In this episode, Alex Mandossian shares the story of Henry J. Kaiser and his billion-dollar ideas. Alex talks about why this remarkable man deserves acknowledgement and recognition for the incredible things that he accomplished during his lifetime. He was a larger-than-life man with big ideas who created industries that have yet to be matched in any American business endeavor. Learn about how being a “happy elephant” helped Henry accomplish his remarkable feats. You’ll also discover the relationship between Kaiser’s success and the Alexism – “The cost of doing the same thing without getting different results is higher than the risk of making change.”
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Why Henry’s Ideas Made Billions
In this episode, you’re going to discover why vision is not about the past or the present. It’s about the future. You’ll learn how to transform big ideas into profitable and innovative achievements. Not a lot of people have that ability or skill. You’ll also learn how success parlays more success utilizing the power of relationship capital.
Getting To Know Henry J. Kaiser
This is the story of Henry J. Kaiser. He’s not talked about in business books these days. You’ll hear about Elon Musk or Sir Richard Branson. You’ll hear about Oprah Winfrey or JK Rowling of all the Harry Potter books. Henry J. Kaiser doesn’t come up. I think he deserves recognition and acknowledgment because of all he did when he was alive. Larger than life is a good way to describe Henry J. Kaiser because he was a big man. He’s like the Tony Robbins type.
He had big ideas and he created big industries that have yet to be unmatched in any American business endeavor or any entrepreneur. Kaiser was a visionary. He wasn’t about the past. He wasn’t even about the present. He was about the future. You can learn a lot by studying him. His building career began in 1914 with a road construction project in British Columbia. By 1930, he had completed several highway projects in both California and Cuba.
These are some of his accomplishments. Number one, it was Kaiser who let the Contracting Consortium Commission to build the Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam is one of the great wonders of the world as far as construction goes. It’s in Nevada and if you haven’t visited it, I hope you do one day because it’s an amazing complex. His leadership with the construction of that project was so effective. It finished two years ahead of schedule. That’s remarkable.
The Bonneville Dam was next and followed by monumental Grand Coulee Dam. Number two, during World War II, Kaiser’s Pacific Coast Shipyards were building merchant vessels as well as the famous Liberty Ships. Winston Churchill credited them as the main reason why the tides were turned in the Pacific theatre. He was doing that in my home state of California. That’s why I have a special affinity for the man.
Number three, at the conclusion of World War II, Henry Kaiser was recognized as a national hero. His reputation didn’t stop there and he wasn’t done with vision. He went in on the automobile business. This is what’s remarkable about Kaiser, dam building, shipbuilding and automobiles.
Can you think of three more different industries than that and he was successful in all three of them? He knew how to put vision into action, make execution work and dispatch all the people involved in order to make it successful.
The Kaiser-Frazer Corporation became the fourth largest automaker in the United States. Kaiser’s company also kicked off the auto industry in both Argentina and Brazil. Number four, before he was done with the auto business, Kaiser turned to home construction. That’s building homes. He built thousands of homes in my home state of California and also in Hawaii.
In spite of all these remarkable achievements, Henry hoped to be remembered for another business idea involving medical care and hospitals and this is number five. His healthcare accomplishments are known as the Health Maintenance Organization. It’s commonly known here in the United States as HMO. It ‘s a prepaid insurance and hospital plan for total health, which are both alive and well and being used by millions of Americans now.
It’s affordable healthcare and he invented that many years ago and still alive and well. The question is, how did Henry Kaiser do so much in one lifetime with many different industries: dam building, shipbuilding, home building, automobile manufacturing, and healthcare?
[bctt tweet=”Vision is not about the past or the present. It’s about the future and what the future looks like.” username=”AlexMandossian”]
A Happy Elephant
A close business associate once responded to this question. He said, “Henry was like a happy elephant. He smiled. He leaned against you and there was nothing left to do but to move in the direction he was pushing.”
The reason I bring up Henry J. Kaiser is because most people have never heard of him. I encourage you to look him up on Google. Read his biography and watch biographies that you may find on cable TV or on YouTube. The reason for that is because he’s been lost in obscurity with all the other great entrepreneurs who are living now. I believe he’s a good emblem of not only vision but he’s also a great example of not giving up and doing whatever it takes.
The Alexism for this episode is this, “The cost of doing the same thing without getting different results is higher than the risk of making change.” I guess Einstein called that the definition of insanity. Kaiser risked a lot because these industries are all different.
You have to learn the internal workings of the industries that involve different types of people and management. Dam building, shipbuilding, auto manufacturing, home building and healthcare, I can’t think of five different types of industries and yet he made it work.
That makes him alone as far as entrepreneurship goes. I don’t teach what he lived into. I’d like to focus on one narrow niche in one area of expertise and focus on that. Most people can barely have enough time, energy and effort to make that work, but Kaiser did it. He did it through ethical influence. He knew how to influence others. He knew he had to dispatch their unique abilities and put the right people in the right places.
