 Hello, everyone. So today I'm not wearing my glasses. I usually wear my glasses when I do these videos. There we go. Today I wanted to do a quick video about a book that I recently read called The Pumpkin Plan and I'm not sure how this book came across my radar. It was probably on sale or something like that But anyway, it's and I listened to the audiobook I should say. It's by Mike Mattelowitz I think that's how you pronounce it and It's about businesses and it's about getting into business And I think it's very useful for anyone who is an entrepreneur or freelancer like you and who is getting into their own business and For very specific reasons. So let me get into it. The main reason why it's called The Pumpkin Plan He talks about people who grow pumpkins and that they have these pumpkins competitions and The way these work is that the biggest pumpkin wins You've probably seen in the news or something people show off their great big come big pumpkin and and he goes into all that How it works is pretty interesting because I knew nothing about it, but he emphasizes the fact that all the average pumpkins even if they're sort of big but not the biggest they're all dumped and all the Concentration is put all the efforts all the resources all the energy all the money is put into this one Biggest pumpkin the one that's growing best and biggest so that it can be the showcase one and He kind of translates that into whatever you're doing that that's what you should be doing You should be dropping everything else all your side projects all your you know This that and the other and concentrating on your one big thing the one thing that you're best at that You're good at that shows the most rewards your biggest pumpkin and I think this is very At least it resounds a lot with me because I find myself so often Working on something and then you know someone will come up with an idea or not come up with an idea And I want to pursue it or I want to try a bit of this I want to see if that sticks or if this works or whatever it might be and it really is You know just the worst thing is it wastes time which obviously is you know I don't have that much of and very often nowadays It doesn't even waste that much money because you can do so many things for free or very cheap But what it does to me is it waits? Well, yeah, like my time like I said But mostly my my energy and my brain cycles if you will when you are an entrepreneur or freelancer, you're trying to you really have to use a lot of your brain to figure out solutions because the solutions aren't obvious and It is a full-time thing, you know And usually when you're in the shower or when you're you know not thinking about work is when you come up with your greatest Ideas, but if you're concentrating on three four different things Then you're gonna miss out on some great ideas for each one of those because you're spread too thin Anyway, he obviously explains it a lot better than I do But I do think this is a very important thing for most people when you're first starting out Especially when you're first starting out because it's hard and you don't know what you should be concentrating on what's gonna work And what isn't but you really just need to pick something and go full force all into it and And that's it and don't spread yourself in thinking about other things and concentrating on other things I also like a lot of the other tidbits He has he has other advice that he talks about like He mentions under promise and over deliver 80% of the time Not a hundred percent and he goes into why basically you don't want the client to get used to you always Underpromising and over delivering but if you do 80% of the time then they'll be very happy each time you do it And you'll always leave a good taste in their mouth So to speak because you're under promising and over delivering obviously don't do the opposite And then what else is he says don't let your chosen clients know that they're getting special treatment because he goes into it This whole concentrating on big come big come pumpkin Sorry means concentrating also on your best clients And if you have a bunch of clients, but a lot of them are taking up a lot of your time Or they're just not worth it for you. You should concentrate on the best clients You're probably your preferred ones if you've studied the Pareto principle the 80 20 principle Then you've kind of studied this in a way, but he goes a lot more into it And he's saying even if these clients that you prefer aren't making you the most money They if you could find all clients like the ones you prefer They probably will end up making you the most money because you prefer working with them And you look forward to working with them more than the other ones So he says you should just concentrate on those But yeah for various reasons don't let them know that they're getting special treatment as compared to the other ones I won't get going to all that stuff. What else does he have? He said be very transparent about your methods with your clients because in this day and age There's no reason not to they can find out anything they want to anyway So if you're transparent about everything you're doing up front it really Makes you stand out and it and it leaves a good impression for them Yeah, that's about it the tone during the book. I have to say was quite annoying at times But luckily it didn't really detract from the substance like I think he's trying to be Folksy and colloquial and stuff which kind of annoy me every now and then but the message from the book I thought was very good Everything he talks about is very actionable So you can do what I like with business books is when I can take notes and apply them right away And I think all business books by the way should be read like that You should never just read it and leave it aside and figure you'll get to it later No, you should apply them right away and it's and it's very easy to do with this book And all the steps that he lists are very concrete Yeah, there's steps that you would probably figure out at some point like some of them I was like, oh, yeah, I kind of figured that that out already But had I read it at the beginning when I first started out it would have saved me Oh, you know years of doing things incorrectly. So I do think it's very Very useful for a lot of you people out there and that's pretty much it I won't get into I don't want to get into too much detail about the book but Leave it at that I do recommend it I give it four stars out of five on Good reads and by the way, I didn't give it five stars out of five Just because five stars and I explained this before five stars I save it for game changers and whatnot this and Was I rated sort of a 4.5 and I kind of averaged it down What I wanted to see was wait to see how the results are after I do apply these And I might push it up to a five But either way, it's an excellent book if you do have access to it or if you find it anywhere I think you should look for it. It's not too long once again. It's called the pumpkin plan And it is by let me look it up again Mike Michaelowitz And So, yeah I hope you found this useful and I hope you do find it useful if you have read this book Please feel free to let me know because I'd love to hear about it and Likewise, if you know about any other books So I try not to discuss too many books I read here But only if they have to do a with language or b with Freelancing entrepreneurship and you know the business that we do in general And so if you do have any books you recommend along those lines Feel free to let me know I love reading in general And I love reading new books like this that I can find useful and that I can apply And anyway, that's about it for now. I'll see you in the next video Save Doom