3 Pillars For Saving A Failing Business

Helping businesses do epic things is pretty great most of the time. Most of the time I get to enter the picture right when a business is hitting an exciting inflection point. It can look like anything from helping a business owner apply for (and get) funding for an expansion, to launching a brand new product line, and even helping businesses chart new courses for their next fiscal years. It’s the really exciting kind of change and the fun kind of tough decisions to tackle.

Unfortunately though this post isn’t going to be about the fun stuff.  

Every once and awhile, what I do is less than great. It’s less than great because the real world doesn’t work like a Disney Movie. There’s not always a happy ending. These are the times when I really want to help someone but they waited too long to ask for help or they were too stubborn to admit that they needed help. A stubborn business owner will reach out, tell me I’m their last hope, have zero resources left, and expect me to give them some kind of magic business growth bullet to save their business. And, we can’t forget that (most of the time, not always) this down on their luck business owner is blaming everything from market conditions to their past employees on why they landed in their current situation. It’s never their fault and they always already know everything.

When entrepreneurs are at their most desperate are the times I really wish I had something like that to give to their ailing business. I wish I had a cheat code I could just hand them on an Inspector Gadget style self-destructing note that, once entered, will instantly turn things around for them. I’d want to give them an instant solution because by the time a business reaches that point of no return some real learning and authentic growth has happened for a few of those entrepreneurs. In losing their businesses a few people find real clarity and learn a lot about what it takes to really run a business, instead of just playing wantrepreneur like they had been up to that point.

But I don’t have a cheat code or magic bullet to turn around failing businesses. What I do have are a few foundational business building pillars that business owners can apply to get back to basics and hopefully build their way out of their current hole. If you, or someone you know, is heading this way the thing they’ll need most is time. So, hopefully there’s still a little runway left.

Let’s get into the pillars.

Pillar 1 - Yes, your mission matters. We’re about to lace up and hit the starting line, stay with me it’ll make sense I promise.

Building a business is a lot like running a race. I’m not a runner so visualizing the challenge of running a 5k is more than scary enough for me. If you plan on finishing that race you probably need to do a little more than just showing up the day of and waiting around until it starts. If you plan on running that race successfully you have to think about lots of things. Everything from the fuel you put into your body, to the dedicated training (even if it is the Couch To 5k app), and the sneakers you’re wearing on race day. There are lots of variables and there’s lots of work that goes into getting ready for race day. The funny thing is that even though you and I are completely different people, have different reasons for running that race, have different expectations, different life circumstances, and have different plans for what we’re going to do after we finish (mine probably involves finding a burger and beer) we have one very important thing in common. Every decision that we make is in service of making sure we do our best come race day. Don’t roll your eyes just yet. This isn’t you’re normal running a marathon is a business analogy. One of the most common challenges I see when a failing business owner comes to me for help is that they aren’t making decisions that consistently map to the mission of their business. They’re guessing or using some internal judgement of the day for what they think is right when they make a decision in the business. Most of the time it’s because they don’t have a clearly articulated mission and so they just wing the decisions they need to make every day. It’s the same as showing up to race having done literally nothing. If everyday you have nothing to help you focus how you spend your time, what you should be spending your money on, what values you stand for, how you communicate with people, and what you want your customers to really experience when they interact with you then you’re just showing up to the race in jeans and boat shoes. Every decision made in a business MUST be in service of that business’s mission. The mission of a business is its reason for being and without it they’re just playing entrepreneur. Here’s where you can get more info on creating awesome mission statements.

Pillar 2 - Building a business means building real relationships.

Someone who’s complaining that their business isn’t growing is most likely citing the cause as not enough customers. That’s not super helpful insight though as you can probably guess. So let’s break that premise down a bit. The most common reasons that a business doesn’t have enough customers boils down to to main themes: bad product/service or obscurity. Let’s tackle obscurity here and save bad product/service for a later pillar.

When I say obscurity what I mean is that the business owner is not doing enough to take the time to really get to know their audience, community, target market, or however else you’d categorize the people you want to buy your stuff. There’s no relationship being built. Why would anyone trust that you can help them or support them in exchange for their hard earned dollars?  These are also the business owners that tell me that they have social pages, websites, review sites, etc. and are too busy to do anything with them. Or worse, all they only post are mini commercials for their stuff. For every post. No one wants to see that just like no one really wants to watch those Facebook Live streams of people trying to QVC their multi-level marketing clothing, charcoal toothpaste, or fitness shakes. Beating obscurity is going to take them showing up a lot more than they are comfortable with and in ways that deliver real value to people - yes, entertainment counts as value. They need to take building a robust content calendar seriously and here are some of my favorite ways to help people jump start their brand engagement.

1. Look for podcasts to pitch to as a guest. I probably don’t have to tell you that podcasts are huge right now. I’m also guessing that you or any business owner are know lots about the value you’re the business brings to the world. Everyone loves a good subject matter expert. There are millions of podcasts and I’m willing to bet that with a little search enginuity one can put together a list of podcasts still trying to find momentum to offer up guest services too. It’s a win win. They get content and the business owner gets exposure, and also content.   

2. Facebook Live is an awesome place to play right now. This platform allows you to just show up, share a message, and go. It’s an opportunity for a business owner to connect in real time with people and allow their community to peek behind the curtain in the business. I’m a huge fan of live but like any content that’s really valuable, a little prep work goes a long way.

3. Don’t sleep on in person networking. Every week in communities all over the world are professional networking events you can attend. From local BNI chapters, to Chamber of Commerce events, and even Young Professional events, they’re all great places to meet new people. Notice I said meet, not sell. Managing your expectations is critical in situations like this and the primary goal should be to just meet people. Sure, a sale might happen down the line but it’s after someone has the opportunity to get to know/like/trust you/the business owner. And remember, the name of the game is beating obscurity here.

4. Blog/Podcast/Video - Content is still king going into 2019. The modern customer consumes for lots of reasons and one of the biggest ones is that they feel that their values align with a business’s values. The best way to connect an audience or target market to a business is by communicating directly to them. I’m not saying you have to do all three, I mean if you can it’s better because there are more platform options, but you do have to do something. A business has to give people a reason to interact with them and it often starts with the simple consumption of some piece of content. A business owner that shares their message, teaches, entertains, and stands for something will always have the advantage over a competitor that doesn’t. Consumers are looking for the story just as much as they are looking for the solution or even the right price.

Pillar 3 - There’s always more work to do.

It takes a lot of work to build a business. Not just a lot of work but a lot of hours, a lot of sacrifice, and a big emotional investment. One of the toughest things I have to do sometimes is look a business owner in the face and tell them that they’re not working enough. People get defensive but my intention is not to attack them personally, it’s to show them that there are consequences for the choices they make. It can be tough to tell someone to put more of themselves into their business when they are coming from place of feeling like they’ve already made a tremendous investment and haven’t seen any kind of return. What’s worse is that most people don’t track the effectiveness of their marketing, sales, and the dollars they spend so when it’s time to do more work they struggle with deciding what to do next. Unfortunately all work is not created equal when it comes to generating positive outcomes for a business. I’m not in the business of telling people how to live their lives but if they are serious about saving their business or turning it around, their business is going to demand more of them. More creating of content, more networking, creating more opportunities for sales, etc. Often when resource constraints are at their tightest means the easiest (in concept) thing to allocate is the business owner’s time. As business owners we can’t control what our customers do after we ask for the sale or post something on social. What we can control is how many proposals get sent out, how many posts get created, how much feedback we try to solicit, and how many people the business owner chooses to interact with. It takes time.

Going back to Pillar 2 it also means doing the work to honestly assess a business’s offerings. If the market is not responding to a business there’s a good chance that there’s no product/market fit. It takes time to go back to the drawing board and really look at the assumptions that were used when that business was born. It’s going to take asking a lot of hard questions, things like:

1. How big is the actual market for the good or service?

2. Is it a need vs. a want vs. a novelty?

3. Why would/should anyone care about your offering?

4. How mature is the market? Are there cheaper substitutes? Too much of a learning curve?

5. Do people understand the business’s mission? If yes, go back to question 3.

Iterating doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom but it does have to happen fast if a business is in trouble. The quicker a business owner can get over their ego, roll up their sleeves, and commit to getting to work the better the odds of success become. My recommendation is to try to figure out which levers lead most effectively to generating revenue and leaning hard on that work, try not to Wolf of Wall Street though.

The saddest part of what I do is seeing people give up on themselves. I get it though. In their business’s most critical time they finally find the courage to reach out and instead of giving them an easy button I have to tell them to double down. Sometimes people don’t have the stomach for that or they’re just too beat up to go on. There’s no shame in having tried though which is easier to say from behind a keyboard I know. As business owners we tie up so much of our identities in our businesses. It’s hard to seperate the entrepreneur from the business which is why I try my best to teach people that failures (or successes) are just outcomes. What happens in a business is the output of an equation whose variables include the choices made around mission, community, and the work that’s done. Sometimes people make less than great choices because they’re operating from less than great assumptions and less than great information - that doesn’t mean they’re less than great people. So, if you know someone who’s struggling in their business and they haven’t reached out to anyone yet think about sending this post their way and maybe there’s an idea here that helps kickstart a new and positive inflection point for them.

Or, at the very least softens the blow of having to close the doors. Plus there’s no rule that says you can’t try again.

5 Things To Think About When Starting A Business

Happy Monday!

I get asked a lot of questions about starting a new business. I love it because as soon as I hear someone’s inflection start to shift to a question-asking pitch, the professor switch flips on in my brain. I can’t help it. It’s like a Pavlovian Response...minus the drool. Ok, maybe a little drool. That’s only because I get excited for people when you with start to express your entrepreneurial tendencies.

Today I want to cover the first critical steps to getting your business idea out of your brain and into the real world.

This post is my response when you ask me what you should do FIRST when thinking about starting a business. It’s not an all inclusive answer, just the literal first things you should do. Ideally I would’ve got to you before you started soliciting advice from the near infinite places online spouting business growing advice. This would literally be the conversation I would have with someone over an adult beverage at the bar after they found out what I do.

If you did start Google’ing then you’ve probably seen that some entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants wave their fingers in the air and proclaim that you work as hard (and as fast) as you can on getting to your Minimum Viable Product out the door. Then once you’re bought in on that idea these “experts” proceed to do a not-great job of explaining what a Minimum Viable Product is because they are only vaguely familiar with the LEAN Startup Model. (Fun fact: The LEAN idea came from Toyota factories in Japan in the 1980’s. It was designed to smooth out processes and reduce waste on auto manufacturing lines. Sorry, I thought it was fun.)  

Can’t iterate if you don’t ship, right?!

While I agree with that I tend to shy away from fancy startup buzzwords and break things down into actionable chunks that you can put into practice without needing a crash course in the Lean Startup Model. This post is about doing something today to move the needle on your business idea….today.

Ok so below are the literal first things you should do if you’re planning on giving your business a fair shake. A few these may seem administrative in nature and by extension not as sexy as other things on your to-do list but they are important. You need a solid foundation before you build literally anything and going through the motions here will force you to really think through how you want to be branded, viewed, and even how you’re going to deliver on your value proposition.  