I’m sure he was a great political figure within the companies because you can’t sidestep politics with big industries like that. His accomplishments make a statement that whatever he did, and if you study him you’ll notice that he put the selling aside and he made things work through influence. We get to see his accomplishments that are still alive and well through the ships, homes, healthcare, the dams and automobiles, as well as other innovations within the auto industry.
The Three Types Of Fears
I believe there are three types of fears. Many people talk about the fear of failure and the fear of success. The first fear is the fear of trying. The fear of trying is the same fear of public speaking. It’s being embarrassed in public or the anticipation of looking bad. In most cases, people don’t even give it a try. You can at least be an intern in the area of your interest. You don’t have to take the risk, the monetary risk, investment of time and energy.
You can at least be an intern and learn the business to see if it’s right for you. You might think you want to be a doctor, but when you see what it takes to be a doctor and what a doctor often does, you may not want to be one. The same goes with medical professions, dentistry, chiropractic and all the other medical professions. It’s the same with financial planning. You may think you want to be one but unless you intern with one, you may want to get out of that business and go into another one.
My good friend Ryan Deiss, at nineteen, purchased the course from me called Marketing with Postcards. He was working for a financial planner in Austin. He eventually built the largest digital marketing company in the niche that I’m part of, which is digital marketing. The company he has is called Digital Marketer with Perry Belcher and another good friend, Roland Frasier. The fear of embarrassment is the first fear. The second is the fear of failure and the fear of anticipating failure despite your best effort.
Billion Dollar Ideas: The cost of doing the same thing without getting different results is higher than the risk of making change.
I’m sure you’re conscious of that. You probably have leaned into that and you wish you didn’t. There’s always a sense of fear of failure. It’s something that is healthy, but not to paralyze you and not move forward.
The first two fears, fear of being embarrassed in public and not trying, and fear of failing and did not accomplish what you wanted to. Those don’t even hold a candle to the fear of being widely successful and no longer relying on excuses. I call that the fear of success.
Many times you run out of fears to think about. The only one is, “What if I’m successful? Will my family still support me? Will I still have the same friends? Will my company change and have different personnel, team members and employees?” The answer is yes. You’ll have a different set of friends. Your family would probably judge you. They’ll probably be afraid that you’re going to change like mine did, but I can’t say that with absolute certainty.
As you ascend the mountain of prosperity, you will have new team members because there is no way a business making $100,000 is going to have the same team for a business that is making $10 million. Those are different stages. If you go from $100,000 to $300,000, you may have the same team. If you go to $100,000 to $300,000 and then to $1 million, you’re going to need a different team. From $1 million to $3 million, you probably could have the same team.
The team will change when you get to $10 million because the team’s vision, company’s vision, distribution and ethical influence change of what the company is all about. If you’re the CEO, you’ll be going from an entrepreneur doing it all to an entrepreneur who’s the public visionary of the company. That’s what most CEO making over $10 million do. I want you to be aware of this and study great biographies of the past, of names that aren’t thrown around and Henry J. Kaiser is one of those people.
Remember the three fears: being embarrassed, fear of failure and fear of success. If you have a big idea, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be profitable. It doesn’t mean it’s going to turn into something innovative. Steve Jobs comes to mind. He had a big idea. He wanted to democratize the music business so he created iTunes. Did it involve a lot of ethical influence? Yes. Did it involve a tool? Yes. It’s called the iPod and then eventually, the iPhone. Did it involve a lot of selling? It did. He was a great salesperson.
The Principle Of Parlaying
There’s the principle of parlaying. When you’re making bets and you’re making gambling which business can be because business is risky, the concept of parlaying is going from one bet to the next and utilizing the power of what you’ve done and moving it onto the next opportunity that you have. Many times, people think they’re parlaying intelligently but they’re parlaying in ways that are not only risky but are putting their entire business at risk.
If you study the history of Elon Musk, there are many times where he was on the verge of going broke, even though he’s made billions. It’s the same with Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey. When you parlay, which Henry Kaiser did better than anybody. He was like the parlay king. He would take one success, dam building, then parlay it into another success, shipbuilding, then parlay it to another success, home building, and then parlay it to another success, healthcare.
[bctt tweet=”Monetizing big ideas isn’t easy. It’s easier to monetize little ideas. ” username=”AlexMandossian”]
Relationship capital is what you take with you when you parlay. Success breeds success. You don’t have to sell as often once you’re successful. Warren Buffett comes to mind. If Warren Buffett walked up to you face-to-face, shook your hand or gave you a high-five and he said, “I have an opportunity. It requires $1 million and you have one month to come up with it.” If Warren Buffett did that to you, would you come up with the $1 million? I think you would.
