by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Success Mindset
With all the fan fare of New Year resolutions and everyone talking about setting goals, do you ever wonder if it’s an exercise in futility? After all, why keep setting lofty goals you don’t hit in your business?
I find if you just set goals from a place of wishful thinking it can easily set you up for failure in your business. However, understanding your past can help you discover the right goals for your future and set you up for success.
Here are 9 key questions that will help reveal a better approach to goal setting for your business this year:
1. What were the key goals in your business and life you set out to achieve this past year?
It’s important to have these answers right in front of you here to help you better answer the rest of the questions below. If you can’t rattle off this list quickly, it’s because you probably never wrote it down in the first place. If that’s you … reminder #1 — write down your goals this year 🙂
2. Looking back were these the right achievable stretch goals for you at this season in your life and business?
Donald, a new client I started coaching recently, shared a key outcome goal he wanted me to help him with. His stretch goal this year was to grow his 6 Million Dollar business to a 9 Million Dollar business. Donald shared he struggled to stay focused on his daily to-do list. He thought if he got better at focusing on finishing his projects that alone could add the additional 3 Million in growth.
I disagreed.
In my feedback I shared with Donald that it did not seem like the right goal to pursue for the season of life he was in. He already told me his wife wanted him to be home more for her and their three young daughters. Pursuing the goal of getting more tasks done was directly opposite to his family goal of being home with them more.
It was also not the right goal for the season he was in his business. Donald already had 10 employees. He had resources available to him that he was not fully leveraging. After some discussion Donald realized “getting more things done” was an unwise goal for him to pursue. The better stretch goal for Donald was to focus on teaching his 10 employees how to get Donald’s to do list done.
3. Which goals did you achieve this past year?
What were your wins this year? Celebrate those achievements no matter how small.
Think about even those seemingly “small” problems you succeeded in solving. One problem I had a few years ago was that I get way too achy sitting at my desk all day. I asked my husband Tom to rig up my treadmill, so I could ergonomically work on my laptop while I walk. Just celebrating a small win like getting on the treadmill 5 days a week has helped me start each day in a positive direction.
4. What is the biggest factor you would attribute to achieving your goals this year?
Give yourself credit for what you did right. I’m sure you know the wisdom in leveraging your strengths. So, it’s important to take the time to review the strengths you have demonstrated this year. You may even be surprised to discover new strengths that emerged in recent months.
If you can’t come up with at least five strengths ask other people to tell you what they think are your strengths. You can also take a fun strength-finder assessment.
5. What goals did you NOT achieve this year?
If you did not achieve every goal this year — welcome to the club. Make peace with the fact that almost 100% of high achieving entrepreneurs do not accomplish every goal they wrote for the year. At the same time, it’s important to note which goals you didn’t yet achieve and prioritize them higher or lower for this upcoming year.
6. Identify what was out of your control that got in the way of unachieved goals.
While you don’t want to let yourself fall into the blame game, you also don’t want to swing too far the other direction and beat yourself up when you had factors that were out of your control.
For example, a year ago I was excited to roll out plans to launch some brand new programs designed especially for my solopreneur audience. But, then I discovered I had a high toxic level of mercury poisoning. It greatly impaired my vision for five months which Ophthalmologists could not correct. As a result I had to move my launch date goals five to six months later than I originally anticipated.
What about you? What obstacles did you have this past year that were out of your control?
7. What would you do differently, knowing what you know now, to help you achieve those same goals this year?
It is easy to want to hit the ground running as fast you as you can, especially in the New Year. But, if you keep on doing what you did, you’ll keep on getting what you got. As entrepreneurs, it’s critically important to take the time to pause, reflect and evaluate the past twelve months in order to discover how you should best move forward the next twelve months.
8. What valuable lessons did you learn this year?
Here is the opportunity for you to put into practice the famous quote:
[bctt tweet=”Failure isn’t failure, if you learn from it. https://stage.paramountbusinesscoach.com/blog/9-questions-every-business-should-ask-when-setting-new-goals/” username=”yooncannon”]
Likewise, we can also learn from our successes. Facebook guru Amy Porterfield shared on her podcast show, that she noticed the year she decided to invest in herself through a high level mastermind group program is the year her business truly took off. She attributes the valuable lessons she learned came from being in a mastermind group.