1. There is no such thing as the perfect business name.

Seriously, I can’t tell you how many chats I’ve had over coffee where there was no forward progress being made in starting a business because of a naming issue. My advice is to pick something simple, something you like, and something that can translate to a domain name pretty easily. Then pull the trigger. Clear over clever always wins. Even come up with a few options because after you settle on a name or two you’re going to need to try to pick up your domain name. If your business name changes, after you have give your company a name, over time that’s fine, you can always add domains or run your business under a different name than your company. “Doing Business As” accounts are easy to fill out and your bank will still cash the checks - which is the important part. Also, it’s really easy to forward lots of domains to a single site so don’t worry about wondering if your audience or customers will be able to find you after a while.  

2. Get separate bank accounts ASAP.

If you think you don’t need a separate account for your business because you haven’t made any money you’re wrong. I’m willing to bet that the business you are starting is planning on making money. It can get really tricky to keep business money and personal money separate when you are a solopreneur or brand new business. The IRS doesn’t care how big or small you are, they will always find a way to get their cut. While you can get your accounts (PayPal included) set up with your personal Social Security Number you would be better off applying for an EIN number. That’s the tax identification number you’ll assign to your business name. Applying for the EIN, Employer Identification Number, is easy and you get the results right there online through the IRS website.

3. Work on your Minimum Viable Audience. (This is a big big big topic so here’s the high level overview.)

Up to this step you have an idea for a business, you have a name (even if it’s going to change) and you have set up a separate account. Now is the time to start working on your audience. Start building your little piece of the interweb because that’s where most people are going to look for you. Defining your audience, creating content, and developing relationships with your audience is critical to building relationships with people. It’s not going to happen overnight so the key here is to be as consistent as possible with what/how you share and the value you deliver to people.

Most of the time people don’t really know what they want or what to expect from you. In developing your audience you will get to know their pains and how you can better deliver value to them - in turn building a better product out of the gate. Another benefit to building an audience is that you will have a group of people to share your business journey with. They can’t buy if they don’t know that you exist and they won’t buy if they don’t know, like, and trust you. The trick here is that there is no perfect number for the audience. You don’t have to wait until you have an email list with thousands of people on it. Just get a few people involved in a conversation and leverage the places you already interact online. My recommendation for you is to think about your content distribution like a tree. Your website is your trunk and in the beginning pick one or two branches to really invest in - think Facebook and Instagram. You’re going to want to go where people already are and create/share content with the goal of getting people to care enough to follow you back to your site to learn more.

4. “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire.

Your business is brand new and your audience and stakeholders know that. You can’t know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t have a feedback loop. You get to having a feedback loop by actually selling something. So start (trying to) selling. Call it a Beta, give away a few for free, or just let people know it’s Version 1.0. How ever you want to handle getting your work into the hands of the people that need it is good enough - just make sure it ships! This is definitely going to take some dedicated business development work because you are making and selling first and then asking questions later. If audience development is your inbound marketing, working on your sales game is your outbound marketing. You can also start interviewing if you’re really stuck wondering how to solve the problem you’ve identified. The challenge with interviewing is that you won’t know what people actually want or get really honest answers until you ask them to take their wallets out and buy right then and there. This step has a lot of potential for decision/analysis paralysis. Up until know you are playing business. Selling something crosses the threshold of actually putting your work on the line and delivering. So don’t dwell over perfect and just get something out in the world.

4 Continued. Keep iterating and keep selling.

As you start to build a community around your brand and your work there will be more opportunities to get your stuff in the hands of people that need it. Work on building momentum and work on asking lots of questions for more feedback.

5. Get your paperwork and documentation in shape.

This may or may not happen right away, it really depends on how fast or slow you grow. When you are starting a business there are a lot of things that can pull your attention away from building a business. My advice is to focus on doing just enough business development to communicate your business’s value and to get something to market so that you get to your first payments or sales. Once you start to get a few paying customers in the door you can parlay those funds to deal with all the application and license fees your city or town will need for you to do business where you live. Check your City or Town Halls for sure but most likely you will eventually need a business certificate or permits to operate your business. After you officially exist in the eyes of the government you can go on and work on getting the appropriate insurances, etc. My approach is to get your business making money first and use that money to grow and cover the costs of being a business. It’s a little “building the plane while it’s flying” but validation is better than sunk costs in my book.

I need to reiterate that these are not the only things you should be doing when you’re starting a business. I’ve glossed over a ton but like I said, if we were having a drink at a bar and you asked me what you should be doing - this is where I’d tell you start. This list is also a great test to see if you’re as serious as you think you are when it comes to building a business. While few in number things like taking the time to build even a minimum viable website and brand presence can take some real time. If you’re really ready to try to build a business then it’s time to roll up your sleeves, solve a real problem, tell some good stories, and see if you can get someone to pay you to help them through a transformation.

2 Steps To Better Accountability In Your Business

Accountability is one of those things that as an entrepreneur, side hustler, and business builder you hear/read a ton about.

It’s almost impossible to flip through an your favorite business podcasts, blogs and even trade publications and not see something about accountability.

And for good reason!

There are probably hundreds of thousands of businesses that never get a fair shake because their founders couldn’t figure out how to keep themselves accountable.

Accountability lore is littered with bits and nuggets of productivity and business building science but, it’s something that you still struggle with. You read, research and consume everything you can so that you can hopefully do the things you said you would. It’s not always easy to get the work out of your head and into the hands and hearts of the people that need it the most.

Sound like you? A little bit? It’s definitely something I struggle with from time to time.

By the end of this post you will have two simple guidelines to follow to help keep you and your business running the way you want. This is not going to be one of those posts that tells you to put sticky notes on your mirrors and to announce your intentions to the universe.

Why?

Because it’s easy to ignore (or rationalize away) a note you posted and even easier to dismiss the universe because the universe is not someone (something?) that you interact intimately with on a daily basis.

When everything is going well in your business you don’t have to think about accountability. You are hitting the milestones you set for yourself, making progress on the goals you set for the business and you may even have repeat customers. It’s when things go a little unplanned, when your launch isn’t as big as you thought or when suddenly you have more competitors that you realized that you have to really lean on keeping yourself accountable as an entrepreneur.

It’s easy to walk away when things get hard. It’s easy to blame any number of externalities if your audience didn’t “get” what you were trying to put in front of them. What’s tough is picking your head up and looking around. What’s tough as an entrepreneur is figuring out how to hold yourself accountable.

Here’s the first step in holding yourself accountable:

1. Give up control.

When you, the person, are the business it’s easy to wake up everyday and change the rules a little bit. It’s harder to do that when you create and establish a business that has it’s own, well communicated, values, mission and strategy for growth. I know it might sound arbitrary if you are a solopreneur or part of a really early stage joint venture but stay with me. When you are out in the world talking to people and engaging with them online, part of what they see is the business that you are representing. Authenticity really starts to take hold when you, the person, mirror what you’re telling the people you interact with what is important to your business. Armed with the knowledge that most people decide to do business with those that they know, like and trust, how you align who you are personally deciding to do each day with what your business claims you do creates a nice feedback loop. Actions always speak louder than words - unless their written words online..then it’s an action, may be. This is not openly telling the universe to hold you accountable. Giving up control forces you to keep yourself accountable because every decision you make is going to be measured against your claims of the business and scored by everyone you interact with.

Just thinking about that dynamic gives me the accounta-goosebumps.

The second rule I’m adapting from my friends in the Lean Startup scene.

2. Validated Learning.

Your business is probably going to change as time passes. Your customers tastes and expectations will change. The technology you choose will change. Your business model might even change. All that is ok and necessary for you to keep your business relevant in the eyes of the people you are trying to serve. Validated learning is important here because it’s a concept that gives you permission to create hypotheses about what’s going on the world around you, take little risks, plan experiments and apply what you learn for the betterment of your business. Validated learning acts as mini booster shots for your accountabilities immune system. It does this because every time an opportunity comes up to apply something you learn in your business you have a choice. You can choose to make the change, that’s holding yourself accountable, or you can choose to do nothing and continue to run your business with systems, processes or products that don’t work so well.

If you are serious about building a better business and earning better profits why wouldn’t you apply the things you learn?! When you build validated learning into your business you are essentially tricking yourself into holding you accountable. It’s a beautiful thing!

These are two very real things you can start to do right now that will force you to take better actions in your business. I’m pretty sure no one likes to be micromanaged but if it’s your business that is micromanaging you it might be ok and validated learning takes the choices almost right out of your hands. So figure out how to structure your first few ideas to test and get (even more) clear on what your business stands for and get to work!

Avoid These 7 New Business Mistakes

The cost of entry when it comes to starting a new business is literally zero. Well, plus or minus some time and elbow grease I guess. But, it honestly doesn’t even take that long to get your business online and set up. It costs nothing to get an email address from Google that you can then use to sign up for Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and a handful of other platforms. Places like Canva make design super easy, aren’t intimidating, and are also free. You don’t even need a website anymore with how robust and connected a well built Facebook Business Page can be. 

What does that mean? It means you can start a business at any time from anywhere. 

So, when that next brilliant idea strikes should you just jump right int? 

No. 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here so I wanted to ease into it with a punch list of reasons why you should take a pause and some time to really think through your new (or rebranded) business idea. Especially, if you’re expecting to build a lasting business. 

Here’s my list of reasons you should take some time to really think through your new business:

1. Your branding matters. Just because you can slam some text over an image doesn’t mean that you’re communicating your message clearly and effectively. 

2. Just because you can post whatever you want, whenever you want doesn’t mean it’s going to inspire people to pay attention to you. If you can’t get them to pay attention you won’t ever be able to inspire them to take action. 

3. Have you actually thought about your business model? It’s great to post pictures and to try to market your stuff but do you even know if your target market wants what you’re thinking of offering? 

4. Did you take any time in deciding if there was even a market? There’s lots of advice out there that purports that if you scratch your own itch then you’ll have a successful business. Sounds great, often flawed if you don’t think through the value proposition. 

5. A sustainable business needs a cohesive mission. Whether your offerings are unique, clever, useful, a value-adding thing, or any other descriptive marketing buzzword it won’t matter if you aren’t communicating consistent messages. Engagement is a cognitively taxing endeavor for would-be consumers. If you constantly change your messaging (like a restaurant constantly changing a menu) people will ultimately decide that the work isn’t worth the value-exchange anymore. 

6. Building a business takes work. Real life isn’t a Kevin Costner movie and “if you build it they will come” is a bad business model. 

7. Paying for a bunch of software isn’t going magically do the work for you. The same goes for any “partners” or help you may or may not have. Managing expectations has to have a real priority so making sure everyone is on the same page is huge. Setting goals, managing schedules, and planning content so that it serves a purpose (and your audience) should not be taken lightly. 

I could go on but I think you get the idea here. I’m all for acting quickly when it comes to filling a need in a market and building a business. But, that action has to come from a place of strategically thinking through the problem you’re solving or the opportunity your seizing. Just working on something for the sake of working on it is not just unsustainable, it’s a recipe for an unsuccessful business. Plus, it’s really hard to change your Facebook Business Page name if you decide that what you initially decided doesn’t mesh with the rest of your branding once you actually flush it out. 

Save time by taking a little extra time to think it through - then go nuts. 
 

Nail Down Your Business Plan And Elevator Pitch Now!

Business plans and crafting pitches are a few of my favorite things to talk about. When executed well they are tools that can really support you as you’re working to grow your business. Your plan acts as a bit of a roadmap and your pitch, how you’re getting down the road. I also really like to talk about them because they’re so amorphic. Depending on who you’re presenting to, the presentation style, organization of information, and even some of the business details can change dramatically. 

