Build Something of Lasting Excellence
Steven Florio, Vice-chairman of Advance Magazine Group reflected on what contributed to his success in Donald Trump’s book, The Way To The Top. Note the lesson he learned at an early age:
One day, when I was about twelve, I was down in my carpenter grandfather’s basement workshop when he said, "You should start earning your own money. You clean up this wood shop and I’ll pay you what it’s worth."
So I spent the next three hours making that place shine. I swept up all the wood shavings; I wiped down every piece of equipment and made it gleam. I stacked all the wood neatly.
Then I found my grandfather and we went back to the shop. He looked around for what seemed like a very long time. Then he nodded slowly and said, "Fantastic!"
You can imagine how proud I felt.
Still nodding his approval, he reached into his pocket and handed me my wages - a quarter! Twenty-five cents.
A quarter?! I couldn’t believe it. Even in 1960 a quarter for three hours of work was nothing to an American kid.
He said, "I want you to learn something about the world.
"In the real world, cleaning up is useful, but it’s not worth much. Anyone can do it. It’s worth, maybe, a quarter.
"Now, if you had built something useful with these tools, a bookcase maybe - something that was functional - that would have been worth a bit more.
"But if you had envisioned something new, something no one had ever thought of before, and if you had built that, pouring your heart and your soul into it, well, that would have been worth a lot of money. Remember that."
And I have. To this day, I still carry that quarter.
It reminds me of the importance of envisioning and building something excellent, something that will last long after you are gone.
And that kind of vision and love of craft is not something you can get from most businesses. You certainly don’t get it from a business plan or a five-year projection. You get it from your heart. It’s got to be something you feel in your heart. That’s where it all begins.
When given so many choices of what you can do in this world or with the opportunities set before you, do you settle for the menial? If you are going to have to put time into a job, pick the one with the largest payoff and greatest personal sense of ownership. You will be valuing yourself and your time.
Small Business Bookkeeping
Here is a high level view of how to set up a good bookkeeping system for your small business. Having an accounting system such as QuickBooks helps to track your profits and losses for taxes as well as your profitability in growing your business. This is a high-level workflow to help you set up a system.
Expense Tracking Workflow
We coach a lot of entrepreneurs who are learning the ropes of what it means to have a business rather than be an employee. One of the advantages and responsibilities of business owners is to claim and track business expenses. To find out what this means research it here.
Here is a simple mapping of how to take care of your receipts and how cash should be accounted for in your business.
Launching A Business
Here is a map of various pieces to the puzzle for starting and growing a business venture. In the new economy, it is quite simple. However, each of the boxes have to work together in synchrony. The specific steps within each box is also critical to execute.
If you are currently an employee, get the set up done to position you for success. Note the two groupings:
- Business Set-Up: Can you imagine a retail store opening up without the space, equipment, cash registers, etc.? You must be prepared to deliver professionally with the customer.
- Demand Generation: The first phase of a business is about one thing - selling. If you cannot do this, then you only have a structure. You must focus on the marketing and selling systems which will drive your growth. Often, coaching is necessary in this area.
Belief And Results
You are who you have been becoming. The choices you have made as a person enable you to make future choices. There are too many stories of people who have overcome odds to go after what they want. It eliminates the excuses. The following will help you build your belief system.
Red Pill or Blue Pill
In the movie, The Matrix, the protagonist, Neo, is presented with a proposition. He is coming to realize that what he sees as reality may be suspect. He is offered the opportunity to see reality for what it truly is. He does this by making a choice between a red pill or a blue pill. The blue pill keeps him moving along the comfortable path he is on. The red pill allows him to see the matrix, the computer-generated world he is a part of. He gets to see reality.
Your life is largely a choice in the same way. It is easy to move along and always seek comfort and avoid pain. It is a strategy enjoyed by millions the world over. This is so normal it is not questioned. However, what if you want to go after something outside your comfortable reality? You must swallow the red pill. What does this take? Here are three things you need to be able to do:
- A choice. You must make a decision that you want to go after what you want rather than focus heavily on obstacles. The obstacles are real, but your desire needs to be more real.
- A Fail-forward mindset. If you think going after what you want is easy, you are a blue pill person. Stay plugged in. You have not lived enough lifetimes or experiences to know how to do everything. Otherwise you would do the things you want. Decide that failure is part of your journey. Decide not to blame or complain.
- Coaching. Who offers you perspective on your journey? If get-rich quick or having a shortcut to a goal worked, wouldn’t everyone do it? How about finding people with a growth mindset to help you see? They are rare. You need a coach who can give you perspective and guidance. It is something you cannot see alone.
Belief
You cannot fabricate belief. You have or lack belief because of the choices you have made in your life. You have the body you have because of the work or lack of work you put into it. So how do you increase belief? Like the body, it is a muscle to be worked. Here are three things you can do to grow your belief system. It is needed to win:
- Read Every Day. Do this to help you think. Do it to learn. Start with Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders to learn how.
- Make More Commitments. You care what people think. Use it to your advantage. Tell them your big goals and when you want to achieve them. It will spur you to action, perseverance and diligence.
