We Help You Win by Focusing on The Essentials
Minutiae. It’s everywhere. Never in the history of man has man (and woman) been so inundated with minutiae. Meaningless information and pursuits are everywhere.
In small business, if you’re into meaningless information and trivial pursuits, you’re toast!
But if you focus mostly on the essentials of success, sooner or later they’ll be toasting you!
Minutiae is squeezing a couple bucks out of the cost structure of a failing business to placate Mr. Grumpy Old Accountant. Boosting employees’ pay by 25 cents an hour to keep them from bolting, while doing nothing to make the business a great place to work. Gambling it all on the next faddish business pursuit, while ignoring sound business principles and practices.
The Essentials of Business Success you should focus upon instead are these:
- A big and inspiring vision for your business
- Excellence, innovation, and integrity in doing whatever you do
- A business model that emphasizes and generates:
- Recurring revenues
- Persistent and sufficient profits
- Strong leadership from your business’ CEO (who may or may not be you)
- A team that is low on ego; and high on energy, teamwork, and your vision
- Efficient operations
- Satisfied, long-term committed customers
- Effective promotion and marketing
- Sustainable growth pace
- A financial plan to sustain your success when it occurs
If you don't have at least a pass on all of these things, you’re going to struggle in business.
A plant will grow with water, nutrients, and sunlight. Eliminate any of these essentials and you get a sick, dead, or dying plant. We all know that!
Yet, we business owners trick ourselves into thinking we can grow and sustain our businesses without all of the essentials of business success.
Not wise! How do I know? In my experience owning my own businesses and helping others manage theirs, I’ve tried both dumb and smart ways to grow and manage a business. And I’ve learned the hard way what you may be learning (or trying to ignore) in your own business…
Have you embraced the reality that your business cannot grow or live a healthy life without all of the essentials? Do you know which essentials you are missing? More importantly, are you committed to getting them in place?
Or are you chasing minutiae instead? If you are, goodness knows you’ll find all manner of tweeters, minutiae marketers, and soothsayers who will lead you… round and round and round!
But, if you are committed to advancing your business’ success, I challenge you to a quick and easy dare! Take five minutes to review my list of essentials above (we even have an easy tool you can use), and email me the list of those your business lacks at jim@performidable.com.
I will then draft your business a starter success or turnaround plan and email it to you. No charge. No obligation.
There was a (less-successful) time in my past when I would have chickened out on a dare like the one I just laid down for you – not wanting to go where it would take me. Not really “all in” on doing something great.
Instead, I would have done what unsuccessful business owners do: hide and hunker. Hide their difficulties from others. Hunker down hoping they will go away without any help.
But the smart thing I learned from that dumb approach, and a few really smart owners, is that no small business owner succeeds without any help from anyone, anytime. Much to the contrary, the most successful owners I know are the ones that get help getting “the essentials” in place when and where they have need! Like a plant in the desert seeking a sprinkler system.
If you own a business, are willing to acknowledge that you lack essentials, and are thirsty enough to get them in place... dare I say daring enough to take my dare… we cannot wait to help you succeed and enjoy the fruits of your meaningful pursuits!
And one last thing: sign us up to lead the first toast to you and your business when you’re doing those things!
Long live small business! Long live small business owners!
Jim Smith, Founder, PERFORMIDABLE, LLC