Want Your Business to Grow? Complete One Material Action Per Day!

When you are running a small business, it is really easy to get distracted. Firstly, your own CEO job most likely has a lot of different tasks, from chief strategist to chief bottle washer. Secondly, your team makes many demands on your time, mostly to help point them in the right direction on their projects. And, thirdly, it’s just too easy to get sucked into the random inbound contacts that come into your email box or through social media.

All I can say to you entrepreneurs who are “floating in the wind” of poor time management is: unless you are doing at least one material thing each day to move your business forward towards new revenue or profit heights, you are never going to grow your business as quickly as you could. Allow me to explain.

What is a material action?

To me, a material action is something that has meaningful revenue or profit implications from its output. On the revenue side, it could be things like launching a new marketing campaign, or making a new sales call, or ideating a new product line, or expanding into a new target-customer or geographic market, or hiring a new salesperson, or negotiating business merger opportunities, etc. Anything that will drive new revenues.

On the profit side, it could be things like cutting your cost structure, or improving your business efficiency. Or, it could be improving your company morale and productivity, or similar tasks. Anything that will drive higher margins for your business.

What is not a material action?

On the flip side, there are a lot of demands on your time that you think may be important, but just are not a material action, as defined above. This could be things like producing your monthly financial statements, or posting to your social media accounts, or writing a new monthly email newsletter. Or, it could be managing your ad agency, or doing one-on-one meetings with your direct reports, or running payroll checks, or upgrading your systems, or relocating your home office, etc. Yes, these are important tasks that need to get done. But, none are going to propel your business to the next level.

Budget more time for more material action.

I bet if you did a critical assessment of how you are spending each of your working hours, most of you are spending the vast majority of your time, if not all of your time, on “less material” action. To me, if you are not spending at least 20 percent of each day on “material actions” you will not have a reasonable chance to grow your revenues and propel your business to the next level.

So, it is important that you actually carve out “material action” time into your daily schedules. For example, maybe you block out 8-to-10 am each day for you to think and act strategically and materially about your business. Note that I intentionally did not suggest 3-to-5 pm each day, when you are most likely tired and not doing your best thinking.

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A case study: Part one, the good.

We recently acquired a business in February 2018. At the time, they were doing around $2.5 million in annual revenues. Within four months of acquiring the business, our annualized revenue run rate had doubled to over $5 million. How did we do that? We focused on material actions to drive the business forward. We quadrupled our marketing budget and hired a new ad agency; we launched an SEO effort, opened new sales and marketing channels, expanded our sales team, grew our margins, etc. Our focus was on driving revenues as quickly as we could, and our time was firmly focused on making those material actions happen.

Case study: Part two, the bad.

To continue the story above, with the increase in revenues came an increase in time demanded for “less material” projects in months that followed. We learned our customer relationship management (CRM) platform could not handle the extra volume, and we needed to upgrade to a different CRM, a decision that needed to be researched. We learned our product information on the website was out of date and needed to be updated. Our product offering needed to be fine-tuned, to make the business more scalable.

Moreover, our ad agency suggested we make some technology changes, which resulted in some unexpected hiccups and fixing time required. To double our staff, we reviewed hundreds of resumes and held dozens of interviews. Sometimes those hires worked out, and other times they did not, spinning our wheels right back to where we started. Quickly, the time I had to focus on “material” projects, started to get consumed by “less material” projects. And, guess what happened: sales growth started to slow down!

Hand off less material work to others. 

I get it, small businesses are typically undercapitalized and don’t necessarily have the luxury of large teams of staff to help leverage your workload. But, even in small businesses, you need to figure out how to keep yourself moving the business forward with “material” projects.

Where you can, hand off the “less material” work. Let your bookkeeper produce monthly financial statements. Let your head of marketing manage your ad agency. Let your head of technology review various systems needed. Take yourself out of those processed, at least until the busy work is done, and then you can review the final output in each area. Don’t let the “less material” work get in the way of you having the time required to drive the business forward by completing material work.

Executives in small businesses are typically very busy people, wearing many different hats at the same time. The real challenge you will have is making sure that 100 percent of your time is not consumed by “less material” projects. You need the discipline of: (i) knowing what projects have the highest odds of moving your revenue or profit growth to the next level (which is an art of its own); and (ii) making sure that time slotted to work on “material” projects is actually getting used to get it done. Remember the scene in the Pixar movie “Up”, where the dog kept getting distracted by squirrels running by? The “less material” work that you find yourself doing are your “squirrels," distracting you from where your focus needs to be.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Busakorn Pongparnit | Getty Images

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

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6 Ways to Hold Yourself Accountable and Crush Your Goals This Year

I've been on a networking mission as of late. In an effort to create a free online community for entrepreneurs and business owners, I have been speaking to as many people as possible through in-person meetups, social media and other various online communication.

