate ME, but rather so you can understand why LEADERSHIP matters.
And why LEADERSHIP and TEAM-BUILDING are directly correlated.
If I had to guess, you probably never thought about this chasm the way I am going to encourage you right now to dig into it because, for most businesses, leadership is NOT on the radar. You might take offense right now and I am NOT trying to offend you, rather enlighten you to the importance of knowing where you are RIGHT NOW (Your A) and where you plan to be in six months (Your B) as it pertains to your team (and your leadership).
The topic of leadership is guaranteed to show up heavily in future posts, but for the purpose of this chasm, please incorporate all of the relevant divisions of your business and then identify where you are and where you are going. Plus, you will see I listed a few other areas to measure that are essential…
You As A Leader: Where are you NOW and where are you GOING?
Your Family: The most important team you have and knowing where they are today from the perspective of your business and the chasms you are crossing and where they will need to be so that your chasms can be crossed. What could happen is that some members of your family need to be minimized if they are anchors holding you back from where you are meant to be.
Your Friends: An essential ingredient to your team is your friends because these are people you probably associate with outside of business and they can easily influence you which, in turn, impacts your business. Some influence is GREAT, but other influence is NOT. Choose your friends wisely and document where you are NOW and where you are GOING in six months.
As cliche as it is…
There is no I in TEAM.
Build a world-class team by becoming a world-class leader.
Scale
Scale is one of the most widely defined words in business and it happens to directly correlate with the quality of life section in the Crossing Your Chasm exercise.
Some think scale is scary.
Others find scale exciting.
Some define it as making $100,000/year.
Others define it as making $10,000,000’s/year.
Some envision a team of 5.
Others have crystal clarity on a team of 5,000.
Here’s the key…
Insane, fanatical, intentional self-awareness combined with ZERO compromises.
Your quality of life A to B can and will be bamboozled if your scale A to B is in contradiction to what you have previously established.
Let’s use myself as an example…
My definition of scale is VOLUME. It’s defined as the number of people any of my companies can impact which is always defined in the millions.
But here’s the caveat…
I have ZERO issue with scaling my team to hundreds, although I would much prefer to have it remain in the dozens. The key is my quality of life is defined by FREEDOM to never miss anything with my children and do whatever I want with them and whenever I want to as well.
This means, any/all of my companies SCALE, must enable this type of FREEDOM or one of two things happens…
1 - We don’t scale
2 - I feel my freedom is being impacted
And I will not compromise on either…
So, how do I have it all?
PROCESS!
I am fanatical about building processes that don’t include me and I have zero desire or ego to micro-manage anything. I would rather someone complete a project at 90% of what I would have done (with 0% contribution from me) versus it getting done at 100%, but I ended up being responsible for all of it.
The key takeaway, if you want to TRULY scale, is to build processes that fire you from each aspect of your company and anything that relies on you to scale is a point of friction that could impact your ability to have it all in your quality of life.
I am committed to opening up my entire world with you on how I have scaled businesses and how I am able to spend less than 30 minutes a week in companies that would appear to need me wayyyyyyy more than that.
Okay, now for you.
The Crossing Your Chasm exercise for SCALE is really important because it will help you tie together many of the other categories so that you can truly see if there is any point of friction and whether certain Chasms are realistic based on your A to B from other Chasms.
In addition, SCALE is something that should happen day-by-day. It is not an end result, but a journey and it should be measured as well. Remember, your A is where you are TODAY and your B is where you want to be in six months as it pertains to SCALE.
And by the way, SCALE = FREEDOM when done right.
Let’s break down each area of measurement so that you can complete the chart in a productive manner.
Responsibilities: What are you responsible for TODAY and what do you plan on being responsible for in six months? This is such a critical measurement point because a business that is scaling should lead to your dismissal and replacing yourself/your responsibilities on a week-by-week basis.
Team: Team definitely correlates with responsibilities because once you know where you are (A) with your current responsibilities and where you are going (B) with your future responsibilities it becomes a game of delegation to your team. So let’s start now, and list your current team in your A (or at least your key people) and then list your six-month team in your B.
Client/Patient/Customer/User: One of the key elements of scale is the number of people you are serving. Scaling in this area does not necessarily mean you will make more money, but it will help you conceptualize the size of the impact you will step into. Your A should be the number of people you are serving TODAY and Your B is the number of people you will be serving in six months. Many people will have a downward trend in this area depending on the products they listed in their A to B because higher-priced products could mean a smaller number of people you are serving.
Financials: The final piece of scale is your financials and I ask that as you complete this category, please don’t allow your limiting beliefs of money to impact your A to B. Money = Measured Impact and you should feel proud of the financial category scaling immensely. Financials is also a potential way to maintain the quality of life that matters to you as your business scales because more resources will be available to hire the right TEAM. Your A should be your PROFIT right now (for the past six months) and your B should be your PROFIT that will happen in the next six months.
I know it might be easier to dismiss this Crossing Your Chasm exercise because it does push you to step into a place that could produce fear and uncertainty, but trust yourself and trust me.
You need to DEFINE YOUR SCALE if you ever plan on getting to where you want to go.
Each Chasm Is Interconnected
The reason I love this exercise and encourage all businesses and entrepreneurs to deploy it, and then to measure and monitor it, is because the 7 Chasms are all interconnected.
For example, when you PRODUCTIZE your business, you now set up a revenue model which will impact the MONEY chasm which then impacts TEAM-BUILDING, but PRODUCTS also make your RELATIONSHIPS matter more which plays into your MARKETING chasm which directly impacts your SCALE and finally...YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE!
This is why completing all seven is optimal if you truly want to get to B.
It’s that simple.
Plenty of people will only cross four chasms - which is better than ZERO - but suboptimal when compared to all seven.
And remember, I practice what I preach so I am not telling you to do something I don’t do.
This exercise is my discipline and YES, there are times when it becomes frustrating and heavy, but I know it is even more frustrating and heavier NOT to do it.
And please...
Remember, it’s A to B, NOT A-G or W or Z!
The only way this exercise fails is if your Chasm is currently defined as A to anything other than B.
This is NOT about going from A to your be-all, end-all.
This is NOT about going from your A to your ultimate vision in life.
This is NOT about going from A to your retirement because your business sells for $100,000,000.
This is about going from A to B and then in six months your B becomes your A and you do it again.
I want to share such an important principle from earlier in this message…
Your vision requires the following equation….
PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS + PROGRESS =
YOUR VISION!
I can’t predict when your vision will become real.
I can’t look into a crystal ball and tell you how much of your vision will be your reality.
I can’t direct you to your vision.
But what I am certain is true is the following…
Going from A to B and then doing this over and over again will drastically increase your chances (maybe even guarantee the outcome) of hitting your vision because with each A to B, you have the opportunity to create a six-month vision and the same way that momentum builds on momentum, vision builds on progress.
I know this exercise could feel daunting.
I also know you might think this is a step backward…
And I am certain that a part of you wishes you never read this message because now you feel obligated to follow-through.
But like I said earlier, I don’t say things that I don’t do and I Cross My Chasm in every business I lead.
So you have a choice…
DO IT or DON’T
I already made my decision.
And I am eager to see what you are able to accomplish if your decision is to DO IT!
Thank you for going on this journey with me and remember, TOGETHER, we achieve more.
Live with Intention,
Jared Yellin