I went to my quarterly workshop for entrepreneurs the other day.  I love this workshop because I get to speak with a roomful of savvy entrepreneurs in all different business types.  The workshop is led by a great mentor and he delivers some powerful concepts for entrepreneurs.  Stuff like time management (entrepreneur style), process creation, team-building, planning, systematizing and growing your business.  The program is called The Strategic Coach.  It was founded years ago by a brilliant guy named Dan Sullivan.  You can learn more about it at www.strategiccoach.com.  I highly recommend it.

But this isn’t a commercial for Strategic Coach.  I just happened to be there when it hit me.  The “it” I’m referring to is the power of guru status.  See, my team and I have been very fortunate to work with some of the world’s leading small business gurus.  As awesome as that’s been, we at Infusionsoft sometimes take for granted the fact we get to work with these “stars.”  As I listened to a bunch of entrepreneurs talk about these gurus who use our software, they spoke in reverent tones.  And the respect they showed for guys like Michael Gerber, Dan Kennedy, Mark Victor Hansen, Jay Abraham, Dan Sullivan and others was very interesting.

Mind you, the entrepreneurs talking about these gurus were successful in their own right.  So their comments made me grateful to be able to work with such gurus.  But their comments also reminded me that even successful entrepreneurs like the ones in my class are quick to look up to, and follow, a guru.  There’s a lesson in that for all of us entrepreneurs. 

I’ve been on a 10-day, road-trip vacation through the Midwest with my wife and five kids.  We saw 10 states, a ton of interesting sites and more corn than I care to mention.   With the exception of three 10-minute glances at my Blackberry, I left work completely alone.  It was great and my family LOVED it.  My oldest son said on the last day of the trip, “This is the best vacation we’ve ever had!”  Success.

Last Monday, we went to an amusement park.  The roller coasters were great, the games stole a bunch of my money and the stuffed animals I won were, well, cheap.  But we had a good time because my kids and I love riding roller coasters.  The interesting thing was a comment my wife made as we left.  I thought the day was a huge success, but she said, “Well, it’s certainly not Disneyland.”  I thought the rides were more fun than Disneyland’s.  But she was annoyed that the grounds weren’t clean.  I started asking her questions about what she loves about Disneyland.  It all came down to cleanliness, familiar characters and happy, cheerful employees.

Truth is, I think the characters were the least important part to my wife.  She spreads word-of-mouth wildfire about Disneyland because of clean grounds and happy employees.  She won’t tell anyone about the amusement park we went to the other day.  Considering the cost of acquiring new customers, this was a great lesson for me.