I know, I’m weird because I think all that uncertainty is really fun. You, dear business builder, shouldn’t be scared though. Because at the end of the day the least common denominator of every business plan is just answering the “how” and “what” questions in your business and your pitch answers the “why”. Here’s an analogy I like to use - your business is like an arcade machine. In the sea of classic arcade games, skee ball lanes, and pinball machines your job is to be entertaining enough to get someone to wander over to you and then engaging enough for you to get them to put their quarters in. Then, once they pay all you have to do is deliver on the experience you promised. 

That’s it! 

So in this post, I’m going to give you two quick frameworks. One to help you nail down a simple business plan and the second framework is a crash course in perfecting your pitch. 

Let’s get into the business planning. 

Now, this framework is designed to help you rough sketch your business plan. Knowing that different audiences will need to see different things in different formats means you’ll need a foundation to draw from. That’s where my 5 Minute Business Plan comes in. It’s designed to help you get refocused on the days that have you wondering if what you are doing actually matters. (You don’t even have to be an entrepreneur to understand that feeling.) Forcing yourself to do something like this every once and a while helps to keep you connected to what you are doing - more than just reading your mission statement over again. It can also help to reveal any changes in how you feel about what you’re doing or if the needs of your market have changed since you’ve started. This can lead to a pivot in your service/product outcome and can keep you relevant. 

This business plan is only five questions long and ideally should have you only thinking about a minute or two for each question. You aren’t trying to create some be-all-end-all plan you are connecting to how what you are doing now matters. My advice is to just copy and paste these questions and then do some free writing for the answers. After you are done you can take those answers and match them against your current list of business activities or mission that you have. If the new answers are different from what you’ve been doing, you know that you have some more exploring to do. 

1. Who are you, what’s your story, and why should I be interested in what you are doing? (Think Mission and Values.)

2. What is the problem you are solving? What are the real pain points for people you are addressing? How is your solution better than your competitors? (Do you know if competitors actually exist?) 

3. What is your solution? How do you bring that solution to the market? What are your factors of production and distribution? How are you organized or structured? 

4. How are you financed? Where do your sales come from? What do your cash flows look like? Are you P/L profitable but don’t have enough cash to pay fixed expenses - if so why? Is your margin high enough to cover expenses? What is your burnout rate? 

5. How are you attracting people to you? How are they hearing about who you are and what you do? Where does your engagement come from? What is your platform or Do you have a platform? Are you tracking your marketing efforts for efficiency?  

If you find your answers changing over time that’s ok - just make sure you are monitoring those changes. Changes that foster an environment for growth are great! I think it’s really important to write these out every once and awhile. Thinking about them is good but you won’t be able to track how your thoughts about your business change because our thoughts are always so fluid. Plus, it’s good to have a standard foundation to build future plans from. Also, in terms of economic players, people, in general, are amazing at rationalizing and you won’t be able to get any real information from the stories you tell yourself on a daily basis about your business. 

One down. One to go. 

Now we’re getting into the pitch framework. 

First I wanted to talk briefly about how important your 90 Second Elevator Pitch is for everyday life. This is not just a skill to have refined but a resource you should have at the ready and it won’t matter where you are: networking events, social events, family events or even professional events. Whenever you meet someone new one of the questions you are probably always going to get asked is “What do you do?” Are you prepared for that answer? As a business builder, how are you going to possibly create enough impact with that person that they might actually want to continue to engage with you? Which can include buying from you, collaborating with you, or referring to you? 

The web and social media make great support tools but you have to be able to confidently convey your mission, values, and efficacy face to face at some point in the transaction - or at least face to video screen. So here is a framework to ensure that your elevator pitch is effective, entertaining, and ideally profitable. 

1. Practice. Developing a pitch takes work.

There is no getting around that. You may know how great you or your products are but you need to be able to tell other people that in a succinct way. Rehearsals, rewrites, and even peer reviews are a great way to sharpen your pitch. Remember most of the time you are going to be talking to your stakeholders and not banks or venture capitalists. So make sure the language you choose is appropriate for the right audience. You should definitely have a few versions so that you can always land right where your listeners are. Practice also means you will have a basic core of information that you know you are constantly giving out each time you present. This makes it easier for people to remember, refer, and talk about you later because it’s the same type of story each time. 

2. Identify the pain points your product or services addresses early on.

Odds are your audience won’t have a lot of time or even interest if you start droning on about how special or unique your process is - worse off how great it will be for them if they try it. So avoid that by asking about an experience that anyone can relate to, the more uncomfortable and universal the better. Don’t be afraid to ask a few well-prepared questions to get a handle on your current landscape. You can get creative here as long as you tie it back to how what you do addresses either the feelings of a situation you described or the problem itself. 

3. Identify what makes you unique (read: better than the rest) and positioned as the best solution to those pain points in the second tip.

This will also give you the opportunity to expand on the needs you satisfy in your market as well as the scale of that market. You should also be mentioning the types of clients/customers you serve as well as how you bring your solution to market. You have to remember though this pitch isn’t really about you. It’s about getting those around you invested in what you do - dropping emotional and even rational anchors on those listening in. 

4. Really avoid filler, buzzwords, and truisms.

Truisms happen when you get too invested and believe your own marketing and hype. That might work for you but your listener might not consider those things entirely true at all or even share the same point of view - think about the last time you heard a financial advisor speak about something with absolute certainty...Yeah, odds are those were personalized truisms based on some nugget of information that might have been factual at the start but by the time you hear the pitch that information was mutilated and has been taken astray. As for filler and buzzwords, they are never good. You want to craft your pitch as though you were talking to a 6-year-old. Not because people aren’t smart but because you want to make sure that all of your audience understands you and what you do. All that extra stuff carries a chance of making people feel left out and distracting from your actual message. 

5. Calls to action are great and hard unreasonable closes are the opposite of great.

When deciding what your calls to action are going to be you really have to think about your goals. Are you looking for referrals, for someone not to throw away your business card, or just information and an introduction? All those things mean you have to build trust in a very short amount of time. Unless you are on the TV show Shark Tank you probably won’t be asking for an instantly massive hard close or sale. Remember you are talking to people and they are the ones who will ultimately decide whether you have proven yourself enough to be engaged with. Be very careful with how you ask someone to take action. If you say you are going to follow up, you better follow up! 

There you have it. 

I know that this post was a bit long and dense but it had to be done. These two concepts are really two sides of the same business development coin. You can’t sell if you aren’t really connected to what you do. My challenge to you is to try to use each of these frameworks earnestly and trust that process will make you a more focused business builder on the other side. 
 

Looking to Innovate or Figure Out What's Possible? Start Here.

It’s always awesome to listen to a physicist talk about not just what’s possible but what’s attainable when it comes to bringing new ideas to life. Vittorio Loreto definitely gives you a lot to think about and even though it’s through the lens of S.T.E.M. the concepts are absolutely applicable to business and entrepreneurial endeavors. 

With this post, I want to throw down the proverbial gauntlet and challenge you to experience this TED Talk and then apply its framework to what you’re building. Can you create value in a new and interesting way for the people that you serve by thinking about what’s adjacently possible?

Just in case you need a little more before investing 16 minutes of your time to grow here’s this TED Talk’s abstract:

“Where do great ideas come from?" Starting with this question in mind, Vittorio Loreto takes us on a journey to explore a possible mathematical scheme that explains the birth of the new. Learn more about the "adjacent possible" -- the crossroads of what's actual and what's possible -- and how studying the math that drives it could explain how we create new ideas.”

#MondayMotivation

Decoding "Work + Luck = Success" To Help You Grow Your Business

I’m keeping the math-centric posts rolling as this week we’re blowing up one of my favorite generic business adages…

 WORK + LUCK = SUCCESS

In this post we are going to factor this formula down to its most basic components so that you can actually assess where you are today in your business and create a plan to grow.

If you’ve been following me for a while you probably know that I’m not a fan of buzzwords or generic business cliches because they don’t do anything to actually help you grow. Sure, you might be able to impress people at parties this summer by dropping two-dollar Lean Six Sigma abbreviations and generically quoting how important creating systems are to growing a business but, when it’s just you facing the white light of your monitor what are you actually doing to grow? 

Either not much or the wrong kind of work I’m guessing. 

I’m here to help you cut the B.S., take an honest assessment and start doing work that matters. “Working harder” probably isn’t the answer and throwing yourself a pity party by blaming someone else’s success purely on luck isn’t doing anything to improve where you are today. 

So let’s get into it. 

In the first round of factoring, I want to break each of the three components into either a more meaningful function or a clear definition. When we do that to WORK + LUCK = SUCCESS we get: 

WORK = Skills X Activity 

LUCK = The condition of creating excessive or unexpected value or return. 

SUCCESS = The achievement of some desired goal or outcomes. 

We can do better than this though and drill down another level. 

You know that working in your business is a function of your ability to do something and the actions you take every day. That work doesn’t help you achieve your goals unless you’re doing it directly in the service of the people you’re trying to help. So we need to add an extra variable, and then you can factor that down a little more by breaking out that work function as follows: 

WORK = Skills X Activity >> (Customers + (Skills X Action)) 

Now ontop LUCK. I’m not satisfied with the traditional definition because it doesn’t really paint an accurate picture of the stuff that you can do every day to help your business grow. So let’s massage that definition a bit by asking a question. How do you create conditions that would yield unexpected returns or value? You do that by showing up. Gary Vaynerchuk has a great analogy about “at bats”. To paraphrase, you’re not going to get good enough to hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate as many times as you possibly can. So LUCK is about showing up consistently and in frequencies that are higher than you’re probably comfortable doing right now. Well, what does showing up mean? It means creating more opportunities for people to find you, engage with you, learn from you, get to know you and trust you. When you do more of that you’re more likely to see more people buy more from you. (Six Flags: More Flags. More Fun.)

LUCK = f(# of times you show up), where f( ) notation represents that it’s a function of the number of times you show up. 

Lastly is SUCCESS. This can mean almost anything to anyone. It really comes down to honestly and authentically understanding what drives you and your what your goals are. Success can be about serving a certain number of customers, hitting a revenue target or even growing enough to hire your first employee. The trick to measuring success is to quantify the outcomes. You can also think about success as a nested function meaning that your success might be the function of a whole bunch of quantifiable goals, benchmarks, and outcomes. 

It might look something like (but not limited to): 

SUCCESS = Specific Goals + Desired Outcomes

We just did a lot of factoring. Let’s put it all together. 

WORK + LUCK = SUCCESS

Really looks like, 

(Customers + (Skills X Action)) + f(showing up) = Specific Goals + Desired Outcomes

My factored out expression looks way more realistic to manage than the cliche adage. With my expression you can look at your business and decide where you need a little more support and focus directly on those parts. 

Neet more customers? Think about where they are coming from, your branding and how you’re showing up. 

Not delivering the results you promised? Think about investing more time into developing skills and knowledge. 

Working 100 hours per week and you aren’t seeing any growth? Think about the kinds of work you’re doing and how that work directly impacts the specific goals you’ve set for yourself. 
I could keep going but I think you get the idea. With this new expression you can create a real plan to not only get better but to track your progress. It also strips away all your excuses because it makes you responsible for everything that happens in your business. It makes it really hard to blame some hard to understand mystic concept of cosmic luck when things aren’t going your way. Are there going to be circumstances where probability plays a big role in an opportunity? Sure. But you can’t control that. What you can control is how often and how real you show up everyday and with that the probability of some unlikely probabilistic circumstance finding its way to you. 

