3 Vital Steps to Revive Your Business No Matter How Young or Old It Is: CPR
Business is supposed to bring life. You didn’t get into business just to push papers around, worry about cash flow, and deal with personality challenges from everyone inside and outside your business. I cannot imagine these as a motivating reason for starting a business. You started a business to give life to a dream, a purpose, your family, and your community. As an owner of four companies and a business coach, I have been in thousands of conversations with business owners and most of them tell stories about crippled dreams, uncertain purposes, struggling families, and less impact on the community than intended. Instead of giving life, the business is sucking life out of everything that is important. Whether you just recently launched your business or you have been in business for many years, it is always the right time to give your business CPR: the 3 vital steps to revive your business.
There are three steps you must take to revive your business so that it can stop sucking life and start giving life to everything you hold dear.
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1. Clear and Compelling Vision
I have found that most business owners started with a blurry vision (if any at all) about what they wanted to create in their business and, after it began to function, they lost sight of the vision and just started completing tasks. The tasks seemed like a part of the business. Sometimes the tasks are the fine print that come with an opportunity. After they become shackled by these tag-along tasks, the business owner becomes much more cautious about opportunities and maybe even traumatized by the word. This creates an internal battle: “I have enough things to do as it is and can’t take on any new opportunities” versus “It is my responsibility to grow this business and find new opportunities to expand what we can do so that I can give my company and family more choices.” UFC fights are tame compared to this battle because a UFC fight only lasts a few minutes and then you get time to heal. There is a better way. Create a Clear and Compelling Vision.
A vision is not an evaluation of the past or the present. It is an answer to one basic question: “What do you want your business to become?” It starts by first giving yourself the only permission you need and that is to dream anything you want. Bottom-line, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) started with a vision that could not be validated in the present. When someone says, “Stop dreaming and get real” that is not from a place of strength, it is from fear and weakness. It is the most selfish and cowardly thing anyone could say. (I just lost a few readers. Good. They weren’t going to do anything with my help anyway. For those hungry for something better, let’s keep going.)
“If you want to predict the future, create it.”
Without apology, I see a vision or shape of something that does not currently exist very easily. However, with apology, I often never make it clear. I don’t spend the energy to draw it out.
I like to build things in my workshop at home as a hobby. I am not very skilled, hence, hobby. Usually, a “vision” comes as a result of my wife or daughters expressing a desire or problem. I then envision an idea in my head. I will then start talking to them about “what we could do . . .” and they usually just look at me with a blank stare and then say, “well, okay, I guess that sounds good if you can do it”. Out comes the pen and paper and I start to draw it out.
I recently built a “pool bar” next to our above ground pool (NOTE: we drink water, lemonade, and ridiculous amounts of coffee drinks at our pool bar). We were swimming and my wife said, “I wish we had a table or something next to the pool that we could put our drinks and cell phones on while we swim so we could get to them easier”. I suggested a “pool bar”, drew the plans, got approval from the ladies of the house, and began to build. Well, there were other steps. I needed a material list, a budget, skills and systems to put it together, and a plan to make it real. This meant two things to me: lots of questions that needed an answer and an uncompromising commitment to my vision. Many times, my family suggested a lesser vision and I refused. The pool bar is not really all that important to us. I could have built a simple table or shelf against the pool side and called it “good”. I decided to commit to this vision as a compelling reminder for the other more important visions I have for my businesses and life. I go out every morning and look at that pool bar to remind me not to compromise on my vision but to also remind me of the decisive clarity that I had to create from start to finish in order to make it a reality.
Is your vision for your business clear and compelling? Does it even exist? I would argue that if your business is sucking the life out of you, your family, and/or your team, it is in part due to a lack of a clear and compelling vision. I recommend Michael Hyatt’s new book, “The Vision Driven Leader” to give you some direction. It is very much in line with how I coach my business clients.
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2. Perpetual and Focused Systems
As I suggested above, nothing becomes real unless you develop a system for making it real. This is the place most business owners also go wrong with the tasks of business. They think the “tasks” are the business. That is completely wrong. The systems are essential; tasks merely fuel the systems. Let me illustrate it with a Ferris Wheel metaphor. (NOTE: As you read through these eight systems for your business, it may sound complicated. It is not. In fact, getting these systems in place will free up a significant amount of time and energy and will open doors for your business that currently appear impossible.)
Let’s consider the systems of the Ferris Wheel.
1. Value Creation - what does the Ferris Wheel provide? What does it give people that they want? It gives people a thrill and a sense of “majesty” that they cannot get standing on the ground. How does it do that? By rotating. During it’s rotating it takes people to a great height but gives them a full circle experience, at least for a few minutes. The magic is in the movement, the rotating, and even the anticipation and memory of the rotating. If it does not rotate, there is no value. What valuable experience does your business create?
“You need a reliable system of sales to get a ticket to ride.”
2. Marketing - marketing is a system of invitation. Think in terms of the old-fashioned Ferris Wheel when a flamboyant and energetic “barker” would stand in front of the wheel and repeatedly invite people to experience the majesty and thrill of the new heights. Key word: repeatedly. System of invitation. A business card, occasional post, brochure, or a rare video is not a system of invitation. Your marketing system needs to run automatically with a connection to the target audience, and this is important, even in moments in which the audience may not be listening. You are creating a proactive and perpetual system of invitation, not one that is reactive.