9. What can you do now in your business that you could not do one year ago?
It’s important to measure and acknowledge the progress you’ve made. Seeing progress feeds further progress. Employee engagement experts agree that employee productivity is in direct proportion to the level of progress employees felt they were making in their work. As entrepreneurs, we should apply this same productivity principle to our own businesses.
Write down a list of all the areas you have made measurable progress. Maybe a year ago you did not know how to generate leads on LinkedIn, and now you do. Or perhaps a year ago your business did not have the cash flow to hire a marketing assistant, but now you do.
Before you start making new goals for the New Year be sure to assess the old goals you set last year. I invite you to carve out a block of time in your calendar this week or perhaps even right now to take action on answering these 9 questions thoughtfully. Abraham Lincoln once said,
[bctt tweet=”If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend four of those hours sharpening my axe. https://stage.paramountbusinesscoach.com/blog/9-questions-every-business-should-ask-when-setting-new-goals/” username=”yooncannon”]
QUESTION: What is one“a-ha” you gleaned from these 9 questions? Please share your comments below.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
By Guest Author: Nicola Grace, The Mission Mentor
Social Entrepreneur Dilemma
We spiritual, conscious awake professionals and social entrepreneurs have a real dilemma on our hands, don’t we?
We’d much rather be focusing 100% on our purpose, raising awareness, being in high service to the world, transforming it to a better place where all can prosper – and yet we need money to not only survive and thrive, but to be able to make an even bigger difference.
We see the Industrial moguls continuing to make billions by looting and pillaging our planet and we say “No, not that”. “If that’s how you get rich I don’t want to be like that!” At the same time we know we can, and we deserve to, experience the abundance of our Universe.
Hence the dilemma! There’s this tug of war going on inside of us. One part of us wants to passionately be full time transformers and changemakers not having to worry about money – the other part of us could be struggling to make the kind of Right Money we need and want. And quite frankly, that money would be better invested if it were in our hands, wouldn’t it?
We’re living in a time of unprecedented change, and we know there’s an “Emerging NEW Economic Storm” heading our way. According to Harry Dent, Author of The Great Depression Ahead and the Houdini of financial predictions, he says this depression will continue until 2020! WHAT!? You’ve got to be kidding me! Are you prepared for that?
Now, we spiritual people know this is happening because we’re shifting from the Industrial Value system to a more Heart Centered, Relationship based Co-Operative Economy. I don’t know about you, but I believe we can make that transition happen peacefully with the least amount of collateral damage.
But here’s the thing – Our Universe abhors a vacuum. That means where there’s a gap for a moment, it will be filled with something. So if we don’t allow ourselves to receive our fair share of the abundant universe we leave a vacuum. So someone else is going to fill that vacuum and take more than their fair share… that’s the balance of the Law of Duality at play.
We spiritual peeps really need to step up our game and not turn away from money…
The only reason we have this storm ahead of us, is because we heart centered spiritual folks have been leaving the problems of the world up to someone else to fix. We’ve been wafting off onto pathways that are infinitely more interesting to us than money. “Money’s not that important, we say to ourselves. Love is more important.” “All we need is love!”
But GUESS WHAT? We’ve created a vacuum by our absence in the financial abundance stakes, and it’s been filled with the terrible situation of the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and now this “Economic Storm” approaching.
We’re needed to step it up in our lives like never before. Not just to survive this storm ahead, but also to make sure the better world we all want to live in, actually gets birthed. It’s not just about coming into the heart as many would say. It’s about bringing the heart into the economy so all can prosper, not just the few. No one is going to do that but heart centered people like you and me.
You have a role to play in the birth of the new heart based economy, that has you living 100% on purpose, in financial prosperity, making a big difference, feeling fulfilled, making progress in life AND transforming the world positively! If you don’t fill the vacuum, something less than love will. When you fully understand the vacuum that is created by you not claiming your financial abundance, you begin to feel at peace with receiving large sums of money for all the good work you do.
The Key to all that I’m saying is answering the call to that feeling you have inside that There’s Something Else You’re Supposed to Be Doing! Or there’s another way of finding your mission to serve and monetizing accurately, so you don’t struggle financially!
As my introduction said, I’m the one who saved a billion dollar industry from ruin, achieving in just 6 months what that industry were unable to do in 7 years.
The secret to my success came down to 7 Habits, 10 Strategies and 12 Laws of Nature that I’ve branded “Strategy With Spirit”. One of those Laws is the Law of Purpose. I had Mission Mojo to achieve extra-ordinary results, like turning the tide of history, because it was my purpose to do that job… It was one of my mission milestones – no one else’s. Therefore I Had the Support of the Entire Evolving Conscious Universe.
