When is Enough Enough!
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When is enough enough?
Let me paint the picture so that you get a feel for what one of my clients shared with me the other day. You see he was suffering a challenge that many small businesses face very early on in their growth. It is a catch 22 situation and depending on what he did next would either make or break his business. It is a situation that we have faced in our business and I would imagine you have faced this as well.
What I am alluding to is……. the situations where you have run out of manpower, time and or money.
In most cases they all occur simultaneously and although you can usually stretch one out longer than the others eventually something has to give. In too many cases it is the health of the business owner.
For those of you who have been in this position you know exactly what I am talking about and for some this period of time may have gone on for years. If you are the sole proprietor of your business, and in most cases that is how small businesses start, then this situation usually arises early in the growth period.
So what am I talking about? I am talking about the periods in your business when you reach the boundary point where:
· The ‘thing’ that you do well and to the best of your ability is taking up too much of your time, to the extent that there are not enough hours in a day. Generally speaking this ‘thing’ is usually what makes your business ‘tick’.
· Because there is only ‘you’ this brings about the challenge of ‘who’ can share your workload?
· As your business grows so does your expenses and in the first few years of any business, unfortunately in most cases, the expenses far outweigh any profit.
So herein lies the dilemma, as my client stated “I feel like I’m caught between do or die, I know I can’t continue to work the long hours that I am doing now, my business is very specialised and even if I could find someone I felt comfortable working with, I work from home and there is no room for anyone else in my small office space, and to top it all off I couldn’t afford to pay them award rates as I just don’t generate enough income”.
Wow, does that sound familiar? I can certainly relate to it as I am sure you can to. Even if you are not in business for yourself I am sure you know of someone who is and I can almost guarantee that they were in this situation at some point.
As I sat there looking into the eyes of this broken man, feeling his pain and knowing that this is the point when he is going to give up or find the strength to grow and prosper. His eyes weren’t giving anything away so it was hard to say where his future would lie, and that of his business.
We all know that there are two sides to any coin and as scary as this period is for any business the great news is that this is a wonderful opportunity to take your business to another level of growth.
So what is the answer? That depends on the circumstances surrounding every business and so each answer would be different. What I spent the next few hours brainstorming with this client was a range of scenarios of which he would then work through to find his own solution.
Possible solutions:
· Read ‘The E-Myth’ series by Michael Gerber. Michael explains in great depth why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it. He talks about the many ‘hats’ small businesses owners wear everyday and how to find the ‘right’ person to wear that hat. He talks about the Turn-Key Revolution and how to systemise that into your business. He explains how to work on your business, not in your business.
· Outsource. There too many ways to outsource for me to mention all of them here (if you would like to know more about outsourcing please ask me), we talked about the possibility of using a virtual assistant to attend to his ever growing administrative needs; with the possibility this virtual assistant could systemise him more effectively. He most definitely needed a good bookkeeper; he was quick to admit this was his weakest area in the business. We looked at ‘who he needed on his team’ to balance the workload more effectively.
· Networking. He agreed that he would allocate five hours a month to network, this in turn would generate more customers and we also looked at ways he could form a referral system through affiliates or strategic alliances, meaning that others’ were selling his product and services, that they became his sales team.
· Income. What could he do to enable him to spread the workload? He needed to increase his income. There is more than one way to renumerate someone for their time, which is something he hadn’t thought about. (I am not going to go into all of them in this article, if you want more on this please ask me).
· Sales. Increase sales and make more money, a pretty standard answer, but how could he increase his sales? We looked at his product and service and thought of other ways of packaging them to make them stand out from the completion. Value adding.
· Marketing. We looked at how he was getting his message out to the public. Could his website be updated with newer technology? Could his branding be improved or updated?
· Service. Nothing beats good old fashioned service and it is becoming more evident that good service is lacking in too many businesses these days. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Think back to the last time you experienced good service, how did that make you feel? Has that business now captured your attention enough to go back again? Would you tell your friends about them?
That feeling of excellent/exceptional service that you just experienced is the same service you MUST provide to your customers if you want repeat and referred business.
Step aside from everyone else and BE a business that PROVIDES good old fashioned service where you treat your customer with the courtesy and respect that you expect from other businesses. Make your excellent/exceptional customer service your POINT OF DIFFERENCE and leave the competition dead in their tracks.
Sometimes excellent customer service is all it takes to turn your business around, just the way you treat not only your customers, but everyone you deal with everyday, could be the turning point that reinvents you as a thriving and successful business.
As I sat there looking into the eyes of a man who just a few hours before was near breaking point. Those eyes now shone with a rekindled passion. The depressed smile on his face had slowly grown into laughter and the broken man was no more. Remember the excitement and passion you experienced with your first love, your first car, your wedding day, that is the extent of the passion and excitement he was now feeling. He had renewed hope for his business, he now realised that all was not lost and that he could save what he had spent so long creating and building.
With just a few improvements his business would prosper and grow to the next level allowing his destiny to unfold. I’ve gotta say I just love what I do.
Your Destiny Unfolds with
Vicki & Rodney Williams