3. Sales - You have your value creation spinning, you have your repetitive system of invitation going, and now they need to get access to the ride. How? They need a ticket. How will they get a ticket? If they must hunt someone down to get a ticket to ride, they probably won’t. You need a reliable system of sales to get a ticket to ride. Your sales system for your business is likely much more engaging and collaborative than someone buying a ticket. I find that few business owners spend enough time improving this system.
4. Value Delivery - Question; how do they get on this rotating ride? They see the ride, they responded to the repetitious invitation, and were easily able to get a ticket, but how do they get on the ride? A poorly designed process tells them to just figure it out. The forward-thinking, systems-minded Ferris Wheel operators have figured out a way to get people on the ride without even stopping the rotation with moving floors. Brilliant! This is a value delivery system that connects with the value creation system. It is a system that keeps the system moving: life giving life. Notice, all of these systems function as a part of the entire system.
5. Finance - the financial system of your Ferris Wheel must also have movement. If “the buck stops here”, then the whole system will stop. You must ask the question, “How does that dollar move and flow throughout the whole system? How does it support the system? Money does not “land” in your business, it feeds your business system. Money is a system within the system. That is why we use terms like “cash flow” and “profit and loss”. It is a moving system that is like a river more than a reservoir. Your business needs a financial system that flows money. This may be the most difficult system to understand fully. On the surface, it seems obvious, but in practical terms, I find most people get completely lost in this system. I will give more help in this area with other posts. For now, simply think though the “LIFE” of a dollar bill as it flows through your business. This will begin to give you some direction about creating a system that feeds the other systems within the overall system of your business. (NOTE: I want to add a point here. Earlier in this section I stated, “Money . . . feeds your business system.” You can think about money like food flowing through the body. Please excuse the crudity of this analogy, but if you are feeding your body “junk”, your body passes more “waste”. Waste is what your body did not need for the health of the body. If you feed your body healthy nutrients, there is less waste and more life. The same is entirely true for the way money flows through your business.)
6. Competition - your Ferris Wheel is in the middle of its industry - the carnival or fair. It is competing with the other rides that offer something the customer wants. Most business people get this part wrong, to their detriment. Competition is great. It is a system that feeds your Ferris Wheel business. If your Ferris Wheel sits alone, it is less interesting. People go to The Fair, not the Ferris Wheel. Restaurants group together for a reason. Retail stores group together for a reason. Grouping draws more customers. It validates the industry. A hundred different Heat and Air repair vans driving around town validates the industry. The more rides at the carnival, the more it is validated. If you are the ONLY Ferris Wheel in town or the ONLY ride in town, there may be a reason for that. The problem is the perception the customer has about why you are the only one. The truth doesn’t matter, only the perception. Embrace the system of your industry (competition). I am excited when I see others doing what I am doing. I just saw an advertisement for a service like one I am working on within one of my businesses. I was thrilled for my business. My competition is helping me to validate my service and I am now going to provide a similar service, just better, because I understand systems. Which brings me to the next system.
7. Improvement - Your Ferris Wheel needs a system of improvement. You must always ask, “Is my Ferris Wheel (or business) meeting my vision?” “How can I improve it?” “What does my customer want when they buy a ticket to ride?” “What do they not want?” “How do I give them the best possible experience?” Bottom-line, if you don’t have a system for improving your business, it will decay and rust like an old Ferris Wheel. I bet that wasn’t your vision.
Was this your vision for your business?
8. You - you are the 8th and final system FOR your business. The other seven systems are internal systems. I consider You as an external system. Why external? Because you are working ON your business, not in it. You, as the business owner, are creating systems of life within the overall system of life for your business. You need to have a system of generating life within yourself. You can’t show up empty. In this moment, feeling fired up to go run your Ferris Wheel, you are ready to save the world and give them the thrill they seek. If you are not systematically caring for your mind, body, spirit, and connections, then your business will begin to crumble right along with you. This is the single most important system of all. Ignoring or denial is not a system, it is cowardly and criminal to all the people to whom you and your business produce life. Get this system right.
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3. Realized Results
Here is the great news: if you have a clear and compelling vision to which you are completely committed and intentionally and actively create life-giving systems for your business, then the results will become real.
You may say, “what about the unexpected? There will always be the unexpected. Every hour is a potential for the unexpected. If you want to know how to predict the future, you create it. (Countless leaders and communicators are credited with this same statement. Some say Abraham Lincoln said it and some say he didn’t. What difference does it make? It is still true.)
Fuzzy visions don’t come true. Hoping and wishing, don’t make things become real. Poorly designed and executed plans don’t make things become real. If you want to bring your dream to life, I mean real life, then what I have suggested above is the way. If you are tired and frustrated, let’s make the vision real. If you don’t have a vision or a plan, either get out of business or get a clear and compelling vision and create perpetual and focused systems so that you can create real results that give life to you, your family, and your community. Create! Don’t Wait. Let’s Make It Real!!
If you want to partner with me to help you build your business to match your vision, I may have a limited number of available slots for coaching either individually or as a group. I am here to create real results for your business and your life, nothing more and nothing less.