Now you have within you the exact same Mission Mojo. That mojo exists within you to make a bigger difference. Whether that is to take care of our children, the elderly, invent something, help people have a better life, or save the planet and the animals on it – The ripple effect of you stepping into your Mission Mojo is the creation of a better world.
But you only tap into that Mojo when you step it up to your Life’s Mission. I unequivocally believe, when we transition in droves from making money just to pay the bills, to making more money by making a bigger difference, collectively we will transform not only the monetary system but the world at large.
I want to help you find your role to play in that great transition. I want to help you find your Mission Mojo, so we can get this party of transforming the world cranking, and make sure you’re adequately monetized on the right side of the fall out in the prolonged Economic Transition fast approaching.
I especially want to make sure you Avoid The #3 Biggest Pitfalls When Monetizing Your Mission For Social Entrepreneurs
So I’ve designed a complimentary training program via webinar, with bonus trainings, to help you learn:
• The #1 mistake mission driven people make that leads them down the wrong path, – AND the #3 Keys you need to use to avoid this mistake so you can nail the mission & niche you were born to serve and prosper in;
• The HUGE pitfall ALL of us need to AVOID in the next 6 years, so we can be successful with our missions for change, AND build financial prosperity as the old Industrial Economic Structure painstakingly, slowly crumbles;
• The BIG BIG BIG TRAP spiritual, conscious, awake professionals and social entrepreneurs fall into, that has them saving the world for free on Facebook, and racing off to do a job or business they don’t enjoy just to pay the bills –
• This same TRAP has successful entrepreneurs struggling to break through financial glass ceilings to reach the abundance they know they deserve;
• The 7 Step Blueprint to find, follow and achieve your Right Mission so you can make the Right Money – the “feel good money” in ever increases abundance, that comes from doing good in the world, so you can make an even bigger difference in your own life, the lives of your family and the world.
As a special bonus you’ll also receive FREE membership to my Strategy With Spirit Evolutionary Vault where you’ll get further complimentary training’s monthly on these 7 Habits, 10 Strategies and 12 Laws of Nature that I synergized to change the course of history – and how you can use them to achieve your missions too.
>>Click Here to Register For Mission Mojo Today As Seats Are Limited
I look forward to meeting with you, and helping you get clear direction
Nicola Grace, Guest Blog Author
ABOUT Nicola Grace: Nicola is the woman who changed the course of history in 2006 when her mission strategy to save a billion dollar Changemaker industry from going under succeed. She achieved in 6 months what the industry could not do in 7 years. That industry was the Natural Health Industry of New Zealand. Nicola made history in her country, and she won an award from the Industry she saved.
Nicola believes her phenomenal success was due to the fact that she was tapping into her Mission Mojo. You have Mission Mojo inside of you too. Nicola is also a long time public speaker, 3 time best selling author, educator, transformation leader and Visionary Strategist.
One Last Thing from Yoon …
(PS) Nicola’s going to take the gloves off in this training and tell you what no one in this industry is telling you about breaking financial glass ceilings… Yet she’ll tell you they know, because she’s had the conversations with them. This blind spot, you’re not having the light shown on directly, is probably causing you to spin your wheels and work harder than you need to be, for less results and money than the effort you’re putting in. You want to cease this opportunity to have all revealed.
>Click Here to Register For Mission Mojo Today As Seats Are Limited
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
Could Discouragement Be Destroying Your Game Plan?
As football season is in full swing what I love about the game is how it challenges even the best players not to rely solely on the playbook. The football team, the coaches and even us fans know how much the athletes’ mental state of mind will impact how the game will play out. So, which is more important? The playbook or their mindset?
How can you choose one over the other? They’re both critically important to winning the game.
So, what about your game plan as an entrepreneur or a small business owner? Has your 2011 game plan been helping you achieve notable wins in your business this year?As a business growth coach I often see clients missing out on experiencing a winning season, not necessarily because they didn’t have a good game plan, but because they allowed themselves to fall prey to simple thing called discouragement.
Even though most of the clients I help are established Entrepreneurs and small business owners who have had many prior successes it seems that discouragement can still attack and destroy even the best laid strategic plans.
