Business Fundamentals: Destination Mastery

Most folks who have gotten into business for themselves have done so out of a desire for freedom, flexibility and wealth.  However, what many quickly realize is that they are working way more and making way less than they did when they worked for someone else.  They have simply bought themselves a job and find themselves controlled by their business, not able to leave at 5 or go on vacation and are missing out on a lot of family things.  

Many folks incorrectly believe that this is the business owner/president/ceo/founder life and so they just accept it.  Unfortunately this leads to burn out for many folks and 80% of businesses go out of business within 5 years.  Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way.  Instead, as business owners, our goal should be to build a successful business - a commericial profitable enterprise that works without you.  

Running a business is hard and can be lonely and frustrating, so the only reason we should ever own a business is to climb the entreprenuerial ladder.  From buying ourself a job to becoming a manager of our company to becoming a business owner of our company to becoming an investor to becoming an entrepreneur with multiple passive income streams.  If we never move beyond the level of being an employee of our company, it would be much easier to just work for someone else.

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Once a month, I will come back to this "6 Steps To  Building A Profitable Business That Works Without You" slide as a reminder of what our goal should be.  Then throughout the month, I will write on a topic within one of the different steps.  

Many business owners are masters at their technical area of expertise and not a master at running a business.  Like when building a highrise, where they need to ensure the footings are solid; when building a business, we need to ensure the business foundation is solid. We call this business mastery.  

The first area of mastery is Destination - we need to very clearly envision what our business looks like when it is done.  Remember Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?  Habit #2 is Begin With The End In Mind.  To have a successful business, we must know what our business looks like when it is done so that we can then put short and long-term plans in place to get there.  

• What are the values of the company
• What is the purpose of the company (this is also known as your mission) - why does your company exist?  
• What is your big hairy audacious goal (this is also know as your vision) - what difference is your company going to make?
• What are your SMART business goals - what does the company look like when it is done and what date is the business complete?
• What are your SMART personal goals - what are all the things you will achieve by the time you die?

Based on the numerous business owners I have met with, I know most of you do not have all these areas complete.  Don't worry!  There are a lot of businesses that don't have this.  More importantly, from an opportunity side, when you develop these, your business will be in a much better place than most.  When you know your long-term goals along with the guiding principles, it becomes a lot easier to develop strategies and action plans to get there.

As we begin the new year, I'd encourage everyone to set some time aside to work on your Destination Mastery.  It doesn't have to be perfect, you can continue to tweak it as you go.  I'd recommend getting a working version of this on paper and then you can come back to it from time to time and optimize it.  Don't neglect to do this out of a desire for perfection - roughly right is better than nothing.  Doing this will give your Reticular Activating System the direction it needs to be working in the background (to learn more about your RAS, watch this video).

Here is an article on developing a strategic business plan and here is one on the importance of goals.

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