I know I would because Warren Buffett has parlayed his success and ethical influence has a cascading effect when you continue to be successful. That doesn’t mean that you could be on the edge of the precipice and wild success can turn into a wild failure. What’s important is once you’re successful, if you can parlay the way Henry J. Kaiser did, you will not only be an ethical influencer but you won’t even think of selling anymore because you will have the relationship capital that makes a difference.
How do you apply this into everyday work, daily rituals and routines? I want you to watch and study biographies of people who are usually not talked about but were the great minds of the past, men and women because success leaves clues. I’m sure you’ve heard that sentence. You can learn from what Kaiser did. You can learn the nuances that you’re not hearing in the story of what made him become successful in five completely different industries.
A review of the insights you and I discovered in this episode. Vision is not something to give up to somebody else. It’s not about the past. You can study the past to come up with a new vision, but vision is not about the past or history. It’s not even about the present because the present happens in a nanosecond. Vision is about the future. I know you’ve heard that term again and again.
When you have a vision like Steve Jobs did, like Elon Musk had, like Henry Kaiser did, Oprah Winfrey, JK Rowling or any of the great entrepreneurs. We can go back to Bill Gates as well. When you have vision then it’s about the future and what the future looks like. That’s the first insight.
The second insight is transforming big ideas into profitable and innovative achievements. Monetizing big ideas isn’t easy. It’s easier to monetize little ideas. I like to think big and I like to have a big vision but I like to act small. Little by little, parlay and build momentum in order to turn that big vision to reality, but you can always start small.
Finally, success will parlay into more successes when you utilize the power of relationship capital. The people you know and the who that you interact with, that’s your safety net. It’s not your idea. It’s the people who are going to support you along the way. There are probably would be some politics but mostly, there will be ethical influence. I mentioned ethical because influence has its dark side as well.
My friend, mentor and I have known the gentleman for over twenty years, Dr. Robert Cialdini. Two notable books he’s written are Influence as well as Pre-Suasion. When he wrote the book Influence, it wasn’t a hit, it wasn’t a bestseller. He wrote it as a protective measure for consumers so that they don’t fall for the influence principles. He has six of them and he was writing it as a protective measure and methodologies so consumers could protect themselves from having these things done to them.
When the entrepreneur picked the book up, they started to raise their eyebrows, get super happy and say, “We could utilize these six principles of influence.” They call it the Cialdini Six. I get the term ethical influence from Bob because influence is not enough because there’s a dark side to it. I’m sure you’ve experienced that from someone else as well. Hopefully, you haven’t expressed it to others.
Billion Dollar Ideas: Success will parlay into more successes when you utilize the power of relationship capital.
If you have a vision that’s ethical and you have the big ideas that can influence not only consumers but others to support you, then you can parlay that success utilizing your relationship capital. These insights will only work if you work them. Please make sure that you execute what you’ve learned and study Henry J. Kaiser’s biography as well as others that you may not always hear in the news or in business books these days.
I want you also to make sure that you utilize this episode of All Selling Aside as a learning plan so that you take the entire week to think about, “How can I apply what I have learned? How can I execute?” CEOs get fired when they don’t execute. You can have a strategy but execution intelligence is one of the most powerful talents anyone can have. Your future will be bigger. It will be brighter and you’ll be going to create it on your own terms. That’s my hope for you.
I want you to go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. When you get into iTunes, look for the All Selling Aside episode, this one which is “Why Henry’s Ideas Made Billions?” Type in the biggest takeaway or a-ha moment you experienced for this episode. If you’ve already done this, you can write out your biggest takeaway on an index card and you can review it at a later day. It will mean a lot to me if you’ll give me a review.
It’s a creative way of giving a review because you’re giving me your takeaway in what you learned versus talking about the show as a whole. You can do this in the iTunes review section. Once you’ve reviewed the episode, iTunes is automatically going to ask you to rate the episode. I hope I’ve earned five stars from you. Will you do that for me?
Go ahead and declare your one big takeaway on the iTunes review section by visiting AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. It will take three minutes out of your day. What you declare publicly could provide you a lifetime of learning.
I have one final gift for you in honor of this 39th episode of All Selling Aside. That’s how I start it. It’s the complimentary access to my video eCourse. It’s in four parts. Everybody else pays $197 for it but you have a way in MarketingOnlineMentor.com.
You’ll learn the big shift happening in digital marketing. Number two, you’ll learn how to identify your target market. Number three, you’ll create an irresistible message that your market will love. Number four, you’ll capitalize on the most lucrative media sources available to you. Market, message, media, those are the three M’s in marketing. Sales can be fun when you know what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
Please do whatever it takes to join me next episode because the topic will be, What Business Are You In? That’s the question. I have a big idea for you. You’re not in the business you think you’re in. The question, “What emotion are you selling in your business?” That’s what we’ll be covering on the next show. I encourage you to invite a friend or bring a study buddy. It’s a lot more fun to study with someone and you’ll learn a lot faster too. I can’t wait to connect with you then. All good wishes.
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