- Write What You Believe. Your writing needs to be public. Writing helps you get clear on what you want. When you write, you grow in your belief.
Owners and Everyone Else
Owners are not like everyone else. Without people who think like owners, there would not be opportunities for everyone else. As Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” There are great rewards in being an owner. The challenge is in the mindset.
Different Thinking
People with a low tolerance for risk, whose behavior is guided by fear, have a low propensity for success. – Keith Ferrazzi
This was a comment by Keith Ferrazzi in Never Eat Alone and it has been our observation through thousands of hours in business coaching. People do live either by fear or by belief. You can hear what guides a person’s decisions just by listening carefully to how they talk. If you hear a lot of excuses, justifications, or focus on the negatives, it is likely rooted in fear. However, we do not walk around telling people we are fearful. Life is not that candid.
There are many people who think they can start a business, but they lack the mindset to ever succeed. They have an employee mindset. They will never succeed unless they can grow. Typically, they:
Confuse Involvement with Commitment. Many people have had jobs. They perform for a corporation or an owner. They play with house money, not their own money. They make decisions and enjoy structures, resources and customers that are not their own. Martina Navratilova said it best, “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.” If you have never been committed, then it is easier to stay an employee and just be involved.
Focus on Cost Not Investment. The person handles any discussion on spending as a cost rather than thinking in terms of return on investment. It is funny. We live in an ecosystem. People have an interdependence on each other’s goods and services. These people expect everyone to buy what they have because they see value and think it would be a good return to a person. The blind spot is that they do not assume the same behavior they expect of others when dealing with buying. They are thinking in scarcity rather than abundance. Do you invest in yourself? Or again, does it first have to be house money?
An Unforgiving Reality
"If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability." — Henry Ford
Our economy is increasingly playing to the person with the owner mindset. While we all seek security, the question is whether a person seeks it in being an employee or an owner. To transition, you must be able to transition your security and belief system to an owner’s mindset; otherwise, it is better to be someone’s employee. Life is very short. You are who you have been becoming.
Fear Or Belief
What guides your life? Fear or belief in yourself and what you want?
Fear vs. Belief
Henry Thoreau made the observation, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Is this true? Look around and observe the people who live their life. Are they doing what they truly want? If not, then what are they doing?
Now look inside yourself. What are you afraid of? Are you doing what you truly want? Why not? Do you make choices based on who you want to become or what is the safest? These choices define you. Below is a chart of differences between a fear-based mentality and a belief-based mentality:
|
Fear |
Belief |
| Scarcity thinking | Abundance thinking |
| What can I get? How do I sell? | What can I give? How do I add value? |
| What are my needs? |
What does this person really need? What are their problems? |
| “I might get taken advantage of.” |
“I might be able to make a difference.” |
|
“I need to get something in return.” |
“I don’t keep track of what I get in return.” |
|
I always win, regardless |
I am willing to lose for the other person |
|
What is it going to cost me? |
How will I be able to add value? |
| No Trust | Trust |
| Betrayal under pressure | Loyalty under pressure |
| Victim | Conqueror |
Challenge:
- Write a blog article or email to your mentor or coach describing how you could add value to your coaching relationship. What would doing business out of fear look like? What would doing business out of belief look like?
- Give something of great value to a prospect without expecting anything in return.
True Product of a Business
“The true product of a business is the business itself.” - Michael Gerber, the E-Myth revisited
Notes
- The business model is the business
- The brand is the business
- Value is based in treating the business as the product
Fatal Flaw of Business Owners
The great business idea and energy an entrepreneur brings to a new venture is contagious. The dream of growing a business and having a multitude of customers is fuel for the chase. However, in the pursuit of a vision of services being sold, widgets being made and customers raving over your brand, do not make the mistake that business owners in America make. It was captured best by George Gendron, the former Editor-in-Chief of Inc magazine.
“The dirty little secret about entrepreneurial life in America is that the overwhelming majority of small business owners create zero equity for themselves. You spend a lifetime building a company only to discover, when it is time to sell, that it is worthless.”
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The Eight Ball
Your business has to make money. It is the fuel by which it operates. However, what is the exit strategy? This is the eight ball. Keep your eye on it. What is it worth? How do you increase its worth? Here are eight things needed to increase the value of your business:
- Systems. What is the predictable result produced from the systems in your business? Can you put one anywhere in the world?
- Process. How does your business flow for the customer? Is there an experience within a framework or is it a mere transaction?
- Talent. What is the formula for measuring, retaining and attracting the talent which fits in your
- Culture. How do ideas, people and energy percolate in your company?
- Financials. What is the track record and formula for making money?
- Documentation. Is there a cookbook that tells me how to set up what you have in Hawaii if I wanted to?
- Branding. What position do you occupy in the mind of the customer? How has this been built? Is it scalable and repetitive?
- Robustness. How well does your business run without you? This is the litmus test. If 1-7 are in place, 8 becomes apparent.
Want to get out of the entrepreneur trap? Think beyond revenue. The discipline of focusing on your business as the product itself requires a systematic approach to avoid missing the true value you are building. Learn more through AscendWorks Business Coaching.