What do you want from your business - Part 2(addendum)

I realized after pulling the trigger on the Part 2 post that I must elaborate a little more. In that post I spoke about financial goals - this may not be your only challenge or it may not even be a challenge at all, there are millions of other goals you may have that the business is not servicing - more time with loved ones, less frustration from problems in the business, get out of the business, take a sabbatical, start a new venture - and on and on. Most of the time it is not as simple as one goal - most of the time there are multiple goals. The essential message is this - whatever it is that the business is NOT servicing you must firstly nail that down - clearly identify what the business is not servicing. Secondly look critically at yourself within the business and at the business itself, the way it works or doesn't work, and determine what things within that critical analysis are standing in the way of getting what you want. Ask yourself the questions - whats working, whats not working, why and when do you want them fixed. Use someone who knows you really well to ask you these questions and then ponder them before you answer. Write the answers down. That then gives you the ammunition to devise a plan for achieving what you want. You must know firstly exactly what you want and by when and then secondly you must find out what it is that's stopping your march to success.

In future issues we will look at ways to set our plans and set them in motion - have a great week and focus on success and your strenghts. Don't labor on the weaknesses and problems - achieve at least one success every day.

What do you want from your business - Part 2

We ended of last week talking about "what" the business is and "what" it is not. To re-iterate - the business is merely a tool to achieve the owners wants. I asked you to write down what you as the owner want without considering whether the business can service that want - notice the bold word - service - I didn't use words like give, supply, satisfy etc- the business must be at service to you. So maybe you wrote down something like - "I want financial peace of mind so that I don't have to worry about paying my personal bills every month, so that I will have sufficient retirement savings and so that I don't have to worry how to meet payroll or Accounts Payable on an ongoing basis." Do you know what the "financial peace of mind" amounts to - how much in $'s is that - how much do you need to stay ahead of your personal bills, how much do you need to retire comfortably and how much do you need to meet the ongoing business overheads as they stand today. Work these numbers out, right now and WRITE THEM DOWN. Pin that to your notice board where you will see it every day or write it in your aforementioned day timer.

Okay so we have done that - we know what those magic numbers are. That's the target. Now look at the business and ask yourself one simple question - "What does the business have to do to service those numbers"? Where is this business letting me down right now, where must it be in 1 years time, 3 years time and 10 years time? Do you know? I bet you don't know where it must be in 1 years time let alone 10 years time - right? This is the beginning point - you must have a vision and a plan otherwise you will never get there. Consider this - when the weekly AC flight from Toronto Pearson takes of for Shanghai International Airport those 300 plus passengers trust that the pilots have a plan - you bet they do. They can tell you within 15 mins, all things going well, when they will touch down with that front wheel on that 6" wide strip of paint, more or less how much reserve fuel they will have etc - this they do after around 15hrs of flight time. How do they do that - that's amazing - its really quite simple actually, they have a plan. The flight plan is based on many factors, wind, weight, weather expected traffic around the destination etc etc. Another example - when the Cessna 172, a little 4 seater takes off from Pearson and heads for Tampa with the family on board hopefully the pilot, husband and father of the two kids and wife who are on board has planned the trip - fuel, head winds, impeding weather, route, expected traffic etc. If not there will be a problem. There is nothing different about your business -you are the pilot in command and every employees security is in your hands, your family depends on you, your suppliers depend on you and you need you to be successful.

Okay, enough story telling. So you know that you are pilot in command and a lot of people rely on you to do a great job, there is not a lot of room for error. You know what your targets are - you wrote them down earlier - the numbers you need to achieve financial peace of mind. Unless you plan on winning the lotto, only the business can help you to achieve those numbers -it does this through bottom line after tax profits. What I want you to do for this week is write down the following:

1. What profit(ignore tax) the business must delivery to service your needs for years 1 to 10.
2. Look at the immediate position of your business in terms of profit and work out what the shortfall is versus your immediate target and write it down - now ask yourself - why is this business not delivering - in what areas is this business failing, is it you, is it sales volume, gross profit percentage or dollars, costs, people issues, your skills, production issues etc - I know you know or you have a very good gut feel what the issues are. Once you crystallize these issues and write them down you can begin the work of fixing them and planning for 10 years out.

If you achieve these two tasks you have done well - you know what the target is for the business and you have started the thought process of identifying whats not working right now as a foundation for building your business into that plane that runs safely on autopilot and reaches its planned destination on time.

Have a good week, stay positive and congratulate yourself on your successes, you entrepreneurs are a special breed and must celebrate your successes. I look forward to talking with you more next week on this topic.