Now that you have this it’s time to take a hard look at your business. Try assessing the work you’re doing against this simple expression. Try to tighten up how you’re measuring the work you’re doing as well as how you’re measuring the results. Then, start making your own luck. 
 

How To Price Your Product Using Weber's Law

It’s time to talk about a business concept that is literally the melding of science and art. It’s a concept that was brought to life by 19th-century physiologists and psychologists and one that you interact with on a daily basis. I’m talking about Weber’s Law. Weber’s Law, also known as Weber-Fechner Law is a law that helps us understand, or quantify rather, the perception of changes in a given stimulus. The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable, barely perceivable, is actually a constant ratio of the original stimulus. 

Expressed as a function it looks like: 

ΔI/I = k

That’s the change in the stimulus over the initial stimulus and the k signifies that this proportion is a constant regardless of the size of the changes in stimulus or initial stimulus. 

Woah, woah, woah here…

I promised you science and art and all I’ve done so far is geek out about a law that illustrates how people perceive changes is things and stuff. The things and stuff that I’m most interested in talking to you about today are how consumers, your customers even, perceive changes in price. 

Weber’s Law is relatively easy to understand as it’s just saying that when initial values are small it’s easier to perceive small changes in them and to tell those two things apart. When things get bigger like prices, weights, numbers of things, it’s harder to perceive the same small change. So, for example, it’s easier to perceive the difference between two goods that have a $5 difference when one of the goods are $10 and the other is $15. Not hard to see that one costs over 30% more than the other. Well, what about that same $5 change when the goods are $95 and $100. It’s still a $5 change but the perception of that change can be a little harder to feel. That $5 change represents only a 5% change. 

When you understand how people are likely to perceive a change in price you can better position yourself within a crowded market or better still figure out how to start thinking about how you should be pricing your products or services. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to drop one of my favorite phrases when I teach my undergrad Econ class, all else equal. To keep this conversation easy to follow I don’t want to talk about people’s changing tastes and expectations, their propensities to consume, price elasticities of demand, etc. The only thing I want to talk about is how you can apply Weber’s Law to your business right now. 

If you’ve spent any time researching how to build a business on the internet or how to market you’ve likely come across the adage that you should price based on the value you’re delivering and that you should do your best to charge a premium. The premium is a helpful consumer behavior trigger and signal because it shows that if they buy from you they’re on the hook for their experience and if you’re charging a lot it’s because you know what the heck you’re talking about. If you haven’t seen anything like that before, well, it’s pretty standard advice and it’s advice that I plan on kicking up a notch or two with the help of my friend, Weber’s Law. 

Let’s start by setting some pretty common thresholds. These are price barriers or tiers that people seem to use as anchors when they’re deciding whether or not they should buy. To be clear I don’t have rigorously tested empirical data here I’m just leaning on my experiences working with hundreds of business owners of the years and the resources I have access to as a serial adjunct business professor. 

The tiers are as follows: 

1. $20 and under
2. $21 to $99
3. $100 to $499 
4. $500 +

A relatively small change within each of these items would be almost imperceptible to people that are willing or able to consume your goods or services. For example, Hulu and Netflix have crept up in prices over the years. When the changes happen they are usually in an increment of a few dollars or so. When those price changes are coming, the media does a great job of sensationalizing those changes but when all that media fades those businesses not only retain their customers but they grow. Why?! Because of the perceived value, because of the promise of original content and because the perception of the actual price change isn’t big enough to change most people’s behavior. Wow, I (f*cking) love science! 

Think about it, we chalk up price increases over time as normal. Sure, a part of that will be inflationary pressures on the standards we need and use daily but price levels overall are creeping up and the sizes of goods (bags of chips, candy bars, etc.) are going down because companies know they can change little bits over time and those changes won’t be the thing that alters consumer behavior. 

So how can you apply Weber’s Law to your business? Well first off, take a look at your current pricing. There’s no reason you can’t float your way up to the top of any of the tiers I’ve outlined. Sure you might have to flex your rationalizing muscles a bit and yes you may lose a few customers but, overall your business will benefit as most people won’t have a problem with incremental increases over time. 

What this also means is that you have an opportunity to segment your offerings. Creating experiences that align at the top ends of each of these tiers will communicate that your customers will expect different levels of quality, service, access, materials etc. That’s a good thing! I’m not advocating that you use this as a way to pull the wool over the eyes of the people that choose to spend their money on you. What I am saying is that you can manage expectations and create an environment where your customers know what to expect and are confident that they will get the value you promised them at each of these tiers. 

As a student of the internet, I can honestly say that I’ve fallen victim to the pricing trap having spent money on courses in the $500+ tier thinking they would be the answer to all my problems only to find that in reality, I bought a bunch of poorly made slides repackaging commonly slung information. They may have got my business once but they won’t again. You don’t want to build a business like that. In fact, it’s flat out unsustainable. If you plan on sticking around in your business and are playing the long game you need to build a devoted base of loyal customers and followers. You do that by delivering value every day. 

Sorry, I know I got a little ranty just now but it’s because I know that, as Spiderman’s Uncle Ben is quoted to say, with great power comes great responsibility. 

Ok to sum up what we have here: 

• Relative small change in small dollar good or service will be perceptible and have a chance to change buyer behavior. 
• Relative small change in big dollar good or service is borderline imperceptible. 
• Relative big change in small dollar good or service will most likely change buyer behavior. 
• Relative big change in big dollar good or service will be perceptible. 

Don’t forget that these changes can be increases or decreases. A good sale is only good if it’s enough to motivate buyers to engage which means it needs to be perceptible. Sales are great for generating revenue in the short term, turning over inventory, or just a little attention grab. 

Now get out there and start charging what you're worth! 

Oh and if you want to see a really awesome (nerdy) math video on Weber's Law then you should definitely check out this video from the Numberphile Channel on YouTube. 

Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe

“You know, in the military, they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain. We have it backwards. Right?”

In today’s post, I want to cover leadership through the wisdom of Simon Sinek. In this TED Talk Simon talks about the importance of fostering the feelings of safety as a leader. I believe this applies to those of us building businesses with internal stakeholders like employees as well as the solopreneurs and small businesses that only have external stakeholders like vendors and customers/clients. 

Why? 

To paraphrase from Simon; when people feel safe there’s a natural tendency to cooperate. It’s cooperation that drives success. I don’t necessarily mean the play nice in the sandbox kind of cooperation, that counts too, but it’s the cooperation we earn when we ask of someone. The safety in knowing that your audience isn’t wasting their time or consuming bad content when you ask for your audience’s attention or better to spend their discretionary dollars on you. Being a good leader means creating an environment where the people around you feel safe enough to let their guards down so that there’s an opportunity to get to know, like and trust you. 

Getting people to know, like, and trust you are the foundational pillars for growing a business that lasts. 

Business development isn’t just a quantity game, it’s about developing yourself as a leader, regardless of your perceived position in life, professional experience, or technical knowledge. Leadership is also a choice you have to actively make every day. You know what’s also a choice? Investing about twelve minutes of your time today to help you think about how you’re doing your part to make the people around you feel safe so that you can authentically grow your business.

You choose. 

What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it's someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust. But creating trust and safety - especially in an uneven economy - means taking on big responsibility.

PS - If you’re looking to supercharge your decision-making process you should also choose to jump in on the Disruptive Strategy Newsletter at the bottom of the page. When you join the community you’ll get access to resources and a community dedicated to helping you grow delivered neatly to your inbox. 

Business Development: Heart and Hustle Edition

Over the last few years, I’ve worked with, and given advice to, a few hundred business owners. It’s been awesome to hear their stories, their challenges, their successes, and what drives them to show up every day. A handful were big name Fortune 500 companies but most were small businesses run by amazing people trying to build a life for themselves and their families. Across industries, sectors, geographic locations and levels of experience, I’ve noticed that there are really two big questions I get asked most often. 

They are: 

“How do I grow?”  

and 

“How can I get myself unstuck?”

These are both really big questions. If you’re reading this and are asking yourself one or both then you’re in the right place. While I won’t be able to give you specific advice for your immediate situation I can give you some great places to start focusing your attention. (If you’re feeling really froggy feel free to shoot me an email and I’ll do my best to give you some honest and authentic feedback - nunzio(at)disruptivestrategy.co)

In this post, I’m going to outline a handful of things you can do right now that have a relatively low financial cost but require more of a time commitment. I’m doing this by design because of the reality of growing a business and getting unstuck means figuring out what work matters most and creating the bandwidth to double down on it. The goal is to do more of the stuff that gets you the most results. Crazy right?! Unfortunately building enough momentum to create real change in your business can feel like you’re running on a treadmill that’s being dragged through a swamp. 

It can feel like hard work, it can feel slow, it’s can be a murky mess...And sometimes even uncomfortably humid?!

Don’t let that deter you though! Patience and momentum are interesting forces and when harnessed well can yield positive results for your business that you hadn’t even considered. So try a few of these and let me know if you work your way into a pleasant surprise or two. 

1. Remember that doing business is just people connecting with people. 

When you’re scrambling to drum up new business it can be easy to forget that doing business is a person to person sport. It’s also easy to forget that people do business with you because they either believe you can provide the value you promise or you already have delivered that value. It’s easy to forget these things because the stress of finding your next customer or client starts to pile up and your attention starts to shift to actions that will potentially get your message in front of more people. So you’ll spend more time on social, maybe throw a few more dollars that you don’t have at ads (both online and in real life) and even give your local Valpak direct mail contact a call. Those aren’t bad things but the ROI is low and (most of the time) your spending time and money on activities that you can’t sustain. I mean honestly, when was the last time you bought anything from a ValPak - no offense but spammy direct mail doesn’t produce the results it used to. Instead, I would suggest going the complete opposite. Don’t think about how you can reach more people by casting a wider net, think about how you can make a real connection to a few people who will actually support you. 

If you’re a small business who are the handful of people that could go to bat for you in terms of offering referrals, creating other relationships, writing testimonials or even buy from you? Connecting, or even reconnecting, authentically to these people will provide you more value than any direct mail effort. Why? Because these are people who you’ve walked through the process of getting to know, like and trust you! Who better to go to bat for you or to take the risk of inviting you into their network? 

Lastly, if you’re at the end of this first point and you’re really struggling to identify people then maybe it’s time to get out into the world and find networking groups/events. In lots of communities all over the country, and the world, there are networking groups that meet weekly like BNI (Business Networking International), there are Young Professional groups, Chambers of Commerce, etc. These are places you can show up ask lots of questions, shake lots of hands and start to develop mutually beneficial relationships. You just have to make it a priority to get yourself out there! 

2. Get to work in your inbox and start sliding into DM’s. 

Email and DM’s are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they are awesome tools that can connect you to virtually anyone, in any company, anywhere in the world. On the other hand, you have to compete with the millions of people that are vying for your contact’s attention in cluttered inboxes full of spammy and impersonal nonsense. 

Think I’m being hyperbolic? 

Take a look at the current state of LinkedIn’s messaging system and tell me that the messages in your inbox aren’t just impersonal copy and paste jobs. You have the opportunity to stand out though. The odds are low so it’s definitely a numbers game but if you spend the time figuring out how you can add value to someone’s day in a meaningful way there’s a good chance that they’ll open up your next email and the emails after that. So, how can you offer a complete stranger enough value that they engage with you? First I’ll tell you what not to do. Do not send them a cold sales pitch that clearly reads that you’re just looking for their business. No relationship and no value equals no sale. What you should do is try to connect in a real way, just like the first tip. Here are a few suggestions: 

You can offer a resource that could help them with their business or problem. 
If you’re a designer maybe you offer a recommendation for a site or piece of marketing you came across. 
Do you have an audience or market that they could benefit from with a little exposure from you? 
If you’re a marketer maybe a suggestion followed up with a little support that could benefit their brand, products or service. 
If you’re any other professional services provider, maker, or do’er is there something you can do on “spec” that might be of value to them? 

