3 SURPRISING facts you probably don’t need to know about businesses
- Walmart makes a cool 1.8 million dollars per hour- no big deal
- Starbucks round tables were created specifically so their guests wouldn’t feel so “alone”
- Dasani water is just purified tap water ; it doesn’t come from a natural spring at all.
Wylder Space grew 250% in 2019. I went from a one man band to an established co. Obviously, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no systems in place. I didn’t know how to train people. I spent my year putting out fires while knee deep in mashed potatoes.
The 2019 wedding season was wild, chaotic and VERY disorganized. We made it out alive, relatively unscathed, other than a cool $43,000 in refunds we gave back. (It still puts a pit in my stomach to write that.).
If you’re reading this, having never grown faster than you can handle, you may not relate to the chaos and growing pains I’m writing about. In fact, you may read this story (secretly judging me in that noggin of yours), for not knowing how to run a business properly. “Boy, she sounds like a hot mess!”
Let me be the first to say, growing pains are uncomfortable. Anyone who jumps in to the entrepreneurial game is going to experience the throes of shortcomings on a daily basis.
Nothing right sizes us faster than making mistakes. Choosing to make amends for letting other people down allows us the opportunity to learn and grow while operating from a place of integrity.
To those of you who can relate, “Heeeeyyy!!!” 😁. Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re not the only one learning MAJOR lessons as you grow?
When you meet a business owner and they tell you their story- what you’re going to see is a consistent pattern of failure, followed by success. To every entrepreneur who’s trying to find your way- you may fail over and over again. You only need to get it right ONCE.
In todays email, you’ll get a deeper insight on the following, to help your business THRIVE:
- Why most businesses don’t work, We’re technicians with no business backgrounds
- FIX THIS NEXT, 5 Needs of Every Entrepreneur
- Make $$, Increase Profitability 💶
More Reading Material that will help you get your business under control
Michael Gerber The E Myth (why most small businesses FAIL)
Michael Michalko Thinkertoys (A handbook of creative thinking techniques)
Mike Michalowicz PROFIT FIRST and a quick video about it, below ⤵️
Michael Gerber The E Myth (why most small businesses FAIL)
Michael Michalko Thinkertoys (A handbook of creative thinking techniques)
Mike Michalowicz PROFIT FIRST and a quick video about it, below ⤵️
Why Most Small Businesses don’t Work
1. You start as an expert in your field, with no business know-how to back it up
What we often lack are two key elements apart from technical skills - managerial and entrepreneurial capabilities.
2. Ask yourself- Are the hours that you are working how you want to live your life?
Most business owners do not own a business that works, they own a job with very long hours, high financial risk, large amounts of emotional stress, and a business that is very reliant on their experience and their time.
3. Average Is Easy
Average is easy - that's why most people do it. The business is very reliant on you. You are the main contact for your most important clients, and you still carry out financial checks on invoices and expense claims.
You believe that you are the best person in your business for a range of tasks including technical expertise, marketing and customer communication.
Despite your best intentions to invest time in building the business, you are continuously caught up in the urgent fire fighting that needs to be addressed each day.
4. The Average Result
You work at least 50 hours a week, often more with demands on your shoulders coming from many directions, inside and outside of the business.
Even when you find time to go on vacation you are regularly checking progress back in the business.
2. Ask yourself- Are the hours that you are working how you want to live your life?
Most business owners do not own a business that works, they own a job with very long hours, high financial risk, large amounts of emotional stress, and a business that is very reliant on their experience and their time.
3. Average Is Easy
Average is easy - that's why most people do it. The business is very reliant on you. You are the main contact for your most important clients, and you still carry out financial checks on invoices and expense claims.
You believe that you are the best person in your business for a range of tasks including technical expertise, marketing and customer communication.
Despite your best intentions to invest time in building the business, you are continuously caught up in the urgent fire fighting that needs to be addressed each day.
4. The Average Result
You work at least 50 hours a week, often more with demands on your shoulders coming from many directions, inside and outside of the business.
Even when you find time to go on vacation you are regularly checking progress back in the business.
The High Performance Approach = Results
- Efficiency in the business comes from personal productivity for yourself and your colleagues, and consistent systems to run the business.
- Delegate goals and actions to some of your team and you demonstrate self discipline through your regular team meetings, your default diary and your daily to do list.
- Spend at least one day per week working on the business - i.e. the important, non-urgent activities such as recruitment, training, system design, planning, coaching.
It won’t happen over night, but over time, you’ll be working longer ON your business than IN your business
The High Performance Result
- Spend the right amount of time each day and each week on building the business that you want, rather than maintaining the business you already have.
- Lead your team, so that they execute all the systems that run the business: systems to win more business, deliver the work and collect the finances.
The biggest problem entrepreneurs have is that they don't know what their biggest problem is. If you find yourself trapped between stagnating sales, staff turnover, and unhappy customers, what do you fix first? Every issue seems urgent -- but there's no way to address all of them at once. The result? A business that continues to go in endless circles putting out urgent fires and prioritizing the wrong things.
Sitting here, feeling buried, knee deep in bills and not knowing what to do next. Yup. Sounds About right. Some business owners feel this way from time to time. MOST business owners feel this way ALL the time. Whether you’re just starting out or running a successful & well established co. Whether you’ve struggled to make payroll or are rolling in the dough, the urgent feeling to FIX EVERYTHING, like now, is the common thread that runs through every entrepreneur.
FIX THIS NEXT
5 Needs for Every Entrepreneur
- Sales create cash for a business. Sales IS the foundation of your business.
- Once you’ve got sales, you need the cash to bring about stability, AKA “profit”.
- Once you have “profit” you need to create efficiency and order.
- The level above that is impact, and it’s where your business goes from being about transactions to becoming about transformation.
- The final level is legacy, which is where the work you are doing is so important that it must continue for generations.
GROWTH = Profitability
Sales - Profit = Expenses
It’s the envelope system for business.
- Improve your company’s financial health
- get expenses under control
- create sustainable growth.
Your business is here to work for you, not the other way around.45% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years, and usually, it’s because they run out of money.
As a business owner in 2024, I can see the need to stay up to date on technology so that I don’t get left behind in the years to follow. AI is a tool that can be used supportively in our industries- not to be mistaken by allowing AI to do all the work for us. Critical and logical thinking, creative input and keeping a unique thumbprint on your work is the key to leveraging this new technology.
Introducing Gamma- a new tool for creators & visionaries that can bring your words to life through animation, video and photo content.
Food is our medium for connection
Wylder Space is a full-service boutique catering company based in Scotts Valley, with an emphasis on hyperlocal ingredients. We're friends with people who grow our food and want to educate you on knowing and caring about where your food comes from.
This publication is in its infancy stage.
As a business owner, I’m sure you remember what it’s like to get the word out about your product or service. Please share this publication with anyone you think would find value in its content. We’re doing this grass roots style and would be so stoked to see the word get out simply because you find this material helpful.
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