I was just taking a few minutes and reviewing some of my recent posts here on StartUpStudent. While doing that I noticed that there is kind of method to what I feel is my madness. If you put the tasks together hopefully you’re going to find a set of steps that will take you down the path toward a functioning business. Here’s what I mean:
Step 1: What do you Love?
Really until you know the answer to this question, how do you know where your business is headed. I truly believe that you must build a business based on your passions. If you don’t what is there to lean on when things don’t go as planned. Also, do you really want to be spending all those hours building a business that you don’t love?
Step 2: Write it down (4 Reasons to build a Plan/Organization Chart)
I once heard it said that “A Goal without a plan is a dream”. That seems fairly true to me. It doesn’t have to be a 300 page document with financial projections. Tim Berry did a great job of explaining the proper length of business plan when he said this:
I was about five years old when my granddad first asked me how long a person’s legs should be. His answer was “long enough to reach the ground.” — Tim Berry – The Ideal Length of a Business Plan
It should really just describe what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. What makes your company, your company? This will serve as a roadmap as move down the bumpy path. Plans are designed to guide your way and keep you on the path. They give you that destination that you’re striving for.
Step 3: Take action (Be Proactive/Baby Steps)
Now jump. Make it happen. It’s time to make your business a reality. It’s all about standing out on the diving board and then diving in? Will you belly flop? Maybe. How are you going to know until get off the diving board? Besides when you belly flopped, didn’t you just get back on the diving board and try again? It took a while but you learned how to dive. Did you read the entire owners manual of the car before driving it? No, you drove it to experience the vehicle. So go, experience the business. Look up what you don’t know.
Step 3A: Bring in people around you (Network/Online Persona)
Putting the right people around you is very important. Creating your online persona and setting up your networks are profoundly important to successful businesses. That doesn’t mean you should wait to start your business to create them but you should begin building them. Maybe that’s taking a good friend to lunch to discuss the idea. Drinks with an old college friend. You simply need to start building connections with people and help them where you can.
Two other huge points that I think these items make me think of: Persistance and What goes around comes around.
Take your idea and run with it. You may have to alter it, tweak it, or flat out come up with another idea but don’t give up. I think that most people who have made it have simply persisted through the tough times. Most who “failed”, simply quit trying. Stick with it.
In many things “What goes around comes around” or saying it another way “Pay It Forward”. Many times those phrases become cliche. If you focus on helping others to build their networks/businesses/etc you’ll usually find that your networks are growing and your business is exploding. This model will help you build quality partners, networks, and in the end business.
These items are a pretty good start in the direction of building that business/lifestyle that most people are trying to build. It’s all about laying out the necessary groundwork and then starting. Sure, you’ll have some conflicts, problems, and headaches but take a shot. Now is the time.
Be daring…be creative!
Jeremy
Jeremy Lattimore is the creative problem solving guru behind RefocusingTechnology.com and Borea Systems. Currently, he’s obsessed with business automation/efficiency and social networks. His question to you is: “How is your technology making you more efficient TODAY?”.
The Real Issues Behind Great Results, Part II
A few weeks ago, I posted the first part of this two part series on understanding the real issues behind great results at your startup. We went into some deep thinking to get there.
In summary, we talked about how getting great results is a deeper process than merely focusing on the results themselves. Behind results lies performance, and under performance lies behaviors. Further, under behaviors lies corrected thinking. We probed the depths of the first two layers of our understanding, RESULTS and PERFORMANCE. Now let’s focus on behaviors and thinking.
BEHAVIORS – Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter… the individuals’ behaviors that work with us and for us. You can track stuff, measure things and evaluate products, but real change happens in the changed behaviors of the people around us. Behaviors speak to our true motivations, truly revealing why we do what we do. And this section speaks to real leadership too. To see a change of behavior around us requires that we as leaders change first. Remember, in our thinking, a change of behavior is the precursor to a change in performance. So if you want to affect the performance in your company, which will ultimately become great results, then be the leader that exemplifies the behaviors you want mirrored in your people. Read the books you want them to read, build others up the way you want your people to build others up, and develop a work ethic you want mirrored in those around you.
THINKING – Herein lies the foundation of our businesses – corrected thinking in ourselves and in our people. Making lasting change in our startups ultimately falls to the real estate between our ears. Don’t gloss over this point! Your thinking, and the thinking that each of your team members carries around with them, has the ability to create lasting change, ultimately creating great results in your businesses. And on the flip side, thinking that is NOT considered at all, or is not corrected, has the power to doom you to mediocre existence the rest of your life… in your family, your church, your relationships and in your business. What power there is in examining where we lie within the real estate between our ears. To deal with this issue, I often suggest that our clients go though behavior assessments with the consultant I mentioned in the first article. This consultant, Dennis McIntee, has the ability to assess who your people really are, why they think the way they do, and how to leverage their own internal thought processes to achieve your company’s goals (but it’s not manipulation). We can’t get into the specifics here, but allowing a consultant like this to do some “thought surgery” on you and your people will produce a happier workplace, and happier boss (that’s you!), and a more successful mission.
Call me at 1-877-322-9939, or email me at thriveal [at] gmail [dot] com for more info. When Dennis’s behavior assessments are combined with our firm’s 12 month coaching process for business owners, change happens! Consider it.
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer, CPA