Small Business

Jan

2021

The two reasons you don’t have the wealth you desire

The relationship you have with money will directly affect your wealth.

The fundamental flaw of our modern education system is that we were raised and primed to be employees. Once upon a time, this wasn’t a bad thing. Those who influenced us to pursue traditional education paths wished us no harm. More than anything, they wanted us to be secure, in the best way they knew how.

Our post-depression era parents and grandparents saw our American economy in collapse and sought job-security, defined benefits, and government jobs for stability and safety. For decades, this logic was sound. Go to school, get a job, work 30 years, get a gold watch, and retire comfortably. Things have changed and this is no longer the case.

Employees trade time for money

Most employers have reduced their defined benefits plans to defined contributions and have removed any guarantee as to how much income employees will have when they reach the other end. Worse yet, the employee path pays you the employee less than your worth. Think about it this way, if you work for someone else, you are an investment. Your employer is getting at minimum a reasonable return on their investment and you are earning less than you are worth. This is the cost of “security.” At the end of the day, you are trading your time for money and are lucky if you can retire at close to the same standard of living as your working years.

What about small business owners?

Small business owners trade time for money and often become too vital to grow out of their roles

Some employees seek more control over their time and their earning potential and make the decision to start their own business. The drive is commonly to increase earning potential, set one’s own hours, and to have more control over their job. The trouble most small and startup owners face is that their traditional education governs their mindset. The new business owner has already been conditioned to equate dollars to hours. They will find themselves in a different landscape yet still trading time for money. The small business owner is at the greatest risk of making themselves the product of there business, in an inescapable job.

Those who plan appropriately and think big have the opportunity to limit their stay in small-business land to a brief layover in their career as they aim to build systems for their businesses. The smart business owner systematizes their job so that they can give it to someone else. They raise other leaders to carry out their vision. The smart business owner makes money from other people.

If you are unclear what type of business you are in, the test, as described by Robert Kiyosaki in his book Cash Flow Quadrant is: If you took a year off from your business, would it grow while you are away?

Making the switch to wealth and financial freedom

Financial freedom is attained when your passive income from businesses you own and your investments exceeds your expenses and liabilities. Following the thread from Kiyosaki’s book, the person who earns this passive income earns it either as a big business owner or as an investor.

Big is not bad

Big business owners develop leaders and build a wealth pipeline for themselves.

Big business gets a bad rap. These owners, often the millionaires and billionaires are vilified for their success. Those with employee mindsets often accuse them of being greedy and perhaps their feelings tie to their own realization (conscious or not) that their boss was earning a profit on them.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Think of that big business owner not as greedy, rather as giving. Business owners create jobs and opportunities and the best want to raise those they lead into leaders themselves. This is because a big business owner must develop leaders and systems to remove themselves from the operation and to keep the business growing.

Take action!

You’re ready to get into business for yourself and you want to avoid the pitfall of dead-ending yourself in your own company. Maybe you’re already in business and realize you have become too essential. It doesn’t matter where you are. What matters now is that you do not wait to build the systems you need to grow your business to the point that it outgrows you.

People – You cannot be a big business without others. Even if you are the only member of your company at this point, here is your four step process for assembling the right team:
1. Write your own job description and all of the roles you currently have.
2. Choose the roles and tasks which are not your strengths or which would best be served by someone else.
3. Develop your organizational chart and assign roles to the future people who will take on those tasks. This will inform your next hires.
4. Develop a path on your org chart for your growing organization so that as you grow you can assemble the leadership team which will grow your business and pushes you out the top.
Systems – The only thing a skill which you are uniquely qualified to perform guarantees is that you will forever hold that job. If your desire is to grow, you will need to empower others to do what you do best. At a minimum, you will multiply your own efforts. Document processes, bring others in, and you are likely to find that their unique perspectives bring even more innovation to your already great product or service.

Aug

2020

3 Things YOU Can Do Today to Free up More of YOUR Time!

Are you working on your business or in it? All too often, I hear business owners tell me that the buck stops with them. I hear that no one is better suited to lead the charge, make big decisions, or to even pick a new shipping supplies vendor than them. You may have begun your business as a visionary and there is no doubt that it is and has remained your baby. The question is: Has your baby grown up to be Frankenstein’s monster?