If you think all that sounds like a lot of extra work with an uncertain return on investment you’re right. It is! But this is part of the process. Creating relationships and proving yourself to someone takes work, deliberate and thoughtful work. You win by embracing that and doubling down on the fact that most (all) of your competitors wouldn’t put in the same time or effort. 

3. Ask for introductions. 

I already explained that I think the current state of LinkedIn’s messaging is a complete mess. That doesn’t mean it’s without hope though. LinkedIn is an awesome place for you to reach out to the people that you already know and ask them to connect you with someone specifically in their network. Just like the first two points, you might have to explain yourself a bit but, as long as you’re leading with providing value it’s easy for your contact to make the connection. This is also another numbers game. There are going to be people that you’re connected with that refuse and ignore you. Don’t take it personally, say thank you and make a note to work on the connection you already have with them. 

This strategy works in person too! 

If you’re lucky enough to have a database of people who’ve already done business with you this is a good time to reconnect. Check in with them, really care about how they are post-buying from you, and ask to be connected to the people in their lives that could benefit from engaging with you. In general, people are AMAZING BS Detectors so if you try this by faking gratitude and appreciation they will freeze you out. No one likes to be sold to and like even less when sales-y people try to sell their friends and family. I’m sure we’ve all known a well-intentioned and poorly executing MLM sales person, used car salesperson blasting their offerings on their personal Facebook Page or real estate professional coldly mining for referrals.  

So we are at the end of my list for you now. You’ve probably noticed that none of these tips were instant-make-money-now-online-marketing-sales-tactics. It’s not because I don’t believe in the efficacy of those tactics and strategies, because I do. (Here's a link to a post that outlines 10 tactics you can put into action right now.) I think well written and well-meaning copy, email funnels, and social strategy are awesome tools to support business growth. But if right now, today, you’re sitting looking for your next cut and paste marketing tactic to try to entice your next sale then I say it’s time to take a step back and immerse yourself in the business of connecting with people. Your business will thrive in the long run because you took the time now to build a community of customers, readers, watchers, and listeners that care about you and your business. It will sustain because people will buy from you, keep buying from you and refer the people they care about. Getting one more sale because you click baited someone might be good the first time but there’s a decent probability that they don’t try you again. 

This is going to take work. It’s going to feel like a slog and that’s ok. To grow or to get unstuck is going to take the momentum you build as you shift your focus back to serving the people you committed to the first day you opened your doors - even if it’s not scalable. 

Get Practical for Real and Sustainable Business Growth

When you hear the word entrepreneur what do you think about? Who comes to mind? What scenes play out in your imagination? 

Are you taken back to a Gary Vaynerchuk video you watched earlier that day? 

Do you think about what it would feel like to be rubbing elbows with Mark Cuban and Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank? 

Maybe it’s the Facebook posts of Tai Lopez that you skip over in your news feed? 

Or, it’s none of those. Maybe it’s the process of chasing venture (or angel) capital for an idea and the art of the deal that gets your engine going. 

The point I’m trying to make is that I’m pretty sure there’s a noticeably smaller population of people that hear the word entrepreneur and instantly associate it with the definition of the word practical. 

I’m willing to bet that most of you reading this don’t think of putting in long hours, writing blog posts that go unread for months (or years), showing up to do a Facebook Live every week to an audience of one or two, and writing hundreds of yet to be responded to prospecting emails a month as entrepreneurship. 

The sad thing is that it’s the business builders who understand the reality of their market and who are thinking practically are going to be the ones that win. And, it’s a small proportion indeed. 

Why? 

Because those practical entrepreneurs aren’t distracted and aren’t feeding this romantic disconnect between where they are today and what “could be” for them. The probability of going from where you are today to Taylor Swift levels of success is small. Really, really small. It’s not impossible but it is improbable. This post’s goal isn’t to tell you that you shouldn’t dream big but it is going to help you reframe how you’re building your business so you can attack it practically and build momentum over time. Most importantly I want to help you shake the romantic idea of what it means to be an entrepreneur and instead embrace the work it takes to build a business you care about and that is good enough to contribute to the life you want to build for yourself. 

Whether you’re just starting out or have been at it a while I challenge you to get a little more practical with how you’re investing your time, money, and resources. I challenge you to embrace these three practical tenants. 

1. You’re always going to be racing against obscurity. 

There’s no reason your business shouldn’t be everywhere online. You need to make sure you have a presence in all the places people look for and validate against, information about businesses online. You have to be constantly wearing two hats, the business owner had and the media business hat. From a practical perspective, you are competing against the attention of everyone when it comes to marketing online. You’re competing against someone’s new baby pictures and also against businesses like Tai Lopez who throws six-figures plus per ad on social platforms. That means you are always going to be working on communicating authentically with your audience, striving to build real relationships and interacting in ways that are unscalable to try to rise above that noise. 

It’s going to take work but the tribe that you build, the relationships you develop with your audience will matter more because it’s engagement that will ultimately support the growth of your business. Oh, and it takes time. Lots of time. Fighting obscurity is a momentum game. You have to show up every day because that’s what it’s going to take to get noticed, build trust and create experiences for people that can’t be beaten. 

Practical Pro Tip: Work on creating large pieces of content that you can splinter apart to share on adjacent platforms. For example, if you’re writing blog posts every week maybe you can talk about the topic in a short Facebook Live video or you wax poetic on a microphone about and turn it into a podcast. You get more leverage out of that large piece of content and increase your chances of reaching more people. Try to start a conversation - invite your audience to share their experiences and offer a platform for them to teach something. More engagement means more interest in you which leads to more attention for your business.  

2. Selling is way more work than you think. 

This is one of my favorite things to work on with entrepreneurs. No one really understands how brutal it can be to try to sell a product and sometimes even worse a service. Lots of business builders think that optimizing their site’s SEO, creating a killer About Page and having a clear offer/value proposition means that potential customers will just “get it” and buy. Wrong. It takes time, energy, relationship building skills, and a private-eye level ability to do research to create opportunities to show someone a proposal. Getting practical here means getting comfortable with the fact that you’ll send hundreds of emails that don’t get opened or responded to. You’ll spend hours sending out snail mail marketing materials that end up getting thrown away. And, you’ll get more buyer objections than you thought to prepare for. 

There is hope though. Sales is a game of inertia. When you remove all the personal stuff that goes with selling, like taking people’s rejections personally, from the equation you are left with the beginnings of a system. The more emails you send out the faster you get feedback about what works and what doesn’t. The more opportunities to sell you create the more you’re able to hone your presentation skills. The more research you do about how your product or service could serve your customer the easier it will be to identify potential pain-points and ROI opportunities for your next customers. It takes work though, and going at it for a while with little to no results can be really taxing, even on seasoned business builders. The trick here is to always check in with how you’re framing the work you’re doing and to keep an eye on your macro-view. Just because you get a few “no’s” back to back doesn’t mean you have a bad product or service or that there is no market for you. (I mean if you get multiple dozens of “no’s” you might want to reevaluate what your business is offering or go back to the product-market fit drawing board.) It means you need to revisit what you do, for who, and why they should care. 

Practical Pro Tip: Use tools whenever possible to keep your sales process as neat and as tidy as possible. I personally love Hubspot because I can track emails opens, link click-throughs and add notes on relationships I’m trying to build with people all the time. Also, don’t take local hand-to-hand combat type networking for granted. Showing up at in-person networking events can help you with your presentation skills and help you build relationships that can support the growth of your business. Lastly, DO NOT take this lesson in practicality and just create a canned LinkedIn message and shoot it out to the two thousand people you’re connected to on LinkedIn. Everyone hates them, you look lazy and (at least for me) people will not take you seriously. 

3. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. 

I know this is a tired piece of advice but give me a chance to show you something a little different. Sure, old adages like “perfect is the enemy of good enough” exist and seem simple enough but I’m sure that not enough entrepreneurs really heed this advice. For instance, there is an entire market out there that exists to teach people how to do anything online. I love information products and online courses as much as the next business builder but what I don’t love is the tendency for people to collect course logins like kids (or me sometimes) collecting Funko Pops. (Yes, I collect Batman Pops...I mean he’s one of fiction’s most brilliant strategists.) They do this because they believe that completing “one more” course or getting a little information will finally allow them to perfectly offer, perfect position, and perfectly deliver their value. Unfortunately, that is rarely true and what’s most likely is that they are doing something that feels like work because it’s in the service of building their business but they aren’t actually doing any business building work. 

Don’t let this happen to you. Don’t let weeks, months or even years go by before you build the courage to show someone what you can offer them. 

Don’t let something that feels like work, but isn’t actually work, distract you from going out into the world and building your business. In the LEAN methodology, there’s a lot of weight put on rapid learning, iterating and seizing opportunities to pivot when you’re attempting to provide value for a customer. I’m not saying go out and collect a login to a LEAN online course but what I am saying is that learning as you go when you’re building a business is really ok. I’d encourage it even. Why? Because the opportunity cost of waiting and the sunk costs associated with time and money in a topic you may discover you don’t actually need are huge. So you stumble a few times and lose a customer or two. Big deal, you learned something and can apply that to your next go around. Same goes for any content you produce, no one expects to see super polished right out of the gate. To the contrary actually - raw and authentic win in today’s market.  

Practical Pro Tip: Embrace just-in-time learning. Don’t worry about hoarding every possible skill you think you need right now. Just go! Enter the social platforms, people’s inboxes and your real life interactions with enough information to get the job done in an authentic and meaningful way. You should also choose which tools you want to go deep on carefully. If you’re editing video media, for instance, don’t worry about learning everything there is to know about Camtasia, Adobe Premiere, and Wirecast. Pick the one that you’ll use the most and work on building a functional skill set that will allow you to put out your video content on a regular and CONSISTENT schedule. For everything else, there are YouTube tutorials. Seriously, avoid the feels like work but actually isn’t work trap at all cost. You need to be very careful about how you allocate your time and should always be checking in with yourself to see if what you’re currently working on is actually going to bring some kind of direct value to your customer. 

This was a heavy post so if you’ve made it this far I just want to say thanks and congrats. That’s kind of a big deal. What’s a bigger deal though is that you are hopefully thinking about your business in more practical terms. That’s where you are going to win. Being an entrepreneur right now is a trendy thing. The more entrepreneurs I meet, the more I’m disappointed I am with how diluted their businesses are. People that are trying to build businesses that serve everyone and do everything are not long for this world. 

Focus on doing things that don’t scale right away. Focus on delivering real value consistently for your clients and customers. Focus on building real relationships and investing in your business. That’s the work it takes to be practical and build a business that you are proud of and that provides for you the life you want. An article from USA Today, May 2017, quoted that 20% of businesses survive past their first year. 20%! That’s not necessarily the story that social media tells us with all the “entrepreneurs” and “hustlers” out there. So what does that tell us? It tells us that there is a world of people out there playing business and it’s the few that get serious about being practical every day that really makes it. 

It’s easy to be a wantrapreneur, choose to be one of the 20% and win instead.