Entrepreneurs have to motivate and support their team, while holding them accountable, in order to be successful. But, what about when it comes to holding ourselves accountable? This is one topic that came up often -- and one that I discussed in detail with a handful of entrepreneurs. Those discussions led to this list of six ways to hold yourself accountable, which can help you crush your goals.

1. Write everything down

This is one thing that I take to the extreme simply because I am a very visual person. Writing down everything, from to-do lists to short and long-term goals, just works for me. I like to see them constantly, which allows me to focus on each one.

I write my daily to-do lists on multiple sticky notes and place them all over my monitor, and as I complete them, I take them off and toss them in the trash. Those bright colored sticky notes stare me in the face, and my goal is to rid my monitor of them as quickly as possible every day.

Derek Jansen, who founded Grad Coach, writes down both short-term and long-term goals in a journal. He says, "I like to create a plan to reach every goal, which are all part of my big picture plan. Having them in writing and constantly looking at them results in me obsessing over them and working hard to make sure each one is accomplished."

Like Jansen, my goals are written down -- they are on a large whiteboard that hangs above my standing desk. It's literally impossible for me not to constantly look at them -- they stare me in the face while I work.

2. Identify your personal mission statement

I have a very simple mission statement: Live life to the fullest, work relentlessly to create amazing companies and brands and give selflessly.

"Your personal mission statement doesn't have to be a long-winded statement. It simply needs to define you as a person and define what it is that you are working toward each and every day," says Xie Zhuopeng, CEO of IoT Chain.

Zhuopeng's definition of what a mission statement needs to be is spot-on. Using mine as an example, it explains who I am and what I get out of bed every morning for. Recite it in your head every morning or print it out and hang it in your office. When your mission statement fuels your fire, you know that you have found the right passions and path.

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3. Reward your accomplishments and milestones

I used to never take vacations -- I would work nonstop with very little breaks. It was so unhealthy and had a negative impact on my heath and overall happiness. Once I came to terms with the fact that it was not only fine to take vacations, but actually beneficial, I started to use accomplishments and milestones as indications of when I would take off and unplug to recharge.

Frank Grimes, President of The Associates Home Loan of Florida feels that this approach almost forces you to get away for a much-needed recharge. "It's very easy to make an excuse and say that you will take a longer vacation next year, but it's important to step away occasionally to regroup and just relax. Rewarding myself with a vacation to my favorite destination every year helps me reach personal goals, while also feeling like the time off is well-deserved," he says.

I too have a favorite destination, and that's Hawaii. For me, it's the perfect setting -- the beach, the vibe and the activities -- and I always return fully recharged and full of new ideas.

4. Create micro-goals

Micro-goals are responsible for several successful brand launches that I have been a part of. When you identify several smaller goals, and commit to hitting each one, it keeps you accountable in terms of the overall success of the end goal.

When we launched an ecommerce brand in a week, it was a result of a well thought out plan that had several micro-goals we needed to knock out of the park -- manufacturer, branding, website, logistics, financial goals, marketing plan and the launch. Without the smaller goals identified we would never have gone to launch in a week's time.

5. Review your performance

As an entrepreneur, it's important that you are brutally honest with yourself. In the end, it's you that is responsible for your success or failure. I'm constantly reviewing my own performance, and I'm not afraid to tell myself when my performance is not up to par.

If you really want to be held accountable, constantly keep yourself in check. "As a business owner, if you start to slack, and your sales slow and business is down, there isn't anyone to blame but yourself. A business owner that blames others is destined to fail, because he or she would rather point fingers rather than review their own performance," says Ozer Taysun, of Westchase Roofing Services, a business he founded ten years ago.

Taysun is correct -- blaming someone else is an excuse that unsuccessful entrepreneurs makes. If your personal performance is suffering, own up to it and commit to making a change. If you don't review your performance, who will?

6. Seek feedback from your team

I just talked about reviewing your own performance above, and it's very effective -- as long as you are honest with yourself. If you want completely unbiased feedback, ask your team.

You might be thinking, "Employees won't be completely honest with their feedback because they don't want to get fired," but that won't apply to most businesses, provided you have nurtured a strong company culture within their business.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Caiaimage/Tom Merton | Getty Images

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Is Fear Stopping You From Achieving Your Goals? Overcome it by Understanding These 3 Principles

Fear can have a paralyzing effect on our lives. However, by understanding the cause of fear you can overcome blocks to progress and achieve your dreams.

