Money is just 1 small part of the equation. People are motivated by other things such as freedom (ability to work remotely, set their own hours, set their own holidays), the ability to learn, respect (treating them like a partner/integral part of the business) etc. I haven't read it, but I've heard that Drive by Dan Pink[1] does a really good job at explaining this.
An example of this would be my Hire an Aspiring Entrepreneur strategy, which you can read about here: http://42insights.com/hire-aspiring-entrepreneur/.
The $4/hour part refers to hiring overseas contractors on places like oDesk. Again, you can get some fantastic people here by designing a position that gives them what they want in other areas. For example, contractors on oDesk are constantly looking for work, so giving them a permanent position where they are guaranteed a set number of hours per week is a great way to attract high quality candidates. I also wrote about this on my blog: http://42insights.com/how-to-hire-a-virtual-assistant/.
For a while now I've been very interested in learning useful knowledge and acquiring useful skills. Of course there's no shortage of useful knowledge and skills to acquire, and so I've often thought about how best to spend my limited time learning.
When I came across the concept of Force Multiplication, it seemed like an appropriate metaphor for a strategy to apply to choosing where to invest my time and energy in acquiring useful skills and knowledge. I started to think about what areas or skills would make sense to learn about or acquire first, to:
There have been a small number of skills/areas that have helped me surge forward in progress towards my goals. I look back at these areas and wish only that I had come across them sooner. As most of my adult life has been focused on business, most of those areas that have had a tremendous impact on my progress have been business related, but not all.
So far I've found it hard to identify these areas in advance. Almost all of the skills or knowledge that I learned, that had a large impact on progress towards success, I pursued for unrelated reasons, or I had no concept of how truly useful they would be. The only solution I currently have for identifying force multipliers is to ask other people, and especially those more accomplished than me, what they've learned that had the most impact on their progress towards success.
So, what have you learned that had the most impact on your progress towards success (whatever that might be)?
Can you think of any other ways to identify areas of force multiplication?