Here’s what some common voices of discouragement have sounded like:
1. The economy has dried up a lot of our business
2. People just aren’t in the buying mindset 3. I’m just not good at sales and marketing 4. People just don’t want what I have to offer 5. Everything I try just doesn’t work 6. There’s too much competition for me to succeedI’m sure you can fill in the blanks to add even more discouraging thoughts. Now, if you were to re-read the above 6 negative statements, and you were to say them out loud to yourself 30 times a day for the next 30 days, what would you predict might happen in your business? … Of course, it’s only common sense that the natural effect from playing this record of negativity over and over throughout the day, day after day, to anyone’s business would be nothing but a negative outcome. I’m not advocating that you trick yourself into believing complete non-realities — that the economy is suddenly robust, that everyone is in easy spending mode, that you are a wizard at sales and marketing (if you’re really not), that everyone will want what you offer, or that every tactic you try will work wonders, and that there is virtually no competition, so you will indeed succeed. So, how do you get out of the line of fire from discouragement?
Step 1: First, identify your thoughts. What are the actual thoughts that keep playing quietly in the back of your mind? You can’t change something you can’t name.
Step 2: Decide not to buy into destructive beliefs. There might be a grain of truth behind every one of your discouraging thoughts, but recognize that truth can be twisted completely out of context. Step 3: Re-frame those discouraging thoughts into statements or questions that will re-direct your focus on something that is useful and positive. For example: 1. The economy may have reduced the low hanging fruit we were used to getting, so what can I (we) do today to get better in our business growing skills? 2. People may now be more careful in their buying decisions, so how can I (we) learn more accurately what does motivate our target market to want to buy? 3. Sales and marketing doesn’t come naturally to me, so what steps can I take to improve my skills in sales and marketing? Who can help me improve those necessary skills? Writing down your discouraging thoughts and re-writing them with encouraging, empowering thoughts is a powerful way to get your head in the game, so you can win in accelerating your business growth in 2012. It’s natural to expect to plan on rigorous physical and mental conditioning exercises before you play in a high stakes football game. But, there’s so much more at stake for you in your business success, so why not invest in the very best coach to help you win this upcoming 2012 season? The missing ingredient to your business growth success may very well be that you are trying to play your best, but with no coach. I would like to be that coach for you where we can partner together to co-create your game plan and help you win over discouragement once and for all. You might just discover even one piece of feedback that will set the domino course for 2012 in a whole new direction for your business growth.
There’s only 6 slots, so call me direct now to schedule your complimentary session at 215-292-4947 EST.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
Note from Yoon:
If your business is down it’s tough not to let it weigh you down. It can be even tougher to enjoy the upcoming holidays if you’re stressed out about the struggles in your business. To help you get your midas touch back I wanted to introduce my friend Nancy Sharp. Nancy is the Life Balance Expert for accomplished professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who want more work-life-family balance and a blueprint to realize the life they dream about. She’s share some useful tips on how you can get your midas touch back as an entrepreneur. Enjoy today’s guest blog article!
Lost Your Midas Touch? 4 Things You Can Do to Get it Back in Time to Enjoy Your Holidays!
Guest Author: Nancy F. Sharp, LMFT, Cht, LFYP-1
Do you remember the movie Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray? Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant and egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Ground Hog Day event in Punxsutawny, finds himself in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again. After indulging in some pretty serious wrong solution cycle responses, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities (description from Wikipedia).
The tips you’ll find in this article will assist you in changing the way you respond to situations and decision making and will aid in your growth toward positive outcomes, and experiencing a happier, healthier life and work balance.
Sometimes we think we have our best responses to situations all lined up and ready to go…but sometimes the way we think we could respond is really not as effective as we might hope…leaving us with a result we wish we did not have to deal with… and we find life bursting into high pressure.
And so this is seen in 5 important areas of our lives:
Financially- glass income ceiling, stop trying, overspending
Professionally-lack of focus, ambition, not feeling as enthusiastic, performance
Physically-stress, anxiety, headaches, HBP, chronic pain or fatigue, food cravings
Emotionally-worry, resentful, sad, anxious
Relationally- when not feeling on top of your game you may isolate because you do not have enough energy to connect and it is not fun to be or be with a Debbie or Doug Downer.
One of my recent blog posts considered that if you crave maximum growth development there are 4 obstacles that demand one’s attention and breakthrough. These are obstacles that just about everyone has by nature, and it requires conscious decisiveness and effort to get rid of.
1. Unwilling to assume full responsibility. Each year, your growth is up to you and you solely. For certain, you have resources and ought to get assistance in achieving your goals, but ultimately YOU will reap the crop that YOU plant. Growth cannot come about until you take charge to make it happen.
