Let’s dive into two words and two action steps that will help you succeed as a business owner.
The two words are:
Grit
Resilience
Are you born with these or are they like a muscle you have to develop over time?
I believe both. I believe some of us are born with grit and resilience. And, I believe that a lot of us have to keep exercising those muscles in order to get better, especially as business owners.
So, how do grit and resilience come into play in your business?
And, more importantly what are the two action steps that will help you succeed?
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What does it take to be a successful business owner?
If you posed that question to different business owners in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey, I am sure they would all have different answers for you. Some of them would give you a strategic approach to success, such as create goals, practice time management and surround yourself with the right employees. Others might share wisdom about mindset for success such as; believe in yourself, do not compare, you got this attitude.
I believe timeless actions steps are the secret to success
You will never outgrow these actions, your business will never get too advanced for these actions, they are not controlled by outside influences like a social media algorithm or other people’s opinions. They are in your power to implement.
5 secrets to build a successful business are:
Optimism and Resiliency – To be successful you have to see the glass as half full, there will be days when business or life feels hard and if you immediately think negatively, it will make mustering up the motivation to tackle the problem at hand very challenging. In addition, thick skin is a must. In today’s world it is so easy for others to criticize or leave you a less than 5-star review on Google. Instead of feeling depressed and stressed, ask yourself what can I learn from this to make my business better and secondly it is imperative to know this is not personal, it usual has nothing to do with you it is usually something in their life that is triggering the criticism. Let it go and move on.
Act when opportunity presents itself – many times businesses lose out on their shot because of inaction or analysis paralysis. When my son was playing basketball, my husband would tell him the infamous Wayne Gretzy quote “you will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and often times he didn’t take the shot because he wasn’t prepared and he let fear hold him back. This can be true for your business as well. Instead of procrastination, run the opportunity through my 3-prong approach. Ask yourself will this opportunity get me closer to my goal, am I and my team prepared to complete this opportunity, and what is really holding me back from going for it? Be honest with yourself and if your indicators tell you it is a good opportunity, then muster up the confidence to take the shot
Get and stay connected – it takes a village to do anything well and that includes owning a business. Surround yourself with other successful business owners, make it a point to make new connections but also nurture the ones you have. The most successful people put helping and adding value to others as a top trait before they expect or ask from others. Show up consistently, add value to others, connect people to each other and they will remember you and support you in return.
Stay in the present and be on the lookout – I think we have become a society that glances over things, the latest study shows that people glance over websites, in fact you have 7 seconds to capture their attention. Look around and what do you see, people always on our phones, looking down. What if you slowed down, let time work for, minimized distractions, stayed present and in the moment and looked around? I bet you will see plenty of opportunities in your present view that you didn’t notice before.
Visualize your success. What does success look like in your business, in your family? Visualize in detail what steps you need to take; the conversations you have, the clients you serve, the money you will make, what will you do with the money, how much will you bless others with, the legacy you leave your family. By engaging in this activity, it puts your daily actions in touch with your subconscious mind and trains your subconscious mind to be working on your behalf.
Remember success comes in many different forms and sizes. One person’s success might work for them but not for you. The best part of becoming an entrepreneur is you get to design what your success looks like, and I recommend you incorporate these 5 secrets into your success plan.
Looking to add more clients to your business? I invite you to a complimentary 30-minute Growth Planning Session, together we will take a look at what your business needs to be attracting the right clients. Schedule your session today: https://bit.ly/3IfWFpD
Most business owners can easily relate to the emotional toll being short staffed causes, however, knowing exactly the cost of being short staffed or hiring the wrong person for your company can be difficult to measure
When surveyed 62% of small business owners state they have made a “wrong” hire or bad decision a time or two when it comes to hiring.
5 ways it can cost a business:
Bottom Line – Profits – Moola – Cash in the Bank.
Whatever you want to call, employee turnover costs money. There is the time it takes to hire, the training time to bring a new employee up to speed, the loss productivity which can equal lost sales. The average cost for each person who quits is 125%. What does this mean? For example, if you hire an hourly employee for $20 per hour and that person resigns. It will cost you on average $25 per hour to hire, train, and get them proficient. I realize this is hard to sometimes wrap our heads around, but your time as the business owner equals VALUE and this cost affects direct bottom line.
Grass is always greener theory.
There has been a social media trend to celebrate quitting your job on social media. Hashtags such as #quitmyjobtoday #peaceout(insertnameofbusiness) started to become a trend. Other employees watch this happen and then start to notice the aspects of their job that they do not like and focus on the negative instead of what your company does offer. The grass is always greener theory kicks in, which is you look at other companies and think they will be better to work for, their grass is greener than my yellow lawn and they quit too. which then starts point #1 all over again, turnover cost. Hiring the right people from the start will reduce this phenomenon.
Stunts Company Growth
This is a real struggle, how can you as a business owner proactively focus on growth plans, strategies and networking when you are constantly working in the business. It is extremely difficult to navigate this when you are constantly reacting to the revolving door of employees. In addition, if you are in the business of creating a product, how can you produce enough products to meet demand without staff? You can’t, I see it often, companies turning off orders or turning down business.
Decreases profit
When business owners are faced with mounting work and not enough employee’s quick decision become the norm. Making quick reactive decisions might not be in the best interest of the long-term growth of the company and profits. We might pay more for services or delivery because we don’t have the time to go get them ourselves, we might not have time to analyze costs and buy what is easiest to receive. Paying overtime to our current staff because we simply do not have enough. All these little reactions erode our profit margin.
