Business Basics – Page 6 – Pauline Bright Business Coach

The Super Short Guide to Making Wise Business Decisions

Decisions are like “the Trouser Legs of Time” as my favourite author Terry Pratchett put it.

And whichever leg you choose you end up in a different space, which is unfortunate if you don’t end up somewhere you want to be, but fabulous if you do.

Now, you don’t want to get it wrong but neither do you want to be stuck – and no decision is still a decision.

Here’s the 3 Point Super Short Guide to Making Wise Business Decisions: ask yourself these questions…

Is this good for ME?

He said “I make decisions based on the 3 most important things in my life –

1. my Health,
2. my Wealth and
3. my Family

It has to be good for all three without compromise”.

Run the decision by your 3 most important values and trust your instinct to let you know when something isn’t a good fit.

WHY am I making this decision?

What are the repercussions of this? Is this something I can live with for a long time? (This is vitally important when you are thinking about business partners).

Am I rationalising this decision and trying to ignore what my intuition is telling me? If you are trying to “hard sell” the idea to yourself and others, it’s probably not in your best interests.

Can I live with the consequences? Will I still be happy about this in one year, two years, ten years from now?

Do I need more time; am I being rushed by others into making a decision?

WHO is involved in this?

If I’m about to make a decision that involves huge amounts of my input, time, money and/or energy –i.e. if it’s all me, we could be in trouble!

Who else can I involve in this? What expert help can I get? Is this a joint decision or mine alone to make?

If you’re struggling with a business decision right now and you want some expert help – someone to approach it with fresh eyes then let’s talk.

Book a 15 minute phone conversation with Pauline Bright here.

5 Steps to Turn Your Current Business into a Gold Mine

The trouble with creative entrepreneurial business owners is that they jump from one thing to another without fully exploring the thing they started and bringing it to fruition. They get bored, lose their mojo and go looking for new thrills.

It could very well be that you are sitting on a gold mine but you’ve only just scratched the surface. Maybe you’ve been at this a while and the gold is right under your nose but you’re not seeing it.

Owning a gold mine is all about digging deep in the right place and finding a rich seam. It takes hard work and perseverance and if you’re doing it correctly, it should pay off.

If you’re going to find the gold in your business, cover any of these bases and you’re on your way to having a gold mine. The more of these you have in place the better.

Your products, service and business should:

Be something highly desirable
Be in high demand
Be in a narrow but deep market
Be appealing to affluent buyers
Be able to guarantee results
Provide Social Proof – people like it
Have a perceived difference
Have raving fans
Be easily marketable
Be easily delivered
Not be reliant on specialists
Be remarkable
Be able to flex and change with times
Not be financially dependent on another industry
Not be highly regulated or over compliant
Have little or no waste
OR produce a waste product that is valuable
Already be being bought in large amounts
Be replicable and scalable
Be profitable
Be something that runs out, wears out or goes down the sink

Let’s go mining in your business

Step 1. Offer Something Highly Desirable

Whatever your product or service it must have customers who already want it or something like it. It’s very hard to sell a product that no-one wants or needs – even if you think it’s fabulous.

Gold-mine businesses are not always the originators; often they’ve just tapped a seam of desire for something that gets people out of pain or into pleasure.

Step 2. Know your customers like the back of your hand

Get up close and personal with your ideal customer. Make your business all about them and only them. Don’t try to serve everyone, you’ll spread yourself too thin and the business will be a nightmare to run.

Be the best in your industry for that type of customer. Get a reputation for it and protect it.

Step 3. Pick the Gap

If your business has stalled and you’re looking for some fresh ideas then go back to the list above and get the creative juices flowing. You probably already have something that needs looking at from a different perspective.

Look for an idea whose time has come – if you’re at all creative you’ll have a brain full or a notebook full of ideas. Look for things that could fill a current need. If enough people have a big enough problem and you have a better than average solution you could be on the way to the bank with a big gold nugget.

For goodness sake, do the research to find out if your “thing” is saleable in big enough quantities and for long enough to make you one of those rare breed of business owners who do actually strike it rich. Do NOT skip this step!

Step 4. You absolutely MUST do the numbers

Here’s where 80% of business owners start to lose interest but if you can bust your way through this you will succeed and you won’t have to go through a painful bankruptcy to learn the lesson. It can be done on paper first.

You need to know how much it will cost to get this product or service to market with built-in profit – and not be paying yourself with leftover scraps you cobble together after everything and everyone else gets paid.

If you don’t know how – ask me, I eat this stuff for breakfast.

Step 5. It must be something you really enjoy

It would be even better if you loved it and were passionate about it because it’s going to take a lot of stamina to get you through the ups and downs.

And remember if you’re doing it all alone, you’re doing it wrong. Business is a team game – you most certainly don’t have all the genius for every part of the business so you need to find others who have a piece of the puzzle that is their own special field of genius.

You don’t have to make them business partners – they could be outstanding managers and employees – as long as they are doing what they love too.

If you think your business is a gold mine waiting to happen and you want a fresh pair of eyes to take a look at it we should talk.

Set up a 15 minute phone call here and we’ll start digging.

How to get your business Mojo back

Humans are goal-seeking missiles – but what happens when you actually reach your goals and you don’t know it?

Watch the 42 second video to find out how you’ll know

Or if you prefer to read – here’s the video script:

“You know, If you’re feeling a little bit irritated or you’ve lost your mojo or things aren’t quite going according to plan and you want to keep messing with your business a little, take a step back and have a think about this… What if you’ve actually reached the goal that you set out to reach in your business and now because you don’t have another goal you’re just messing with all the details and that could be messing with other people too which is totally messing with their head, so, step back, re-evaluate and think ‘Have I actually reached the goal I set out to reach? Is it time to reset a new one?’