2. Reluctant to take crucial action. All the knowledge in the world is unhelpful until it is put into action. Once you have determined to improve your life, make a plan and get going. Growth cannot come about until you embark on moving toward your unique growth path.
3. Reluctant to appear foolish. The quest for anything worthwhile will unquestionably demand you to take some chances. You’ll need to go beyond your comfort zone and in that growth period; you’ll falter, fall or look foolish at least one time- it’s almost guaranteed. The earlier you break free from worrying about appearances, the sooner growth can start.
4. Starting out with incorrect principles. Many of the things that we’ve come to believe about success, wellness and fortune merely are not true. A few have never been true, and some used to be true but they aren’t any longer.
These obstacles must be overcome if you want to respond differently and grow and the good news is that you definitely can overcome them. I could dish out dozens of examples of each category, and if you want to analyze some of yours, please schedule a no-obligation discovery session with me by clicking here.
The root of why we respond the way we do is extremely important to understand. That usually requires some shoring up of our “bedrock”. It provides us with the ability to change or update our response patterns so we can finally change our story…
I welcome you to take action now. Hesitant: Read #2 above again. For now, responding differently and growth cannot occur until you have an accurate plan of action. Click Here.
YOUR GOAL:
To live a life better than the status quo and notice the benefits financially (a feeling of greater security and control of your money), professionally (greater focus, ambition), physically (a greater sense of well-being), emotionally (feeling lighter, greater contentment, happiness, peaceful), and relationally (experiencing positive connection).
It really can be yours. So here’s a gift from me to get you started https://nancyfsharp.leadpages.net/mp3/
Author Bio: Nancy F. Sharp, LMFT, Cht, LFYP-1 is the Life Balance Expert for accomplished professionals, executives and entrepreneurs who want more work-life-family balance and a blueprint to realize the life they dream about. As a Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Yoga Therapist and Mastering the Energy of Money Coach she has built a thriving private clinical practice. Her ability to focus and organize her life has contributed to her success both personally and professionally. Read More
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, General, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Success Mindset
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 50 percent of U.S. businesses fail within the first five years. The primary reason is poor cash management, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) cites. Good cash management is about keeping your cash as long as possible, and convincing your customers to pay promptly. Keeping a few cash management principles in mind will help you keep a healthy business and stop you from becoming just another statistic.
The Confusion Over Profit
Profit and cash flow are related but not equal, stresses Inc. Your profit and loss statement gives you the simple results of revenue minus expenses. A positive result is considered profit, but you can’t tell how healthy your cash flow is by just seeing a profit. Areas you need to watch include:
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Inventory
- Capital expenditures
- Level of debt
If customers are slow to pay, resulting in a high receivables, you could see a profit on the books, but a lack of cash in the bank. You could see a profit on paper, but not be able to make payroll or pay your suppliers.
Getting the Bigger Picture
You need to have visibility into your cash flow to know where your company stands, and where you might be in a week, month or year. Future cash flow prediction is an educated guess based on the trends you see in the areas mentioned above, says Entrepreneur.
As soon as you can, get your business onto a consolidated system, so you can easily see the patterns in your business. Cloud-based applications, such as the retail management software from NetSuite, bring together both your online and offline activities to give you a complete picture. Relying on spreadsheets or different applications to track online and offline channels makes it painful to bring the data together so you can accurately predict your cash flow.
When you have the complete picture, you’ll have visibility to such trends as:
- The payment history of your customers
- The accuracy of your planned expenditures
- The ability to cover unplanned expenditures
Without the consolidated view of your performance data, you won’t be able to make those educated guesses needed to plan for your company’s future.
Managing Receivables
Ideally, all of your customers would pay for your products and services at the time of the sale. That won’t necessarily happen as your company grows and increases the customer base by offering credit and special terms. Increase your cash by bringing in more customer payments:
- Give a discount for paying bills early
- Request a deposit when an order is taken
- Get invoices out quickly, and send reminders at 30-, 60- and 90-day intervals
- Once you’ve identified slow paying customers, put them on cash-only terms
Small business owners don’t like the idea of being a bill collector, but the SBA suggests you should do all you can to get something from the customer, because third-party agencies take at least a 30 percent cut if they are successful. Giving discounts as an incentive for payment will let you keep more of the cash in your pocket.
