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The Big Red Flag Telling You Your Business Isn’t Working
I’ve heard it called paying your dues, sweat equity, falling on your sword, and doing what it takes to survive. Bottom line it’s a red flag your business model is broken. What am I speaking of? Not paying yourself what you are worth.
I’ve never seen a business fail because the owner was being paid properly, but I’ve seen many businesses fail because the owner was not taking a check home.
If you are not getting properly rewarded for your efforts you will lose interest and energy and there is where the business failure comes from – you start just going through the motions.
You aren’t running your business to be a non-profit or damage your lifestyle. Remember why you started your company to begin with – to get paid what you are worth and improve the quality of your life!
If your business isn’t paying you enough to at least support the lifestyle you had when you started the business, why are you operating your business this way? It’s an important question to ask yourself.
This is not a question about your work ethic, how many hours you are putting in or how much desire you have to succeed. Ever watch a gerbil on a wheel? He has focus, desire and exerts lots of hard work but he never gets anywhere.
When you find yourself in this situation re-evaluate your business model because the red flag is waving indicating something is wrong. There is no joy or reward in being a martyr for your business.
Innovation Stops Here
People love to enjoy new technology they can buy, but they are loathing going through the efforts to create it in the work place. What are these barriers and how do we need to overcome them?
We don’t do that here
How many great ideas have died because people didn’t believe the idea could fit who they were? To compete in today’s business climate, innovation barriers need to fall. Whether the discussion is about service delivery, product innovation or experimenting with a completely new direction, openness, eagerness and curiosity are the skills required to bring great new ideas to fruition.
Ford is working on voice recognition technology, individual modifications of the instrument panel, and driver preferences that can be transferred between cars using a USB thumb drive. They didn’t used to do that, but they do know. They are asking themselves: How can we make our cars a killer app?
What if you could pay for car insurance by the mile?
What if your doctor could check your vitals remotely?
What if you were able to buy power only when it was the cheapest?
All of these innovations will be here very soon because people in those creative organizations know “We can do that here” is the answer to all innovation questions.
We can’t afford it
If people waited until they could afford it, most couples wouldn’t have babies, most contractors would never build a building and most entrepreneurs would never start their businesses. A lack of funding is a weak answer to an important question – How bad do you want it?
If you want it bad enough…
Create a compelling proposal that is strong enough to convince someone to offer capital.
Create a joint venture where a number of people come together to pool resources to drive this idea to the top.
Sometimes the negative responses you hear on your proposal is something worth listening to. How can you recraft the innovative idea to improve it, redirect it or retool it to be a better idea? Negative feedback isn’t always something to overcome. Sometimes it’s a guide to creating the best idea. How badly do you want it?
Being in Sales is Like Being a Pinata
Being in sales is like being a pinata — people beat you with sticks and you still have to give them the candy! Learn how to hand the customer the stick, so then you can give them the candy. Buyer believability is critical to being able to sell. To grow your business understand the perspective of being a willing pinata.
6 Ways to Explore and Experiment
Recently I’ve been told a Guinness over a couple of scoops of ice cream is delicious. I’ve been told sky diving is very liberating. I’ve also been advised doing housework won’t kill me.
As leaders we need to be constantly exploring and experimenting with new ideas. Some of these ideas should be explored on a personal level and some of them on a professional level. It’s easy to fall into ruts, especially at work and these days to stand out and be up to speed on the norms of your industry you have to be trying new things.
Explore and experiment with the following:
Your operating hours: Most of them are for the convenience of the owner or the employees, not the customer.
Marketing: How much have you tried with experimental marketing online? My new experiment with online video (BizWizTV.com) is showing great promise.
Your dress code: How can you be the top of the heap when your employees dress from the bottom of the barrel?
Your promotions: What would it take to get customers lined out the door? Remember those days?
What new technology can you explore and reward? Who is your foursquare mayor? (I have businesses sending me thank you comments via twitter for checking in to their places.)
New combinations: For example, people love to mix fountain drinks. Why not offer suggestions with funky names? The Reduced Rooty – Diet Coke with a splash of Root Beer (my personal mix of choice)
Contacting your B2B customer: Call up your B2B customer and ask them to pick a number between 1 and 10. Whatever number they pick tell them they win and send them a gift or a reduced rate on their next order, etc.
We’ve lost the fun in business. Put it back with your experimentation. Not everything is going to work, but people will enjoy the excitement along the way!
In case you were wondering – I’ve been told I am over the weight limit for a tandem sky-diving jump. I’ll take their word for it. The Guinness milkshake is on the agenda for this coming weekend, and vacuuming, dusting, cleaning glass and folding laundry DIDN’T kill me – who knew!
What Are You Overcomplicating?
During the space race of the sixties NASA needed a pen that would write in zero-gravity so their astronauts could take notes and keep records while in space. Since pen technology is based on a gravity feed of ink to the point, NASA spent a million dollars (in 1960′s dollars) to design a pen that would work in zero-gravity. What did the cosmonauts use in space? A pencil.
Sometimes I see businesses overcomplicate simple matters and spend hours in meetings agonizing over issues because they are usually focusing on the wrong question. The question wasn’t what pen can write in zero-gravity, the question was how can an astronaut write in space?
What are the questions your leadership team is spending hours of meeting time on, that might be the wrong question?
Are you agonizing and focusing on how and where to trim expenses and labor or are you looking for innovative ways to find more sales to keep you from having to make those layoffs?
Are you asking questions like, “Why did this happen and who is responsible?” Or are you asking, “How can we solve this problem and prevent it from happening again?”
Look at the issues you are facing and trying to address. Which ones are you overcomplicating? You probably can save your organization thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours by doing this one thing today.
The Foundation of Success is Confidence
Lance Armstrong is a winner, no doubting that. Warren Buffet is an investment success story without question. Steve Jobs has successfully created businesses that achieve greatness. Was it just luck these individuals perform at the highest levels of their chosen professions? Was it a special mental gift they possess no one else has?
There is no doubting these three successful men have special talents that helped them to succeed, but the one common trait I see in successful leaders, these three included, is confidence. I’ve heard people respond to this notion with, “Well if I had won 7 Tour de France races, was worth billions of dollars, or owned all of the music known to man I could sell for a dollar a song, I’d be confident too!”
Which do you think came first the confidence or the success?
To fully achieve success one must possess the confidence to first believe it can happen, and then have additional confidence to make it happen. Consider the general attitude in this country right now. If you believe the press this country is in doom and gloom with no end in sight. That is the easy mental option; just cave in to the pressure and roll over until it passes. Sadly, many businesses are responding in exactly that fashion. How are you responding?
Remember the leader is the one who sets the expectation the rest of the management team will follow. Are you leading from a position of strength?
Confidence means being able to look at the bad news, accept it as is, and devise a plan to overcome it. Confidence means the leader is commitment and convinced the organization he or she leads will emerge from this recession even better than when they entered the recession. Confidence is having the strength to make the necessary efforts to operate a business in spite of the negative news surrounding them. Leaders who are confident see the proper steps to take in order to be stronger, faster and more profitable.
There is a significant difference between the confidence to make the right decisions and the bravado to try and convince people the decisions made were right. Without any research to support this opinion other than personal observation over the last 25 years in business, I believe those who have the confidence to make proper business decisions frequently make the exact right decision. Conversely, it is also my observation that the manager who is insecure and lacks true confidence regardless of the amount of bluster and bravado they spew seems to possess the innate ability to most often select the wrong decision.
It isn’t a curious coincidence that successful people are confident in what they do, it is essential they have that confidence to achieve that success.