Know Your Why
In business and in your career, it’s important to fully understand why you are doing what you are doing. This seems like such a simple concept but it ends up being the single most important thing that holds businesses owners and wage earners back from success. Know your why and you have the first step to knowing everything else about you and your business. Knowing your why allows you to know your how and your what. In the article “Top 7 Principles For Transforming Your Business From Mediocre To Great”, http://www.1000advices.com guru/business_success_7principles_dc.html. it discusses knowing why your business exists and knowing what the end game result is for your business.
How Much Can You Give For A Dollar?
“The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” – Henry Ford I love the above quote as I think it really encapsulates why we do business. Value creation should be at the center of all we do. A good friend of mine, Garrett B Gunderson, always says that dollars follow value and that sentence drives my business. We are lucky as small business owners to only have our customers to answer to. We don’t have to worry about pleasing board members or the value
A Safe Way to Not Lose Money on Your Business Idea
I have been discussing starting your business for the wrong reasons this week from a number of different viewpoints. For some, they will not have to worry about starting their business for the wrong reason. That’s because they will never act on their idea in the first place. It can’t be wrong if it never existed right? This is the safe way to not lose money on your business idea. We all have friends have are intelligent, organized, meticulous etc etc. The reason why they are so organized and meticulous is because they need every piece of information available. For any who are familiar with the Kolbe test (www.kolbe.com) we
Money, Power and Respect
Money, Power and Respect. Some strive for it and some don’t. Those that do strive for it, do it in different ways. When starting your business make sure that this isn’t the reason. During these economic times, many businesses will be started because we were laid off or we don’t feel appreciated and respected in our current role. I forwarded an article that I ran accross called “5 Signs That You Have a Crummy Job”, http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-208897.html. What got my attention, besides the fact that I didn’t know people still used the word “crummy” was that it was almost exactly how my friend described his job. Comraderie was dead, bureaucracy was
The Intrinsics of Your Business
In business, it’s important to ask questions like, why do I exist and who do I serve? It’s important to look at the intrinsic value of your business to assess these questions. Let’s look at the aforementioned questions, why do I exist and who do I serve, as examples. Why Do I Exist? This is a great question personally as we well as for your business. I ask this question to small businesses in our initial discovery process. I often get answers that have nothing to do with their business. Answers regrading why they exist revolving around money and things for them. Recognition, time off , respect etc etc. The
Was your current job/business started for the wrong reasons?
Ever make an investment or start a venture because someone else told you it was a smart idea? Have you been proposed the can’t miss idea? Received an e-mail from the inauthentic marketer who promises that you can make money with little of no effort? How did it turn out? My guess is that it either failed from the start, you were able to make a little money on a short period of time or a very small percentage were very fortunate and actually made something happen with the tip. The question for today ultimately is how often do we start a business for the wrong reasons? Or if you
Increase the possibilities for your Team
As entrepreneurs/leaders, we sometimes fall victim to the curse of knowledge when we are running our teams. The curse of knowledge being that we understand what’s in our heads and expect everyone to know what we are thinking and what we need. Communication of specific goals is so critical to our team’s and businesses’ success. Effective communication is an easy way for to increase the possibilities that exist. In Setting SMART goals , http://www.bnet.com/2422-13731_23-262557.html?promo=713&tag=nl.e713 , Ed Muzio, President & CEO of Group Harmonics, talks about the need for setting SMART goals and the increase efficiency while also increasing the morale of the team as well. Being specific with your
Lazy or Have Adult ADD? Shiny object and a recliner over here.
Ok, so I have your attention. I am sorry for not having the recliner. My hopes are that the shiny object will do. If you feel the need to navigate away from this page, please feel free to gaze at the shiny object to keep your attention. We are going to chat briefly about goals and I promise to be brief. If you are having problems setting and achieving goals, let’s talk about some things that you can do if you fall into a couple of goal-killing categories. Laziness or inability to stay focused. If you feel like you don’t reach goals because you are too lazy. Examine the root
Steps to achieving your goals
Some say that setting goals is the easy part. Going out and achieving them is another story. I would argue that both are difficult and take a game plan to make it happen. It’s time to break goal achievement down in steps courtesy of the article: 10 Motivators for Goal Setting: http://www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz/10_motivators.htm The first step is writing them down. I would argue that this isn’t a step to achievement due to the fact that if you haven’t written your thoughts down, I am not sure that they are goals. They are more like dreams. Once they are written down it is important to break down your goals into measurable items.
Is Your Goal to Have Goals?
Since it’s still January and many are still in the goal setting mood, I thought I would touch on goals while you still care. For many the goal this year is to set goals. Unfortunately many will not set goals primarily because of fear. I posted some statistics in November about how many people actually set goals and how well they do as a result. http://buildyoursoulpurpose.com/get-the-facts-on-the-importance-of-soul-purpose So people don’t set goals because of fear, you get that. So what are we afraid of? We tend to primarily lie in one of two fear categories. They are the fears of success and failure. When we are afraid to fail it’s mainly