At certain points in life, everyone experiences fear. But as a businessperson, you must learn how to understand and cope with your fear. Better yet, you must use fear to your advantage.

Learning to overcome fear is an essential skill. You must conquer fear to push through hesitations, create companies, develop innovative products and disrupt industries.

And while we all know fear exists, most people haven't taken a deep look at the cause of fear. On one side, there are obvious biological reasons for fear, such as keeping humans alive in the face of danger. But apart from physical, bodily harm, fear can take on many other forms. For instance, psychological fears, like a fear of public speaking, can be just as paralyzing as performing an activity with great physical danger, like say, swimming with sharks.

Obviously, there are different levels of inherent danger in these activities, and yet our brain often reacts to them in the same way.

Take a moment to think about all the different kinds of non-physical fear. Maybe you have a fear of failure. Or, have you ever had a fear of being judged? You might even know someone that has a fear of success?

Fear is a complex emotion, and many of the non-physical threatening states seem closely related to anxiety. And while psychologists have attempted to find the boundaries between fear and anxiety, it remains an ongoing debate.  

But we do know one thing for sure about fear - it impacts your emotions, and this, in turn, impacts your ability to make decisions.   

So, if you are a generally fearful or anxiety-filled person, you are more likely to view life through a pessimistic lens. Fearful people consistently amplify the perception of risk too. In the long run, being fearful will stop you from experiencing life fully.

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To live a great life, and succeed in business, you need to get your fear in check. And by understanding these three principles, you will be able to get a grip on your fear.

1.     Forget the Non-Physical Fears - Any consistent fears that do not protect your physical well-being should be discarded. These are anxiety driven fears that are tied to emotional damage, self-doubt or limiting beliefs. To reach your true potential, you must reduce unnecessary, emotionally-based fears.    

2.     Fear Begets More Fear - The longer your irrational fears remain, the more concrete they become in your psyche. Also, staying fearful will reduce your ability to make optimal choices. To think big and create value the world of business, you're going to need all the optimism you can get. 

3.     Release Lack Thoughts to Release Your Fear - Many emotional and anxiety driven fears are based on your belief in lack. You worry that the startup cost is too high (lack of resources available) or you worry that your too inexperienced (lack of time to develop the necessary skills). While it's good to be realistic about a new venture, you can overcome most problems if you truly want to find a solution.

Fear is a very real part of life. But the men and women who learn to push past fears will always accomplish more than those who succumb to it.

Source: https://www.inc.com

Image Credit: Getty Images

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Do You Need a Goal for Your Startup?

When you start your company, it helps to have a goal in mind.

It seems obvious. Isn’t the goal to make money?

However, you need something a little more if you want your company to succeed — especially if you want to succeed in the way you hope.

Before you move forward, it’s a good idea to consider your expectations for your company.

What’s the End Game for Your Company?

As you start your company, look forward to the end game.

What are your plans for the end game? Some potential endgames include:

• Setting up the business to run on systems so it can support you
• Being acquired by a bigger player
• Passing the company on to your posterity
• Growing into a self-sustaining behemoth
• These are just some of the endgames for you to consider. However, it’s important to understand the goal.

If you’re most interested in being a solopreneur with a lifestyle business that provides you with freedom and flexibility, your approach to your company will be different from someone who wants to create the next major corporate player.

Figuring out your startup goals is an important part of moving forward so that you end up with the success you want.

Create a Plan for Your New Business

As you start your company, lay out a business plan that reflects your startup goals. If you know you want to be acquired, the steps you take to build your marketing plan, grow your business, and move forward will be very specific.

You’ll want to research growing areas and identify companies that are potentially interested in expanding into those areas. Be the best in your niche, growing your business in a way that means that a larger company who wants to get into that area finds it easier to just acquire you rather than compete with you.

On the other hand, if you want to preserve your company for your posterity, and you hope that it will become a legacy company, you’ll take different steps to grow your company, put systems into place, and groom your children and grandchildren to take things over.

There are different approaches based on the purpose of your company and what you see as your exit strategy.

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Know Your Purpose Now

Understanding your purpose now, as you start your company, can help you get ready for what’s next. It can also help you better make decisions about the best course of action for your company.

Even though there are some things any business owner needs to do in order to succeed, the reality is that you might want to make specific tweaks, based on your desired end game. Research the trajectory of companies that have successfully done what you want to do — and adapt your own startup plan to match what they’ve done.

Understanding your startup goals is a big part of your long-term success. Carefully think about what you hope to accomplish with your business, how (and if) you plan to exit your business, and what steps you need to take to make your dream a reality.

Source: https://smallbiztrends.com

Image Credit: Due.com

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!