The Hockey Stick

Last year, year 27 of this endeavor, my business GREW BY more than the total amount of business I did in year 10.

The lesson?  With continued affort, learning ,improvement and creativity, you can probably go a lot farther in the business you are already in than you ever imagined.

If you flit about from business to business, dividing your attention or starting from scratch in a new business every few years, the hockey stick (a line on a results chart that bends dramatically upwards after a long time of more moderate results) will elude you, and you’ll be stuck with a beginners profit (none or little) forever.

"Failing Forward"

Today’s message is from Justin Dobson, one of our subscribers.

“One of the things I learned a few years ago about myself and how I was running my business was that I was paralyzed.
I was putting so much effort into making the right decisions that I wasn’t making any.
I eventually learned to “fail forward” as I call it.
In other words…make a decision and learn from it. If it was a good one, keep doing it. If it was a bad one, change it again until it’s right…..But don’t be paralyzed!”

Thanks, Justin!

More, with less effort

A business owner’s perpetual dilemma – “How can I go faster and farther with less effort?”

Reinventing your job is always the answer.   It’s not about how long or hard you work, it’s about WHAT you are doing each day.

Release the brakes.  Reinvent your job.

Driving Change

When the rate of change outside your organization exceeds the rate of change inside it, the end is near.

Don’t be a victim of change – drive it.

The Ultimate Insiders

You can keep secrets from your customers, vendors and the outside world about problems in your business.  But there is a group of “insiders” who know what is really going on – your employees.

When they are complimentary and approve of what leadership is doing, then you’re doing it right.

What would/do they say now?

7 minutes older

You want to try to get out of working IN your business so you can work ON it instead.  But you still do lowish value things yourself because “It would take you just as long to explain to someone what to do as it would to do it yourself”. 

The problem is when you are done, you are seven minutes older and you still don’t have someone who knows how to do that for the next time it needs to be done.

You must stop doing tasks, and build the team that does the tasks.  Does that make sense?

Sales, and Marketing

Selling is what you do when you are on the phone or face to face with someone.  

Marketing is what you do to get them on the phone or face to face.

If you do your marketing well, people are predisposed to do business with you by the time you try to sell them.

Are you doing your marketing well?

Wasting time in "disguise"

What are you doing well that need not be done at all?

Asking obvious questions

What questions do you need to ask and answer about your business?  

What am I doing?  What am I going for, here?  Who are we?  To whom?  What do we do terribly that we must fix?  Who has been here forever that is actually a problem?  Is our product or service any good?  Am I any good at my leadership job?

Ask and answer.

No or "Hell Yes!"

Business is a commitment you have to go all in on.  When considering a business or diversification, you wouldn’t divide your attention and energy for a mediocre opportunity, would you?