PS - Here's my simple call to action. If you're struggling with your entrepreneurial journey and you think a little support might do you some good, go check out the new group program that's launching. Even if it's not for you we can still bond over one of my all-time favorite Disney movies. 

How to Beat Procrastination

Procrastination is an interesting thing to think about and it ties directly to how productive and efficient you are in your business. It can creep up on you, make things on your to-do list seem more complicated than they are and, be the muse to some of your best rationalizations. 

It doesn’t have to be scary though. 

In this Ted Talk, you’re going to see Tim Urban really break down what procrastination is, how it works and best of all - how to manage it. He’s going to give you permission to forgive yourself for procrastinating and some ideas on how to use it to your advantage. 

I think investing a few minutes in understanding how the amazing machines that are our brains work are worth way more than tinkering with any productivity tool you’re working in today. That tool will still be there when you’re done and you’ll have the added bonus of knowing how to outsmart your own procrastination monster. 

Oh and before you hit play on that Ted Talk, I wanted to encourage you not to procrastinate and check out the new Group Coaching program I’m offering. If you’ve been on the fence about starting a business or have been struggling to get any traction then it’s definitely worth a quick peek - after the Tim Urban video that is. 

Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us to think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

Your Business Model Blueprint

You can NOT work on growing your business without first taking a look at your business model.

Your business model is the blueprints of your business. It’s the roadmap. If your business was a human body it would be the circulatory, nervous and skeletal systems...probably. Your heart? That’s your passion which, is also important but it’s not your business model. Your business model is the thing that outlines how your business is going to make money. Which would be the blood (and breathing) if we’re going to stick with this vaguely anatomically correct business reference.

There is a lot of hype about growing a business these days. It’s hard not to jump on the hype train when you see an environment of Tai Lopez Facebook ads, new crypto millionaires every week and guys like Gary Vaynerchuk motivating you to hustle harder than you think is even possible. But, even with all the hype and plugs for mentorship programs (shameless plug: be sure to check out my new group coaching program if you’re thinking of finally taking the plunge) and get rich crypto strategies, lots of people still forget to take a look at their “business’s” underlying business model.

At its most basic purpose, a business model answers the “how” question when it comes to you delivering or creating value for your customers. If you plan on being successful, which most people do, you need to make sure your business is organized and your foundation is solid before you can go off and start executing some the business growth strategies and tactics du jour.

If you don’t take the time to really flush out your business model then running your business ends up being kind of like taking a shower with your clothes on. Sure you’re in there and sudsing up with your favorite lufa but are you really getting clean? Probably not and now that sweater vest is never going to really fit right again.

Below is a quick blueprint you can use to see if your business will function how you want it to when you are ready to start executing your business growth strategy. Not only that but sometimes you are so involved in getting your product or service out, dealing with customers, and making sure you are doing enough marketing that you lose track of how your business is actually working.

Wing’ing it is never a good business model.

Think about these concepts and use them to help tighten your business up - most importantly don’t wear your clothes in the shower.

Customer Value Proposition:

- Who are your target customers?

- What important job are you doing for them? What need are you fulfilling?

- How are you packaging that offering so that it is the most effective way to communicate your value to your customer?

Profit Formula:

- Think about your revenue and where is your profit coming from? What kind of volume do you need to have to reach your profit goals? Are you selling at low prices with the hopes of high volume or high price low volume - does that match your market?

- How are costs allocated? Keep track of your spending!!! Remember your time and overhead count too.

- What is the minimum level of margin you need to earn on each sale to reach your profit goals?

- How fast is the turnaround time on the inputs you need to sustain your businesses activities? Think and plan for those cash flow needs.

Key Resources:

- What are the most important factors in bringing your business and strategy to the next level?

- These include people, strategic alliances, technology, how information flows, distribution channels and any specialized equipment.

- When you map these out it makes executing your strategy a lot more efficient!

Key Processes:

- What are the processes that are repeatable (and eventually scaleable) that you use every day to deliver value to customers?

- What are the metrics you use to keep track of your success? What gets measured gets managed!

- What are the norms in your market or industry? Understanding how business is done in your market will help you get in front of your customers faster and in a way that they are familiar with. It will also help to build your social credibility and proof as a business in your market.

These four major concepts help you better outline the model that your business follows. When you break everything out it will help you better focus and avoid doing things in your business that are wasteful or that even are too far away from what you actually wanted to be doing in your business.

Model first then grow!

How To Be More Productive At Work

If you’re serious about growing your business then I think you should consider playing more strategy video games. You heard (read) this correct. Whether you’re a Clash of Clans “Clasher”, a multiplayer online battle arena type League of Legends or Dota player, or someone who really likes the speed and variety of Hearthstone; I’m going to argue that all work and no play literally makes Jack a dull business building boy (or girl). In this post, I’m going to challenge you to reallocate the time you spend taking social media and online content consumption breaks during the day to playing more casually strategy type video games.

Really.

Let’s start by acknowledging that most people don’t dedicate every “working” moment of their day to adding to their own (or someone else’s) bottom line. There are lots of studies and frameworks that suggest getting the best productivity out of someone they actually shouldn’t be trying to be productive 100% of the time. There is, in fact, a diminishing marginal return type of effect when it comes to productivity. It’s from these studies that you see frameworks like Pareto, Eating Frogs, Personal Kanban, SMART methods, and the productivity hacking list literally goes on forever.

When it comes to time management and productivity there is no shortage of the ways in which you can organize your day. Regardless of how you organize your day though there is a constant and that constant is some kind of downtime or transitional time. This is where the fun begins.

I want you to get more play time into your day by using your breaks strategically. Before we can do that though I want to cover why breaks are important in the first place.

Why is it important to take breaks?

1. Taking breaks during the workday help stave off boredom and keep us more focused. Keeping boredom at bay and staying focused is important because it directly impacts the return on the time you’re spending and the quality of the outputs regarding your given task.  Alejandro Lleras a psychology professor at the University of Illinois explains, “…Deactivating and reactivating your goals allows you to stay focused. From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!”

2. Breaks also help to reevaluate goals. I think it’s safe to assume that we’ve all had experiences where it feels like you’ve been working really hard and are throwing a ton of time into something only to find out you deviated from your original goal or intention by the end. Taking breaks along the way allow you to come back to tasks with a refreshed perspective on the work that you are doing.

3. Some of the best problem solving happens when you’re more relaxed. I mean I can’t be the only one that has his best ideas in the shower or when I’m on a 40-minute drive to and from a client site right?! When we are relaxed our brains can better free connect ideas and concepts because our imagination takes the wheel in our brains associative bits. Focused work actually creates cognitive barriers that can actually impede our natural problem-solving abilities.

4. Breaks also allow for the reduction of stress and the management of morale. When you take a break it allows you the opportunity to escape from the demands of the work at the moment. It allows you the opportunity to take some time for yourself and to engage in some self-care. It’s not uncommon for advice like go outside, get up and stretch, talk to someone, etc. These activities are encouraged because they are proven to drive morale up. When you’re happier at work, you’re more engaged and you feel better about getting through the rest of your to-do list. Not to mention all the quantitative benefits that can be gleaned from happier and healthy workers when you start to factor in things like the marginal product of revenue.

Ok so now that we’ve set the table on productivity and the importance of breaks let’s jump into why playing strategy video games is important.

Casual strategy video games afford the same kinds of benefits as the other, more traditionally,  recommended break time activities. You get all the benefits listed in the 4 points above so I won’t be repeating myself but here’s where the extra benefit comes in.

Video game play has been shown to reduce stress, increase cognitive function, increase resource allocation or management skills, and even help people reframe how they think about time management.

Let’s break each one of those points out briefly:

1. Reducing Stress. Building and growing a business is stressful. Giving yourself permission to stop when you can and schedule in some time for some levity, escapism, and adventure can be good for self-care. Allowing yourself to temporarily step away from deadlines, duties, and responsibilities can improve mood and help facilitate feelings of control which can combat the anxiety that entrepreneurs can experience doing the work to grow your business.

2. Increase cognitive function, resource management and problem-solving. Strategy games have been shown to increase cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility the ability to hold different ideas simultaneously or to be able to switch between concepts rapidly. When you’re building a business you’re often faced with having to make decisions in real time. The more practice you have with juggling different, possibly dissident, ideas the better you’ll be at charting your decision throughline to make better decisions consistently. These types of games also often have players manage resources and solve problems in real time which translate to better real-world planning skills and innovative thinking to move past challenges.

3. Time management. A study (link to study) from psychologists at the Plymouth University actually found that playing Tetris helped to improve self-control. Self-control is one of the biggest points of failure when it comes to trying to hold yourself accountable for your time management systems. In the last five minutes, I’ve checked my phone three times during a time that was supposed to be dedicated to creating this content. Ouchies.Circling back to the list of all the different productivity models will show that breaks are built into all of them. While the timing and durations vary the fact that you need a break to do your best work is a pretty consistent theme. Allowing yourself this structured play time can give your brain a dopamine hit to look forward to instead of incentivizing you to go out and find one during predetermined work periods.

Conclusion

I hope that by the end of this post I’ve challenged you to be a little more honest about how you spend your workday. It’s easy to dismiss the idea that playing games in the middle of the day are a wise use of your workday. It’s easy because there’s a stigma about what work should look like. How can you tell your boss, your client, spouse or to-do list that you’re being productive when someone walks in on you as your immersed in a fantasy-strategy world? Well, that same question can be asked of anyone caught mindlessly scrolling through their phone at work? The rub here is that predetermined work breaks that are designed to keep you engaged in your workday are always going to be better for you over the hundreds of times you’re checking your phone through the day. Especially, if it takes on average about 15 minutes to get back to your work after each break.

Moral of the story, play more games at work to do better work - because science.

You're welcome.

Want to get ahead in 2018? Understand these Five Forces!

I read an article that took me back to my undergraduate economic/business studies at Bentley University (College when I was there). 

Well took me back to the feelings I had as an undergraduate. 

Allow me to take you back. 

Take you back 10+ years ago to young me sitting in my first Microeconomics class - a class that would yield my lowest grade in my academic career to date might I add. What I remember most about this course were the conversations and the breakdowns between what the book said and how we could apply in real life. I loved this course but I seriously struggled, so much so that the professor actually said I should consider a major change. 

But I stuck with it. I knew, even though I didn’t always get the material at the time, that it was important to know about the incentives that motivated how firms interact with each other and how people interact with firms. Fast forward to now and I’m teaching college courses, mostly economics and finance, including designing original economics courses for business programs. Take that Freshman-Bentley-Econ-Professor-Who-Didn’t-Believe-In-Me! It’s being pragmatic in understanding what motivates people and making everyday economics a skill set that I rely on everyday. Getting to the heart of causality and creating strategies that have real impacts for people and firms. 

Why did I share that with you?!

It’s because of Michael Porter. This article reaffirmed the mission that I have for myself and for Disruptive Strategy. Basically when I grow up (professionally) I want to be in a similar position to him. Porter is a strategist, economist, and professor that has done an amazing amount of work touting the benefits of competitive systems to get and keep economies moving and growing.

Reading this article made me feel like that undergraduate that had a world of possibilities in front of them. It helped me remember that the skills and the tools that I’ve been sharpening over the last decade not only have value but are needed by people and firms because it’s more than what simple Google searches and templates can provide. 