Enjoy that thought.”

How to set new goals that light your fire

If your daily tasks feel like filling in time and doing things for other people then it’s likely that you’re not working on the projects that can help your business take a leap forward.

Getting your Mojo back will require a bit of thinking time, so set aside an hour or two to think about what you originally intended when you first started or bought your business. You might have to sacrifice some TV time.

What were the big adventurous courageous visions you had? Tap back into those feelings.

Now take one of those goals – because that’s what they were – and flesh it out a little. Break the milestones down into bite-sized chunks then work out a time-line of WHEN it will happen and HOW it will happen.

If you’re not confident with this or need a fresh set of eyes to show you what you can’t see – that’s what we can help with. Let’s talk!

You can book a free 15 minute appointment with Pauline Bright here.

The secret to being a successful business owner

Congratulations! You’re a rare breed.

If you measure success by the dictionary definition of “the favourable outcome of something attempted”, then owning a business could be considered a success, because there are many more who think about being a business owner than follow through to buy or start a business.

But how do YOU measure success?

Is it measured in money, prestige, toys, lifestyle, contribution, customers or reputation?

Who’s doing the measuring?

Are these your measurements or are you succumbing to external forces telling you what success “should” look like?

From the outside your business could look spectacularly successful. However you could be sitting in your business right now not feeling particularly proud and successful – especially if things are not going the way you imagined they would.

Working closely with hundreds of business owners over more than a decade here’s what defines success for them.

Which ones apply to you?

I get out of bed each day with enthusiasm and energy – I enjoy my business
I’m happy with the direction in which my business is headed
I’ve made mistakes and learnt from them. I get up when knocked down
I constantly learn and implement new ideas and ways of doing business
I have good people around me to help run sections the business
I feel good about the products/services we deliver
I have brightness of future. I’m confident we’re on the right track
I have a good support network in my business community
My business is agile, flexible and not heavily weighed down by outside influences
My business pays me properly for my efforts
My business has a good reputation
I’m doing work worth doing, it has value
My time is flexible enough to allow me to enjoy life
My business is growing. I have an asset that has value now and in the future
I have the right balance of work and play. I have time to myself and with my family
I have defined my boundaries of what I will and won’t do
I choose my customers
The business is under control; it has systems that make it work well
My business makes a valuable contribution to my community
I have a business that gives me a good life

Please feel free to add your own success criteria.

Celebrate what you DO have. Every business is a work-in-progress. Don’t feel bad about the things you don’t have right now. Make a note of them and work on the most important ones that have meaning for you.

There is no ONE secret – it’s a collection of criteria that gives you a feeling of pride and sense of achievement.

The secret to being a successful business owner is whatever you say it is.

What is it for you?

I didn’t think numbers mattered

I never thought that numbers mattered that much. You might not either if you are more of a right brain than left brain person.

After all, I was creative and good at what I did and, if I just focussed on that, then the money would flow, right?

Only it didn’t…

I spent a lot of years in several different businesses just doing what I loved… and it kind of worked.

I made a better-than-average hourly rate, I had my work distributed around the world, work was interesting and varied, I had good repeat business and word of mouth marketing and thought I was getting somewhere.

But, truthfully, I had a job and if I added up all the hours I actually worked, not just the time I billed clients for, I was making a pittance. I could earn more working for a boss. Only I didn’t want to. I wanted “freedom”.

That freedom came at a high price financially, physically and emotionally. I became very good at belting down a few glasses of wine at the end of the day and pacing until I calmed down. I lost sleep wondering where the next dollar and next client was coming from.

Now, I’m not advocating that this is the ideal way to run a business – far from it in fact! But it’s a familiar story isn’t it?

Over time, I got better at it… as you do. But not until I’d made some pretty costly mistakes… as you do.

I’d like to say that the process of awakening was like a bolt of lightning. But it wasn’t. I just had a few key insights that made me think differently and do things differently – and they didn’t all come at once – although I wish they had – I would have got here faster.

Revelations

It didn’t matter how “good” I was or how “good” the product was, if I didn’t get good at marketing I was going nowhere.
Marketing aside, the thing my business sold was probably the least important thing in terms of sustainability and financial success and I didn’t have a clue about numbers.
I was never going to make the kind of money I dreamed of unless I got serious about the “money side” of business. I needed to learn stuff I wasn’t particularly keen on – in fact I thought financial management and business management was dry, dusty and boring. (Maybe it was the way it was being taught!)
I had to stop thinking about myself as “self-employed” and start becoming a “business owner”
I was not an island – it was lonely in there trying to do it all myself and putting myself under immense pressure. I needed to reach out for help.

So, long story short, I learnt it, I made changes – not all at once, but gradually – and things started to get better and better. Like compounding interest, the sooner you start, the more it multiplies with less effort from you. Financial management was NOT my joy – and not my strength – or so I thought. But I did stick with it.

And THAT’S why when I became a coach I wanted to teach people how to get the very best from their business, to make the kind of money they really wanted. In plain simple language, the way I learnt it.

How you run your business is completely your call. If the “Money Side” is something you’ve promised yourself you’ll get better at one day, then maybe this is your opportunity. “IT” won’t come to you – you have to make an effort but it will be worth it.

If you feel your Business could use some better financial management you might like the MONEY MASTERCLASS. It has a Money Back Guarantee.

If this rings bells for you, I’ll see you there.

Cheers,
Pauline

PS: More info and book here for The Money Masterclass – Friday 29th July

Evolutionary Business Design

Category: Business Basics