ideals Archives - New Paradigm Advisors

Sellability: Is this a goal for your company?

Imagine that your first-born graduates from college and as a gift you give him your prized 1967 Shelby Ford Mustang. Your heavily indebted child takes it on the road, but after a few miles, the engine starts smoking. The mechanic takes one look under the hood and declares that the engine needs a rebuild.

You thought you were giving your child an incredible asset, but instead it’s an expensive liability he can’t afford to keep, and nor can he sell it without feeling guilty.

You may be planning to pass your business on to your kids or let your young managers buy into your company over time. These are both admirable exit options, but if your business is too dependent on you, and it hasn’t been tuned up to run without you, you may be passing along a jalopy.

The sellability of your company is a gift and is just one of the four reasons why building a sellable business should be your most important goal, regardless of when you plan to push the eject button. It should also be a hidden goal.

If you’re like most owners, you have a profit goal you want to hit. You may also have a top-line revenue number that’s important to you. While those goals are important, there is another objective that may have an even bigger payoff: building a sellable business.

But what if you don’t want to sell? That’s irrelevant. Here are the other three reasons why building a sellable business should be your most important goal, regardless of when you plan to push the eject button:

Freedom.
Fun.
Financial freedom.

Freedom goes back to the “you-proofing” concept. Making your company less dependent on you means that you actually have an enterprise that stands alone and gives you the freedom to step away or look at it differently.

Running a business should be fun–thinking and acting strategically, solving problems for your clients and customers and working on your business rather than in your business. Passing on the drudgery of your business to someone else in your organization is part of making your company sellable.

By creating a sellable business, you shape and mold your enterprise into something that is not unlike a financial portfolio. It is an asset working for you rather than you working for it.

Keep in mind these things take time. but patience and persistence and doing the work are all a part of successful business. Remember, it is a goal.

Blessings.

Dave

Planning

Is Your Company “You Proof?”

We’ve all had a client or prospect “disappear”on us on occasion. Happens all the time and it sends us into all kinds of internal scenarios trying to figure out what happened.

I couldn’t reach a new contact recently and began to wonder what happened to him. Maybe he was no longer interested in what we had been discussing. Maybe something was going on in his business that had changed his priorities.

Well, you get the point. When a client or prospect drops off the world, you begin to wonder what happened and what you can do to pick things back up.

Then, after two weeks, I get a call from him apologizing for being out of communication since he had been on a two-week fishing excursion with his buddies. He quickly moved from a worry to being a hero.

Question: “Can you go fishing for two weeks? Maybe take your family on a two week vacation?” If not, why not?

“You-proofing” your business has enormous benefits. It will allow you to create a company and have a life. Your business will be free to scale up because it is no longer dependent on you, its bottleneck. Best of all, it will be worth a lot more to a buyer whenever you are ready to sell. With that thought in mind, here are a five ways to get your business to run without you:

Give your employees a stake in the outcome by creating an ownership culture inside your company.
Create an environment of inclusion. Ask your employees often, “what would you do if you ran the company?”
Prioritize your company’s offerings by which ones require the least of your attention. That is, revise your selling priorities towards things that sell best without you.
Fire yourself as the company’s chief rainmaker by creating automated customers.
Write an instruction manual on how to run your company.

Some owners focus on growing their profits, while others are obsessed with sales goals. By making it your primary goal to set up your business so that it can thrive and grow without you, you ultimately will increase the value of your company and make life more enjoyable.

A business not dependent on its owner is the ultimate asset to own. It allows you complete control over your time so that you can choose the projects you get involved in and the vacations you take. When it comes to getting out, a business independent of its owner is worth a lot more than an owner-dependent company.

Blessings,

Dave

Execution

Who’s Your Hero?

Where are you going? What are your goals? To whom are you selling? Why are you in business?

These are some of the first questions you can expect to be asked when you begin a new engagement.

The funny thing is, most of us (and that includes me and my company) lose focus on these important questions (or rather the answers) as we get immersed in our day-to-day activities. I’ve told you the story before of when a customer asked me how to set financial goals that were more than just numbers. Well, here’s a bigger picture of how we might address this.

Let’s change the focus.

Who do you look up to? Whether it be in life, sports or business, who is your hero?

Is there a company out there that really sets the standard for what you do? A great competitor that seems to have it all together? Does everything right? Beats you and everyone else in winning business and customers? Maybe you have a vendor or supplier who seems to do everything perfectly. Maybe you have a mentor or an individual you really look up to.

Who is it? What are they doing that is so right? What can you do to imitate them? Learn from them?

I ask this of all of my customers and it always surprises me when they say there is no one. Does this mean they’ve never noticed? They’ve never looked?

To be successful, you must have something beyond goals – and that something is an ideal. An ideal is not a place or a thing. It can be a person. But most often it is a combination of elements that paint a perfect accomplishment; the pinnacle of achievement – for you. It may ultimately not be achievable because it is so perfect. But if you really believe in it, you’ll strive to achieve it anyway. People like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady have all been considered the best ever in their respective professions. But none of them have ever said they reached their ideal. They have the reputation for being the best, but they never ceased striving to be better. In reality they reached it, but, in their world, they were always going to be striving for it. They were (and are) living their lives striving toward their “ideal,” not for some tangible goal. Do you remember the advertising slogan that said, “I wanna be like Mike.?” Mike was not a “goal.” He was an “ideal.” I wonder how many great athletes that we have today started with the simple ideal of being “like Mike?”

So, how about you? Can you identify and describe your ideal? I bet you can describe your goals: but can you look way past those and identify your ideal?

What is it?

Who is it?

The best goals are specific, definable and measurable. The best ideals are indescribable but can be pointed to. They are livable and will drive you to accomplishment on top of accomplishment. Striving toward your ideal will drive you beyond tangible goals. Your ideal will give you purpose. And a purpose will give you a life worth living.

Be Blessed!

Dave