The 10x rule ffirs indd I 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 AM ffirs indd II 3/14/11 10: 22: 47 am the 10x rule The Only Difference Between Success and Failure Grant Cardone John Wiley & Sons, Inc

the space.”
Most of you will have less money than some of the leaders 
in your space. Even if you have less money than other players 
in the market, that doesn’t mean you’re at a disadvantage. 
Although they may be able to outspend or outadvertise you, 
you can certainly outwork them by using social media, per-
sonal visits, mail, e-mail, networking, and so on. Create cam-
paigns using the resources you do have. There is no shortage 
of energy, effort, creativity, or how much you can make con-
tact with your clients. Use variations of campaigns of offers, 
information, video, links, third-party validation, mail, e-mails, 
phone calls, and personal visit combinations to counter the 
expensive and often wasteful ad campaigns used by the bigger 
players. Warning: When using activity to counter “deep 
pocket” advertising of competitors, never underestimate how 
much activity it takes to be noticed and to maintain attention 
in your space. For example, people think that they can post 
twice a day on Facebook or Twitter and that they are creating 
an effect. You don’t understand massive action if you think in 
twos and you defi nitely are underestimating the size of the 
Internet if you think a couple of posts are going to get you 
noticed. Like every other aspect of growing your business, you 
have to keep showing up over and over and make it obvious 
that you are not going away. 
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Competition Is for Sissies 
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The good thing about social media is anyone can play in 
the space, regardless of his or her fi nancial situation. It allows 
for unlimited creativity, and rewards only those who use it 
consistently and persistently. When I fi rst started playing with 
social media, I posted twice a day. I don’t know what I was 
thinking—it was a moment of “little think.” We simultane-
ously began sending out e-mail strategies once a month and 
found ourselves getting requests from people who wanted to 
be removed from our e-mail campaign. My colleagues sug-
gested I back off. That is when I woke up and came to my 
senses. Instead of backing off, I made the order to increase 
the number of posts to 10 times what we had been doing. 
I then instructed my employees to start sending out electronic 
strategies twice a week instead of monthly (eight times) and 
began personally posting comments on Twitter 48 times a day 
(once every 30 minutes). Each of them was written by me, and 
they were set up to be dropped in at a certain time. Although 
you might assume that the complaints and “unsubscribe” 
requests would increase with this massive outfl ow campaign, 
they didn’t. Instead, we started receiving e-mails and posts 
of admiration for my activity level, and compliments for my 
willingness to provide people with free sales and motivational 
information. The questions came fl ooding in: “How can you 
do all this? How big is your staff? Where do you fi nd the time? 
Do you ever rest?” And for every person commenting, there 
had to be another 1,000 thinking something similar . . . and who 
do you think they were thinking about? This was not expen-
sive to do and only cost me energy, effort, and creativity. At 
the same time I was doing this, the guy who most people com-
pare me with was asked what he thought about social media. 
He responded, “I am still evaluating it.” While he is evalu-
ating, I am beating it to death. I posted one day on Twitter, 
“I am going to make Twitter my little bitch.”
This is a great example of domination and outrageous 
think and action that doesn’t cost money. Think about dom-
ination like this: You can’t dominate if you don’t penetrate, 
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82
THE 10X RULE
and you won’t penetrate by using reasonable levels of activity. 
Your biggest problem is obscurity—other people don’t know 
you and aren’t thinking about you. 
Another problem for all of us is just getting through 
the amount of noise in the marketplace. You have to do two 
things: (1) get noticed and (2) get through the noise. In my 
case, had we made a decision to back off in order to satisfy 
a few complainers, we would not have expanded our contact 
base. The more I posted, the more people liked us. The more 
we put out, the more people we helped. As we blasted on this 
new program, we even saw posts from competitors mocking 
me. Yet even these comments brought attention to me and 
my business. Two things will happen when you take the right 
amount of action: (1) You will get a new set of problems and 
(2) your competition will start promoting you. I love it when 
I have made such an impact that others who don’t even know 
me are having conversations that raise awareness about my 
business, my products, and what I am up to. 
Determine the capability, actions, and mind-set of those 
against whom you compete. Do what they will not do, go 
where they will not go, and think and take actions in 10X quan-
tities that they cannot comprehend. Don’t get too involved in 
competing on best practices; take your actions to a point con-
sidered unreasonable by the world, where you are doing those 
things that only you and your company would, could, or are 
willing to do—something I call “only practices.” 
For one company I once consulted with, we identifi ed 
places in which “only practices” could be employed. We dis-
covered that the industry in general struggled with the prac-
tice of following up with customers. So we looked at what our 
competitors would not do and found that none of them would 
call back clients as they left the store. This led the company 
to immediately initiate programs during which clients were 
called back as they drove out of the parking lot. Managers then 
immediately started calling clients’ cell phones as they left the 
company’s premises and asked them to return. If the call went 
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Competition Is for Sissies 
83
to voicemail, the manager left a message requesting the client 
to, “Please come back immediately. I have something you must 
see.” Or the manager would send a text suggesting that the 
company had something to show the client right away. If there 
was no successful contact made, another manager repeated 
the callback program that same day and again the next morn-
ing. The results were crazy. Almost 50 percent of the clients 
returned immediately, and almost 80 percent of those became 
buyers at that time. Another 20 percent returned as a result of 
the later calls and increased the sales of that organization to 
new levels. This is an example of “only practices.” 
It doesn’t matter what you do—it does matter that your 
goal be to dominate your sector with actions, that are imme-
diate, consistent, and persistent and at levels that no one else 
is willing to operate at or duplicate. Take any action, and take 
it to a level that will separate you and your company from 
everyone else who might be in your space. Be willing to 
spend every last bit of energy, effort, and creativity on dis-
tinguishing yourself as the only player there. Learn how to 
dominate by being fi rst in the minds of your market, your 
clients, and even your competitors. Market conditions won’t 
improve until you improve the way you think and approach 
the market. Even if you are in a weak market, you suffer less 
when you dominate it. Weak markets actually create oppor-
tunities because the players in those markets typically have 
become dependent and weak because they don’t know how to 
operate in a more challenging environment. Don’t feel sorry 
for them; dominate them. They’re not having bad luck; their 
average think and actions are simply failing them. The mar-
ketplace is brutal and will punish anyone and everyone who 
does not take the right amounts of action. Now is the time 
to shift into making your every thought and action aimed at 
dominating your sector, market, competition—and the every 
thought of your potential clients. Quit thinking about com-
peting. Despite what everyone says, it’s not healthy. It’s for 
sissies.
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