Business success doesn’t just happen. It’s a takes a lot of hard work. But, that hard work needs to be focused like a laser on what success means to you. Once you know what it looks like, it becomes a passion, a force more powerful than anything you can imagine. Your passion helps you accomplish things you never thought possible!
Know What You Want “Personally” Before You Start
How many people do you know that seem to wander aimlessly? Do you know someone maybe “personally” like this? I see this more times than I care to admit. Owners are so focused on their business that their life becomes out of balance and they wonder why they aren’t getting what they want!
When life is out of balance, performance suffers. The personal goal assessment is a tool to help you focuses on both personal and professional objectives. The assessment allows us to help clients develop a life balance. With life in balance, performance increases allowing you as a small business owners to achieve more both personally and professionally. Business success becomes easier at this point.
Take an Offensive vs. a Defensive Posture
I have written countless times in the past on this topic. Ask anyone you believe has business success and they will tell you nobody just handed them their success. They had to go get it!
People that take a defensive posture are like a turtle. When trouble comes around they duck in their shell and wait for it to pass. Successful people take an offensive posture and go get it. If you first know what you want, you can react to anything that comes at you in a manner that gets you closer to your goal.
Focus on the Right Things for Business Success
A perfect example of what I mean here is how many business owners reacted to the economic downturn in 2008. Many businesses cut, then cut some more, and then cut even more? Were you one of those people?
If sales are falling and revenue is shrinking, what will cutting expenses do to correct falling sales and shrinking revenue – NOTHING. Cutting expenses is a defensive strategy.
Successful business people took an offensive posture. They saw sales falling and built a plan to change that trajectory and to get their sales moving again. This in turn causes revenue to stabilize and begin turning north again. Then they looked at expenses to see where they needed to cut back to assure profitability stayed at the same or even higher percentage as before the downturn. You need to take this attitude with everything you do if you want to achieve business success.
Understand Cause & Effect
To achieve business success you will need to make many hard decisions. When you make a decision or take an action a wave of events are set into motion, like the ripple in a pond. It’s often these events set in motion by the ripples that cause problems, not the original decision. This is why planning is always so critical – both in life and business. Planning forces you to look at the wave of events that will occur with each action you take. It allows you to see where negative events may occur. Knowing a negative event might occur allows you can decide, “do I want to go down this path or is there another way to get to my destination?”
When you “shoot from the hip”, you find yourself always dealing with disasters that the ripples from your decisions create. So, take time before you act. Think about the effect caused by your action. Then decide if there might be a better, faster or cheaper way to get there. You will reach your goals much faster and with less stress when you give it a little thought before you act.
Create a Plan and Stick to It
Too frequently I hear owners complaining “nobody does what they are supposed to do.” So I ask, “do you have a written plan with objectives, expected outcomes, and a timeline for their achievement?” The answer, more frequently than not, is NO. Of course when I ask if the owner has a life plan they regularly review to see how they are progressing toward their life’s goals, the answer is again NO.
The purpose of a plan is more than just to chart your course. It also establishes accountability. Accountability in turn creates disciple. Anyone of great success will tell you discipline was a key factor in their success.
Conclusion
Is this all there is to business success? No, but these are the items that seem consistently to be missing with many people that I coach. Once we begin addressing these items, quickly their circumstances begin to turn for the better.
If you have had thing that have helped you with your business success share your ideas here. When we find things that work and help us grow I feel that it is our duty to help lift up others. I look forward to hearing things from you that can make me more successful too!
[…] I always ask entrepreneurs “are you focused on the right problem?” In a previous post titled A Few Simple Things Bring Success I shared my views on the 5 important things to business success. Several of these areas go right […]
[…] of these stages therefore he/she is focused on the wrong objectives for their stage of growth. Focus on the right things and success becomes much […]
I need a Good advise on when you starting a business under your father’s enterprise. And you are planning to start your own business in future while working under your father.
Ebrima, This good question and one that many owners don’t consider at the time a startup. Make sure that you clearly define the roles that you and your father will be playing in the new business up front. Next, clear you to find if and how the business will be separated from your father or his business in the future. This way everyone understands up front how things will be handled and when you’re ready for the business to move on its own what payout will be required to your father at that time. This will be critical to understanding what you need to plan for in order for the separation to occur.
I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if you have any further questions. – Dino