Increases burnout of owners
Sadly, I am talking with more and more business owners that are frankly TIRED. They are starting to question if they can continue at this pace. If they don’t start finding dedicated staff, they are close to throwing in the towel. What a heartbreaking way to go out. Most of these business owners have passed the scary 5-year mark, they have more business than they can handle, they offer an excellent product or service, they just don’t have the right bodies to assist.
What can today’s business owners do to start building sales and reducing costs when it comes to employee management?
The first step is recognizing what we did before to recruit talent is not as effective and it is time for a new strategy to hiring. If you are interested in learning best practices to attract and retain Today’s employees, I invite you to these resources:
Do you want to know ONE way to not worry about your business so much?
Have a roadmap.
Call it clarity, roadmap, plan, strategic plan, whatever you want to call it, but by taking the time to plan it and create a roadmap for this coming year, quarter, month, week is going to help you alleviate that worry about your business.
Reduce Stress. Increase Focus. Save Money. Gain Results
So, how often should you plan as a small business owner? I like the idea of looking at the big picture and creating a yearly plan. But I think when we do that, it’s almost too hard to keep up with. It can be overwhelming. I suggest to break it down into quarterly goals and plans, monthly, and if you need it, weekly. What I find a lot with small business entrepreneurs, especially newer entrepreneurs is, yes, we like the process of sitting down and brainstorming and thinking about where our business is going to go, visualizing our growth, but then we kind of fix it and forget it. We create this plan, we move on, we react to what goes on around us. We get pulled into every direction, which way or the other, and then we forget about it.
Sometimes this occurs because we do not create realistic plans and we end up reacting to our businesses instead of being proactive in your business, which ultimately leads to burn out and worse case scenario, failure.
I have a 3-step approach that I walk my clients through. Today, I want to share with you Step #3 of this approach. Creating S.M.A.A.R.T. Goals. It is not a new science, it’s been around forever, but it works. So, what is the SMAART approach?
S=Strategic. What are your strategic goals to grow your revenue, to grow your profits? Maybe break it out into department. Such as marketing, team, systems, revenue, profits, work-life balance, etc. See how I added work-life balance in there?
M=Measurable. “What gets measured gets results.” It’s so true. So, everything you do, when you look at your goals, don’t just put pie in the sky, make sure that it has some type of element that can be measured.
A=Actionable. What are the steps needed to get there?
A= Accountable. I added this A into my SMAART goals because it is so important. Assign tasks, assign accountability partners. Schedule out your tasks and check-ins with the team
R=Realistic. Sure, I want you to dream big and go for it, but I want you to create baby steps, short realistic goals to get there. Not only does this earn you some wins, it avoids disappointment and discouragement along the way.
T=Timely. Assign deadlines, time to work on them, make them timely so you can keep checking them off and creating new ones to get you where you want to go. Human motivation in action, reaching goals motivates you to strive for more.
When you have a plan and work the plan it takes so much stress off of your day-to-day mindset of growing a business.
No one ever got to their destination without a road map, do you think you can achieve your dreams and goals in your business without one?
What is the one thing you worry the most about in your business?
When first starting out, many business owners struggle with investing in hiring help. They know it’s a must to invest in a logo, stock inventory, build out the physical space, hire an accountant and a legal advisor, arrange and pay for all of the tangible things. Yet, when it comes time to hire employees, they pump the brakes, hard and fast… SCREECH!!!!
Why is this?
I believe it’s a mindset, a mentality. The belief that “I can’t afford this right now.” Or, “I’m the business owner, I’m supposed to be doing this.” Or, worse yet, “I’m going to save money and do it myself.”
It’s hard to see, but those thoughts are the result of your mind playing tricks on you. The reverse is actually true.
What happens is that when you are slow to hire, you are slow to grow. You start trading time for dollars. You become what Michael E. Gerber, author of the E-Myth, calls the technician of our business. You soon find yourself in the same situation I was at one time when my coach (lovingly) told me, “You bought yourself a job.”
Now I do realize we have to be mindful of your cash flow and finances. I am not suggesting you go out and hire a variety of employees/contract workers so you don’t have to do the work. What I am suggesting is you determine when it is right, when it does make “cents” to prioritize and plan for investing in hiring.
Start to really look at what you are doing in your day to day business. Then ask yourself, “What would I do with the time I free up by hiring?”
For example, my coaching business is mainly online and this is a new space for me. There are a lot of moving pieces in the back end such as email campaigns, blogging, updating my website, creating social media graphics, managing lead magnets, all the pieces of digital marketing. Can I do these things myself? Yes. Am I as good at it as the folks that I have hired to support me in these areas, No.
Just recently I increased my investment in the contractors who are assisting me by taking care of all of these things. I will be honest and transparent in sharing that I hesitated, I struggled with making that decision because it meant spending more money. I felt a little guilty about it.
Then I decided to look at it from a time management and dollars and cents lense. The key question I asked myself is the same question I suggested you ask yourself, “What am I going to do with the time that I am freeing up?” What I realized by doing that exercise is that I am willing to make that extra investment and commit to myself that I will use the extra time to network, make sales calls, create more content that will lead me to new clients. These are the activities that will allow me to serve more clients which will more than pay for the extra contractor fees I will incur.
And, that to me seems like a good return on my investment and a strategic way to grow my business.
I encourage you to look at your day-to-day operations as the business owner. Are you thinking like an employee or are you operating like a CEO?
I created a Hiring Guide to assist you with this process and walk you through the steps to making decisions that will help you grow your business. Access the Hiring Guide through THIS LINK.
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