Managing Payables
Keep your cash as long as you can. This improves your cash outlook, especially to banks and investors.
- Use your supplier’s credit terms whenever possible
- Make payments on the last day of your vendor’s cycle — day 29 on a net-30 term
- Use electronic funds transfer (EFT) whenever possible
- Communicate with your suppliers, and build rapport in case you need a break to delay a payment
- Select vendors to work with that have the best terms for your cash flow, not necessarily the lowest prices
Talk to a Factoring Broker
A factoring broker is someone who purchases your invoices, so you use the cash flow immediately for things like making payroll or purchasing needed equipment for the business. This is an excellent solution especially when traditional means of borrowing aren’t available. A factoring broker I highly trust and recommend is Jack Wilson.
A healthy cash-flow is integral to helping you grow your business to the next level. You need cash flow to allow you to hire top talent, beef up your marketing and upgrade your systems. As the saying goes, “you need money to make more money”.
QUESTION: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to increasing your cash flow? Please share your comments in the box below.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
Note From Yoon:
It’s interesting the uptick I’ve been seeing of people leaving the corporate world to start their own consultancy firm or solo consulting practice. I’d say half of my consultant clients fell into becoming an entrepreneur after becoming a victim of wide spread lay off’s. The other half of my consultant clients chose to leave the corporate world in pursuit of a better work life balance… (this cartoon strip I found says it all!).
Both would unanimously agree that keeping their high paying executive jobs became more and more high pressure with grueling demands on their time. Starting your own consulting practice can be very rewarding giving your full reign over your time and income. In today’s article I want to share with you some tips for the consultancy startup.
Enjoy!
Business Skills for the Consultancy Start Up
It may seem tempting to launch a consultancy startup rather than go to work for a traditional business. You’re your own boss, and all that you need is a group of fellow fledgling entrepreneurs, a dry erase board, a dream and a little seed money to put your innovation into action.
However, the real truth is that the lean startup model has a success rate of about 25 percent, according to research by Shikhar Ghosh, a Harvard Business School lecturer. If you are exchanging a steady shot at a corner office for a high-risk-high-reward startup consulting venture, you may need to assess your business school training to ensure you have the right stuff.
#1. Soft Skills: Maintain professionalism
You may have heard stories about Google programmers who walk around Silicon Valley wearing old T-shirts and long underwear because they are so valuable to the company. With a reputation for cultural creativity and out of the box thinking, startups can be more compelling than the traditional corporate model, but you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
- Be on time.
- Dress your best.
- Confidently present yourself to potential colleagues, clients and investors.
In a competitive startup culture, keeping these areas tightly organized on your own without corporate pressure guiding you is challenging and essential.
#2. Select compatible colleagues
In a startup, you need to take on the a human resources role and decide who will complement your skills and accomplish your mutual goals together. Search websites that can help you network and meet someone with similar business plans. Such as:
#3. Reduce the scale: short-term analysis
In the beginning stage of a startup:
- Launch the research and development
- Acquire potential customer feedback
- Make iteration changes daily
This is different than the analysis and planning you learn in business school intended for established businesses with a long-term outlook and slower, sustainable changes. If you try to logically find a solution from beginning to end on a dry erase board, the long-term projections will fall flat in the testing and development phase. Implementing quick changes is part of the inherent high risk and reward model.
#4. Accounting
Accounting is the same. Business schools often use three-to five-year financial projections, NYU B-school graduate Brett Nelson told “Forbes” magazine. Some businesses actually use 30-year projections. A startup can estimate the cost of salaries and office operations, but in the beginning the cost of producing the product or service, compared with the return on investment, is more intuitive than planned.
A startup usually has a lower seed cost than a brick-and-mortar new business because the model begins small and eventually advances with technology and mass implementation, which is where the investor money comes in.
At that point you will need to:
- Hire the attorney, accountant, insurance agent and other professionals
- In the beginning, bring out the dry erase board and your colleagues, and get to work! Explore all options and opportunities. What are your goals? What are your colleagues’ goals?
- Include business insurance that not only protects your assets, but also offers coverage for particular issues that a startup may be susceptible, such as data breach and interruption insurance.
Keep in mind also that your MBA skills will begin to pay off once a startup begins to grow into a larger version of itself that resembles the scale of a larger corporation. In the meantime, shelve the long-term planning and focus on the tasks at hand, one day at a time.
QUESTION: What one business skill has been vital to you succeeding as a startup consultant?
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
