Pilot Fish Personal & Professional Development, LLC
Prosper on Purpose
Yet, do hours worked equate to accomplishment?
I dug a little bit into recent statistics on productivity, both in the United States, and in various European countries. I found the numbers thought-provoking (okay, I am a bit of a geek). Various tables tell us the number of hours worked by the average worker, and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, a commonly used productivity metric. When combining these statistics, a fascinating tale is told. [Read more…]
You’ve had it. You are tired of banging your head against the wall every day trying to make a go of your business. Lately, you have taken to reading online job postings. You start dreaming of regular paychecks being directly deposited into your bank account. Maybe you could actually pay your credit card bill with something other than a cash advance check from another credit card offering. [Read more…]
Mutable law #10: Have a set of core principles for your business, and be mindful of when you step away from them.
Core principles are like the soul of your company. These are the foundational truths by which you perform your work and conduct yourself as an entrepreneur. [Read more…]
This is the next-to-last installment in our series on this topic.]
Mutable law #9A: Don’t confuse busyness with productivity.
Mutable law #9B: Unless necessary, don’t act on any idea for 24 hours.
In this installment of our mutable laws series, I’m going to offer you a twofer. These two principles are beautiful in their clarity and simplicity. But don’t let their short but sweet nature fool you. No other principles that we have set forth in this series are more important. [Read more…]
Mutable law #8: The bottom line is more important than the top line.
One of the snares that catches some entrepreneurs is overemphasizing revenue. Yes, revenue is important. Without dollars coming in, there can’t be anything coming out. Sometimes, however, our definition of growth for our business values gross more than net. [Read more…]
[This is the next installment in our series on this topic.]
Mutable law #7: Hire your first employee (and any subsequent ones) only when you have no other choice.
Congratulations! Your business has done well. Youʼve grown your firm to the point where youʼre working way too many hours, but getting rewarded in that the revenue stream is steady and impressive. You feel you are ready to obtain help. This is a big decision for an entrepreneur.
So now you reach that question. Who do you hire? [Read more…]
Mutable law #6: Figure out the 20% of those customers or clients you currently serve, or are trying to serve, that you shouldnʼt, and stop.
Mutable law #5: The day you start to plan your business is the day you start to plan your exit strategy.
What if the time has now come for you to leave your business behind permanently? You may be selling your business, retiring from your business, moving on to another business that you want to create, or moving on to a time that you may relax and enjoy the fruits of your labors. Consider the following hypothetical situation: Joe was a great financial planner. He attracted and retained a nice mix of middle-class and wealthy clientele.
Joe made a good living from his business. But his business employed only himself. It made it difficult for him to take time away from his office. Moreover, he was very good at what he did. His clients were extremely loyal to him, and as he grew older, he heard more and more nervous jokes about how he had better never retire because they could never find another like him.
But the day did arrive when Joe decided he needed to exit. He thought about selling his financial practice. When he analyzed what he might receive from a sale with a business consultant, he found that because he was such an integral part of his firm, that the price he might receive from the sale was shockingly low. So instead, he decided he would retire.
Joe discovered that if selling a business is a difficult thing to do, retiring and shutting down a business can sometimes be almost uncharted waters. He soon found himself mulling over how to handle this transition. He had a licensing authority and a regulatory group who had guidelines for how to handle retirement issues. Moreover, he felt a certain sense of loyalty to his stable of clients. He wanted to afford them the opportunity to transition gently and over a reasonable period of time. Joe decided to do a six-month transition from active practice to retirement. He contacted his clients, posted notices on his website, and made referral sources and others in the community aware of his decision.
The next six months were extremely difficult ones. Some of Joe’s clients were resentful that he was leaving. Some still wanted him to continue to manage their funds even after retirement (“can’t you just take care of me?”). People who called the office who were referred to him didn’t understand that he was no longer taking on new matters. Some clients were very proactive, and understood they needed to obtain a new financial planner, and did so in a very methodical fashion. Others decided to wait until the transition was almost at its end and then scrambled, causing Joe himself to scramble. There was a lot of confusion over how the relationship of an advisor to clients’ accounts could be transitioned to a new person. There was confusion over records that Joe would be required to maintain that he could not give to the new planner. Finally, as clients knew Joe would no longer service them, they felt less obligated to pay for his services.Receivables, which were never a problem for Joe before in his business, started to mount.
In short, Joe’s decision to transition gradually, feeling it was the best for him and for his clients, wound up being a logistical nightmare.
When you decide it’s time to exit from your business, whether you would be shutting it down and retiring, or whether you have a business that you can sell, you can expect that the transition to ex-entrepreneur may be a rocky one. Even a sale would not necessarily alleviate all the concerns that our friend Joe faced in his choice to retire. Most of the time when someone purchases a business, they expect and in fact will require the seller to work side-by-side with them for a period of time. No matter which direction you choose for your exit strategy, it will likely not be a quick nor peaceful transition.
Contrast this with our corporate cubicle curmudgeon. If he decides that work sucks, an e-mail that gives the requisite two weeks usually does the trick. Okay, if you’re a higher-level employee — an executive, or such — you may give a longer notice. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that if you truly want out, it’s a lot simpler to leave a job than to shut down or sell a business. If you’re really frustrated with your employer, you could even walk out the front door, never to return. This option rarely exists with a business you have created and operate.
What if the reason you need to close down or sell your business is due to health? Most often when we think exit strategy, we think sale or retirement. Another element that should be factored into the entrepreneur’s plans is disability, health concerns or other calamities. With a business you often have a complex web of contracts, leases, and obligations to suppliers, customers and clients. Simply because you want to retire, sell, or get sick, or even die, doesn’t mean that web disappears.
The bottom line is that the exit is part of the entrance. If you’re going to create a business, how will you one day leave it behind? If you want to sell it, are you creating something that’s salable? With rapid changes in the marketplace, an enterprise that exists for decades is becoming a rare bird. You may need to take into account technological obsolescence or other factors in determining the “shelf life” of your entrepreneurial baby. And what if you get sick or pass away? Sobering thoughts, but nonetheless ones that may enter into your business plan.
[This is the third in our series on this topic.]
Mutable law #3: There is one secret to virtually every successful business.
You’ve seen the titles on books in your local bookstore or on library shelves. Perhaps you couldn’t sleep one night, and the half-hour infomercial proclaimed this loudly. Or, you even received a solicitous e-mail, flyer or similar communication from an information-seller. [Read more…]
[This is the second in our series on this topic.]
Mutable law #2: To compete in today’s marketplace as a small entrepreneur, you must be ruthlessly efficient.
Despite what courses and books proclaim, I believe that “time management” is a misnomer. No one manages time. Time marches on quite nicely regardless of how you choose to interact with it. Nevertheless, what you must do as a small entrepreneur is to effectively use your time. [Read more…]