When you started out, it was big dreams, no clients, and your biggest challenge was where your next sale would come from. You didn’t need any employees… it was just you. You certainly couldn’t afford office staff, because when your revenue is $0, you don’t have a lot to work with. Maybe you’ve done well and turned that revenue into a five, six, or even seven figure number. Perhaps you still haven’t found your first sale. If you’re really lucky, you’re just starting out and you fortuitously stumbled upon this post and it will give you years of experience over your competition.

Seldom can we run a business and do well at it alone. If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you can surely recall the late nights, the sleepless nights, the Saturdays you skipped out on family plans, because your business was calling and without you, it was bound to fail. This is all too often a “necessary evil” and a “means to an end” for those entrepreneurs who eventually plan to leverage themselves and bring on more help. Whether you have hired more help or you haven’t, if you find yourself and your free time consumed by your business, you need to take action to solidify your own success and prevent burnout.

1. Do what matters most!

A common myth I encounter when working with business owners and leaders is that all things matter equally. They start their day with clarity, a schedule, and a to-do list, only to end it with little completed, a longer list, and more stress. It’s easy to mistake all of the things on your to-do list as a should-do list.

Start off by identifying the top priorities on your list which will move your business forward and those which are you highest priorities. Everything else belongs on your could-do list. Practice the 4 D’s: Delete, Delegate, Defer, and Do:

As you review this list of your lowest priority items, I challenge you to find one item that is of such little importance you can Delete it. Imagine the time you will free up and the feeling of liberation!
Your next sweep of the list is to identify those things you can Delegate to someone better suited to serve this purpose than you. For now, if it’s just you, this may just be back to you. Is there outside support you can enlist? Third party vendors who can lighten your load?
Next pass, find those things which don’t require attention today, which you can push forward in your schedule and Defer. The goal over time is to turn these tasks into Deletes or Delegates, once you have identified they are not integral to your success.
Finally, if these items have passed the first three tests, you must eventually Do them, however, you should have a strategy in place convert these Dos to one of the other D’s.

2. Work from a written job description and organizational chart

What are your job requirements? Before you answer “everything” consider why you got into business? If it was to run around with your hair on fire, tending to things you don’t enjoy, and spending your nights and weekends putting out fires, then never mind… proceed. If you’re like the rest of us, you probably began with a vision.

You imagined yourself being the visionary and either doing something you really enjoy or enjoying the opportunity your business gave you to live your life and to pursue your dreams. How then did you end up in your office on a Friday at 7:00 pm, shipping products and making collection calls?

Even if you’re just getting started, give your role in your business boundaries and know where your next opportunity to leverage your time will come. Your job description comes first, even if it’s a dream at this point. Then, identify the team you will need to support your goals and give them job descriptions as well. Finally, place all of these positions, even those which aren’t yet filled, on an organizational chart. This is your roadmap to leveraging your time and expertise to put the best people in the best positions to ensure your success.

If you have an established business with employees and even if you have an org chart, it never hurts to revisit it. Your business has undoubtedly evolved and new tasks and responsibilities have cropped up. I bet your employees have a keen eye for those things which are “above their pay grade” and “not in their job description” and which have likely fallen on you, the leader. It’s important to continually audit your role and those of your team.

3. Time Block

I love Google Calendar. I just want to throw that out before I tell you how much I despise what Google Calendar does to our lives. There is no doubt that fewer appointments are missed, varying time zones aren’t misinterpreted, and schedule changes are clearly and efficiently conveyed, because of digital calendars. They are great for collaboration, yet terrible for success. The trouble is that other people, with their own agendas and priorities can steal time from your calendar, almost without you even knowing. If you don’t claim your time, someone else will.

Time blocking, as it sounds, means blocking other things from interfering with your time and your top priorities. Once you have determined your success habits (see step 1), you need to get clear on how much time you will allot for them and the best time of day to accomplish them (typically first thing). Then, you will block that time out and protect it as though your biggest dreams depend on them… because they do!

Time blocks are virtually immovable. The only reason I say “virtually” is that if your significant other is in the hospital getting emergency surgery and you are at your office lead generating, you are soon to have a lot more time to lead generate, as you may soon be single. In the event that a time block conflicts with one of your top values, you must re-assign it. If you erase, you must replace! If your time, which you’ve committed to your success is not satisfied today, it must be done tomorrow. If not then, you’ll have to face yourself and explain why your goals are left unfulfilled.

If you are ready to take a role in growing your business and living a life in alignment with your goals, I am ready to help you get there. Tell me in the comments below your takeaway and how you will better leverage your time, to ensure your success.