One of my favorite systems of his is the Porter 5 Forces Model and I wanted to share it with you. Since its inception strategic consultants, planners, and advisors have been using this system as a basis to create strategy for firms of all sizes. The kicker is that it’s based in pretty topical economic theory - remember the things that “shift” a supply and demand curve, or how markets find equilibrium, or better still price elasticity of demand?? 

Yup, it all comes from there!

Here’s what you need to know about the 5 Forces Model to be a better strategist: 

There are 5 Forces that drive companies in competitive markets: 

- The threat of available substitutes
- Amount of buyers and their bargaining power
- Amount of sellers and their bargaining power
- Rivalry/competition within a market - number of existing players
- Barriers to enter a market

Substitutes 

When bringing a product or service to market you have to consider the available substitutes. How much do they cost? How close is the experience to your product or service? What might differentiate you or how can you increase your value/perceived value? There are lots of tablets out on the market now but, why do people choose to buy an iPad? Why might someone choose Google’s Nexus 7? How can you position yourself to be perceived as a niche product or service?

Buyers

Can the buyers work together to have an affect on a market? What kind of information are you providing for your buyers? What is the collective experience of your consumer? Do you have a product or service that allows for multiple points of entry at differing price levels? Is the experience so streamlined that consumers can always expect a certain experience? Are you building stakeholders or are just banking on perceived obsolescence? Think your cable company. Odds are if you call complain and leave their prices won’t need to change because there are more than enough subscribers willing and able to pay the prices that they ask for. But, if you everyone in your town/city cut the cord and subscribed to Hulu and Netflix then the cable company might have to listen to the concerns of the consumer. 

Sellers 

Can you benefit from pitting sellers/vendors/distributors against each other for your business? Can you diversify the way you collect your inputs? Are there any suppliers that would help you grow your economies of scale - reducing your average costs over the long term. When you enter a market or are thinking about making your product unique it’s crucial to consider your supply chain. If there are any hiccups or if you choose cheap over value then that might have an effect on the quality or consistency of your own products. 

Rivalries between existing firms 

It’s important to assess where other firms are in your market. What kind of market is it? There will be big differences between how you approach an oligopolistic market vs something where there is a bit more competition. It’s also important to monitor how the market behaves. What I mean by that is keeping track of how things are marketed or how fast products/services change. An example would be Apple’s iPads and iPhones. It used to be that those were launched about annually but because technology is changing so fast it’s moved up to about a 10 month release time for new stuff or at least updates to existing stuff. When doing your branding or positioning seeing what the currents are doing will help you better utilize whatever resources you have available. Nothing worse than marketing in a place where no one is looking. So identify your markets and who consumers as well as firms identify themselves. 

Barriers to entry

What will it take to enter a market or just start a business? What are the costs or investment necessary to be a competitor? Are there any obstacles as far as availability of resources to get you going? What are tax liabilities or government policies that need to be taken into consideration? Nothing worse than being in business for a while then getting slammed with a tax bill that you weren’t even close to being prepared for. Are there distribution channels available for what you are doing or do you have to create your own? You might be in business already and need some help gaining some scope on growing - so it’s important that you understand the questions to ask to get the best information to overcome barriers. 

I know went over these 5 Forces really fast and it’s a lot of questions to ask or even try to answer. There's a benefit though in even starting to think about this stuff. When you start to think about these forces and answers these questions some really neat stuff happens. You start to get really clear on what sets you apart in your market. You start to see what your (real) competitive landscape looks like and you start to see how you can continue to add value to people's lives. 

I just realized how long this post is going, so if you are still with me - you are awesome! Awesome and exactly the kind of person I want being part of this community. I want to do more on creating strategy and using the 5 Forces Model so if you have questions on application or making this more pragmatic please shoot them along by signing up for the Disruptive Strategy Newsletter!
 

Prepare for 2018 Like a Pro

The last few weeks of the year are always interesting productivity and business growing monsters. It’s a balance between enjoying the holiday season, not giving up on your goals and trying to get a hold of people who may or may not be checked out already. What I love most about these few weeks though is that they are great for putting your head down and sprinting towards making good on your 2017. The close second to that is that they are also great times to reflect a bit in your business. 

It’s a great time to be a little honest and a little raw about the level of effort you put into your business this year. In this post I’m going to share with you an outline you can use to review your efforts this year or as an agenda for year end conversations you may be having with your team. 

Before jumping right into the outline I want to share with you a bit of a framework you should follow first if you really plan on getting anything useful out of this reflection exercise. 

Prepare 

This is a big one most businesses owners I talk to just gloss over. They gloss over it because they think that everything they need to think about in terms of what their business did over the course of the year is just floating around in their brain. Wrong. What’s floating around in your brain are the misremembered experiences and perspectives you’ve help through the year that your brain chose to hold on to. It’s your view of your business through either rose colored or excuse tinted lenses. If you’re going to take this reflection seriously you need to have an objective view of what you were or weren’t able to accomplish. So pull out those financials, bank statements, social media dashboards, etc. 

Set the tone 

Sounds simple but it’s important not to skip. You shouldn’t be going into this exercise looking for only the things you did wrong. You want to celebrate the things you did right too! This reflection process should be about identifying where you can continue to grow in your business and how your current capabilities and capacity map against the goals you want to set for yourself in the coming year. 

Review performance expectations

Whether you actively think about it or not as a business owner you have a job description. These are the task, responsibilities and actions towards outcomes you committed to when you started the business. Reviewing the expectations you set for yourself everyday will help to measure your performance against the reality of growing a business. This is where being honest is important because it’s easy to rationalize why something you committed to didn’t get done when you’re the one holding yourself accountable. The real test is being honest about the dedication or commitment you showed up to work everyday with. Again, don’t get bogged down if you had a spell or two of lacking enthusiasm every time you sat at your desk. The entrepreneurial journey is less of a check mark and more of a rollercoaster - it’s about the patterns of activity over time that really matter. 

Notes on goal setting 

There are a million and a half ways to set goals. Finding the one that works for you is important but regardless of what system you use I want to make sure that you are setting goals in targeted areas, that build on your strengths, that develop you as a professional and finally that are aligned with your values. If you’re setting goals that don’t matter to you or that you can’t commit to then it doesn’t matter what’s at the end of that rainbow because you’re never going to get there. They should stretch and challenge you but not be so far out of your abilities or habits that you just chalk them up as a loss subconsciously before you even start. #newyearnewyou

Make sure you schedule time to follow up

It’s unfair to expect that you can do this work now, file it away and just figure that you’re on the right path without checking in at this time next year. My recommendation is to break your goals and plans out by month so that you can check in along the way. It’s ok if your course changes over time because you’ll be actively assessing what’s important to you and your business and what’s not. Following up will help fight the self sabotage (something that I am super guilty of) and help you build momentum as you start to hit benchmarks and see real growth. Plus, you’re executing on one of my favorite sayings of all time - “What gets measured, gets managed”. 

So now that we’ve set the stage below here is some swipe copy you can use to run your year end review conversations. This works as a self reflection exercise as well as a conversation with your contractors, team members or employees. The headings should apply to most people and I’ve added some question primers to help you think through those headings but feel free to add or subject the reflection questions based on what feels right for the body of your work in 2017. 

Agenda for Annual Review

Planning/Teamwork

What did you accomplish? What worked well? What didn’t? 

Attitude Toward Assignments

Where there types of work that you enjoyed more than others? Types of customers? Where your employees or team on board with what was asked of them? Did the work you do feel authentic to you? 

Knowledge of Duties

Did you feel like an expert in your job? Did you have the technical skills to deliver the value you promised to your customers? 

Your Community

How connected were you to the community you serve? What kind of connections did you create? Where did you add value to the networks that you are a part of? 

Working Relationships and Cooperation with Other Personnel

Did you play nice in your sandbox? Where their situations or relationships that could’ve gone better? Did you (and your team) create an experience or environment that encouraged people to do their best work? Do you feel like you managed your time, team or expectations appropriately? 

Operations 

Did you have a system for moving your business forward every week? How did you measure success or growth? Is that a fair way to measure it going forward? If you breakdown your work process are there places where you might be able to delegate or create efficiencies? How much time did you spend working in your business vs. on your business. 

Response to Assignments or Body of Work

Were their projects or works delivered that you weren’t proud of? Were proud of? What went well? What didn’t? 

Conformance to Work Schedules, Assignments and Instructions

Did you deliver on time every time? Were you honest about the time you put into your business this year? Do you plan on working more? Less? How can you work smarter? Did you manage your customers expectations of your work deliverables and timing? 

By the Numbers

What did this years quantitative data look like compared to last years? Are there any patterns of note? How are you going to use what you learned this year for next year’s: budgets, calendars, sales activities, inventory management, content planning, engagement, and other trackable metrics?

Goals for Next Year

What is important to you? What do you care about? What value are you going to deliver to people? How are you going to measure success? How are you going to get people to pay attention to you? 

That's it! 

Keep the notes before the agenda and the agenda in mind when you're thinking about how you're going to prepare for 2018 and you'll be setting yourself up for success because you're doing it from an honest place. There's no worse feeling then looking at the New Year all bright eyed and bushy tailed only to set goals that will doom you from the start. Don't forget to make this process your own. What I've outlined for you here really is the bones of a process. Some of it may not apply to you or your team and that's ok. Just take some time, mentally prepare to be honest and set good goals to help launch you to your next levels of success in 2018!

Do This To Make 2018 Your Best (Business) Year

Short post today because I want you to do less reading and more watching! 

This time of year is a great time for reflection, for figuring out what worked and what didn't and for thinking about the changes you want to make for yourself and your business in 2018. 

It's a great time for innovation. It's a great time to challenge your (and the market's) assumptions to try to figure out how you can deliver more value to the people you serve. Being innovative is not a new topic nor is it a concept that only applies to tech companies. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocates are innovating right now with the start of Bitcoin Futures. 

In this TED Talk Joi Ito talks about how innovation isn’t just for agile software. It can be applied in any industry and as Joi says it’s “bottom up, democratic, and chaotic”. This TED Talk might be a little dated, 2014, but the heart of the message still very much applies. 

And, I loved it. 

While Joi talks a lot about his projects, the sciences, and big data I believe his message absolutely applies to entrepreneurs and more specifically about strategy and business development. When you are trying to grow your business there are a lot of moving pieces you have to constantly be considering. Being a now-ist embodies what it means to create strategy, react to the sentiment of the market and to make real choices everyday or your customers will just find someone else. Being a now-ist also means not worrying about having every perfect resource or a plan that maps out your business over the next three years. It means that you figure out what’s important to you and you move forward from there. Real information, real decisions, real people and real results. 

If you are facing the start of the week or the end of 2017 a little discouraged I encourage you to give this TED Talk a watch and to challenge you to deploy on Ito's message. 

Avoid Burnout By Prioritizing Systems Over Passion

Passion and building a business go together like Nutella and....anything.  Sometimes though, you need to take the spoon out of the Nutella jar and think more about how you’re building your business instead of how delicious the experience is. 

Really. 

What this post is going to focus on is how systems will trump passion (most) every time. I 100% believe that grit, as a function of passion, can play a big role in your business’s success but it’s not a sustainable and repeatable activity. Businesses have seasons just like anything else in life. Your passion is important to help you ride out those rough seasons but it’ll be the systems that keep you moving forward. 

This might sound harsh but I’m going to start by calling passion out. 

Passion needs to  fall behind systems for entrepreneurs because it’s inconsistent. It’s easy to be passionate about something when it’s going well. In fact, entrepreneurs experience a passion snowball when their efforts are being rewarded by either revenues coming in or growing exposure. What happens when things aren’t going right for you? What happens when it gets hard? Well, coming up with the passion to keep pushing forward gets to be more draining and there’s a chance that feelings of doubt and regret start to creep in. It’s normal for passion to ebb and flow or even change all together. The challenge is not trying to build a sustainable business on a passion platform alone. 

Enter Systems. 

Passion is great for setting goals, shaping vision and setting your business's values. Passion is the rawest most authentic version of your business. You need those things and that rawness for any strategy to be really effective. Why? Because people connect with passion. When it comes to making the operational choices that matter in your business, passion and goals alone shouldn’t be the deciding factors. You need systems to help you evaluate whether or not a decision is worth making for you business. You need systems to make sure that your customers get the very best experience every time and you need systems to help keep you passion in check. 

So what is a system then. I want you to think about systems as recipes for your business that you cook in repeatable intervals. Think of like baking a cake for your business every day, week, month etc. Only instead of something delicious like red velvet it’s more nutritious for your business like writing blog posts, keeping track of expenses or even just dedicated times for cultivating new prospects and leads. Systems should be simply designed to be repeatable and specific like any good recipe. 

That’s it.

It’s a simple idea that is not always easy in practice. It shouldn’t matter how you feel that day, what the economic environment is looks like around you (short-term market variability), or if you are lucky or not. What matters is that you have a set group of actions designed to produce results that creates efficiencies for you. 

An example might be blogging. Let’s assume that I’ve already proven to you that blogging for your business is a worthwhile endeavor. For me, I’m very passionate about teaching business owners like you to build sustainable businesses but, there are some days that I might not feel like “showing up”. And I haven’t. My goal here is to show up every week but if you go back through the posting dates you’ll be able to see a few posts that stretch a little longer than a week.

How can you and I keep building a relationship if you can’t rely on me to show up and hopefully deliver amazing content to your eye-holes? My system for blogging is built into my morning routines and rituals so that it’s part of what I do every (read: most) week(s). Passion starts and stops in the mind but it’s the system that puts my hands to work. 

Systems also create opportunities for you to collect and objectively evaluate your business’s data. As business owners, using passion as a way to distribute resources or making choices can get a little confusing. Passion is inconsistent and in your business you can’t afford to make choices inconsistent for a whole number of customer experience reasons. It’s important to be able to take stock of what you're doing and measure it against your goals or how you define success. 

Systems trump passion because they help to build momentum. Even the smallest systems, like getting a run in every day at lunch can help you keep your momentum going. Why? Because you have started and finished something. Not only that but it’s in an effort to reaching the goals that your passion helped set. It’s the feeling of doing the work and not just wanting the want. 

Here’s my challenge to you and your business. Find your goals and post them somewhere so that your brain can let them go. Then go out and create the incremental systems that will outline the actions you need to take everyday to find that success you chose for yourself. They can be qualitative or quantitative but the point is to take action. Don’t forget to keep track and analyze along the way. 

Finding efficiencies or opportunities for competitive advantage is a good thing :)  You are trying to plan out any space or time where a wavering passion might get in the way of reaching your goals. Anyone can set a goal and for proof think of all the times you or your friends set a goal, stressed about it a bit, and then stopped caring because their passion evaporated. What will set you apart is deciding what work to do and how to do it - then doing it! 

Take the long the view on what you want and start working your systems today! 
 

Make The Most Out Of This Busy Season

Don’t let the latest NFIB report get you down. Better still don’t let it slow you down. Here’s what’s going on. The National Federation of Independent Businesses puts out a report called the Small Business Optimism Index and in its last report a few key indicators dropped by as much as 3 points from September to October 2017. Overall though there was a slight increase, which is a good thing. Up to this point Earnings Trends, Expected Credit Conditions and Plans to Increase Inventories took the biggest hits which means business owners up to then have been a little apprehensive about growth through the fall season. 

But, that’s all about to change as the holiday spending season starts to ramp up and as consumer confidence starts to build. 

Small businesses are really excited this season reporting more job openings and higher expectations that spending and the overall economy will improve. That’s a really good thing. To summarize a few points it is reporting that about 21% of business owners polled claim that they expect real sales to be higher, 32% expect the economy to improve and 35% claim they have current openings they are unable to fill. It might looks like a mixed back on the surface but it’s looking like there’s going to be a strong finish to the year. Which means, regardless of how you’ve done so far your business you can still hit the goals you set for it. 

Don’t let a few lagging indicators negatively affect your business!

While these reports are helpful for getting a gauge on what’s happening on a macro scale you shouldn’t let reports like this be an excuse for not performing your best. Every business has hurdles but it’s how you deal with them that will dictate your successes. 

My advice is just to power through. Here are a few places to start: 

Take a look at your margins and other operational metrics to see how you can make your business leaner and more efficient. I want you to think about how you can get the absolute most out of the resources you currently have access to. If you can’t instantly bring more money in right away then look to see if you can create some cost savings and streamlining. 

After that start reaching out. Reach out to current clients, past customers, anyone that might be a stakeholder and ask them about their experience with your business. Get some feedback or ask for a testimonial. A drop in an index doesn’t mean that the act of business is coming to a halt it just means that you have to get creative and strategic about making your deliverable unique. 

Focus on the service. Whether you are customer or operations-centric it’s important to never dismiss people the people that are paying you. Especially when it’s so easy to use pricing/discounting as a sales weapon. Don’t get me wrong I love a good sale but if you aren’t careful you could price yourself right out of business. So focus on adding value, focus on the service and the interaction people have when they engage your brand. If someone is paying you for something then they should have your full attention. It’s that attention that will keep them coming back. 

This post wasn’t supposed to be a list of how to not get bogged down by a mixed bag of business owner opinions but it ended up that way.
I’m not mad about it. 

There is always something that can be done to push your business forward even when the news says the opposite. Remember that there are outliers in any statistical representation, there’s always a standard deviation. So shoot for that. Don’t just say you are different be different. Use Twitter and Facebook to engage with your constituent base. Start a kickstarter campaign for a cause with your business leading it - do something to show people you and your business cares. But most of all don’t just go through the motions. You have to mean it! If you aren’t genuine in your efforts you will be as obvious and as snake-oily to spot as the person who shows up to networking events trying to bulldog-pitch-a-sale at every conversation. 

Don’t be that person. 

No one likes that person.

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If you're looking for a little more hands-on help then you should totally check out Disruptive Strategy Co.'s new HIRE page. Booking a Disruptive Strategy Power Hour gives us the opportunity to work one on one and to create a tailored plan so that you can stop using the spray and pray approach to growing your business. 

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Get Your Business Back On Track: Part 2

Welcome to the second half of the Getting Your Business Back On Track series. In this post we are going to close the loop on getting your business or idea back into focus and set up so that you can really lean into growing.

If you’ve just found this post I’d encourage you to follow this link: Get Your Business Back On Track: Part 1 and find your answer to the “What am I doing?!” question. Then come right back here.

Now that you’ve found clarity let’s talk about competition and competitive advantage.

The first two questions I want to help you answer are: “How do I map my competition?” and “How much attention should I be paying them?”.

I want to start with the second question because it’s where all the context lives.

Paying attention to you competition is important but it shouldn’t be eating up any real significant part of your business building day. It makes sense to take a peek at your competitors in some kind of systematic way because it will help you validate your ideas, products and services. It will also provide insights as to how your market is reacting to certain types of calls to actions, sales and marketing efforts. Spending time to get an objective view of your competitive landscape can be really helpful when it comes to how you choose to interact with your audience or target market.

The tricky part is getting sucked into a social media creeping black hole. I know that I’m not the only one who’s time-travelled a bit because, what started off as research ended with me creeping through every Tweet, status update and Instagram post. Setting up your notes and calendar to help you manage your research time can be really helpful. And, it keeps that irrational part of your business building brain from squirrelling off into daydreams of the entrepreneurial grass being greener on the other side of your competitions monitors.

If you’re really struggling with how this works just try allocating time once a month to check in on your competitors and try to track the engagement they are getting over time. You should also note that not all engagement is created equal. You should be weighing a testimonial you’re reading from someone’s customer on Facebook very differently than the amount of likes someone’s collecting in their posts. Try to focus on the metrics that could add the most value to how you’re shaping your sales and marketing strategy efforts. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for questions that are being asked, the answers that are given and how those engaged react to both. That right there can create enormous opportunities for you!

Now onto the question of mapping your competition.

First off, yes. Yes, you do have competition. It doesn’t matter how niche your market or how specific your offer you will always battle the choice your customer’s have to make about how they spend their discretionary dollars.

Now that we are all on the same page if you plan on growing your business I’m challenging you to think about all the places your customers could spend their money to reasonably address the problem(s) that your business solves. You’re going to do this by filling in the following blanks:

1. Competitor’s Name.

2. What are the products or services they offer?

3. How are they charging for their products or services?

4. What do you think their competitive advantage is?

5. What are they key features or benefits?

6. What don’t they offer or how are they not addressing the problem you solve?

My recommendation would be to set this up in your favorite spreadsheet app so that you can start to collect lots of data and look for patterns. You can feel free to add to this list as well but I just wanted to make sure that you had a starting point. The boundary you want to stay inside of are people solving the problem you are (or that you’ve identified) having gone through the exercise in part one of this series.

After you’ve collected this information and found a few patterns it’s time to use what you’ve found to your advantage.

Your competitive advantage.

See what I did there?

Your competitive advantage is an objective measure of your ability to deliver value better (or more efficiently) than any of your competitors. Borrowing from my economics lecture notes competitive advantage is an environment where you have an edge in creating value for your customers over your competition. It’s not permanent, contrary to what some gurus might say, and can be achieved by being able to deliver greater value at a lower cost, ownership of some proprietary input or process and even the creation of a laser focused brand.

What competitive advantage is not is a generic promise to having the best customer service. It’s also not your skilled staff, outstanding team, knowledgeable sales people, list of customers on your website or being flexible and responsive. None of that makes you special because it’s expected! If you have to tell your audience that you’re great at the thing they expect as the lowest expectation they have for doing business with you then you are in trouble. Of course you should be knowledgeable and of course you should have great customer service.

If you don’t then I can promise you, you won’t be in business for very long. So, don’t boast about being good at the table stakes and focus instead on the things that make you truly unique. Remember, you may have lots of competitors like the holistic business I outlined for you in part one but you’re the only one that can do business and offer value like you.

If you’ve been really playing the home version of this game up to this point you should be really clear on what your business offers, have an idea of who your competing with, a process for checking in with your market and some guidance on figuring out what makes your business more special than your competitors. This is the place from which you should be making all your future business decisions. Using this data to make decisions around marketing, sales or even just the next piece of content you create will make those decisions exponentially more impactful. These posts were designed to stop you from continuing the spray and pray approach to growing your business. By focusing on your core value and your business’s core identity you can channel your time, money and resources into making decisions that aren’t inspired by chasing the newest marketing fads or trying to serve everyone.

Usually at the end of these blog posts I typically have a spot for you to download a content upgrade or am asking you to answer a question. I’m choosing to skip that ask this time because my real call to action is for you to take this Getting Your Business Back On Track series seriously and do this work. Build the spreadsheets, really grade your competitor’s effectiveness and do the work that’s necessary in building a clear brand that customers want to engage with.

Yes I ended that last sentence with a preposition and no I don’t care because I’m a little fired up in the writing of this conclusion.

Go do the work so you can make great things happen for your business!