My Business Freedom: How To Re-Shape Your Business so you work less, stress less, make more money and enjoy more Freedom

Poison!  Why do we keep on exposing ourselves to the poison from others?

Jeff Walker is the guy behind the Product Launch Formula. He’s an entrepreneur and Internet marketer. He’s also a good writer and his blog is always worth reading. He wrote a note today about poison – and how we entrepreneurs and business owners have to be careful what we allow inside our head. You can find this blog post from Jeff here.

It got me thinking… There’s lot of poison out there, and we have to be careful of  it. What makes it worse is that these poisons are often not visible to us – a bit like radioactivity.

In fact, negativity is a very powerful form of radioactivity that can sneak up on you. Continual exposure will almost certainly be damaging. We need to learn to avoid it and protect ourselves where possible.

Imagine if we business owners could wear a device similar to those that radiologists have to measure their exposure to x-rays. How long would it take to detect harmful levels of exposure to negativity?

We also have to be careful in our own businesses that we don’t allow poisonous people to join our team – or stay on the team. No matter how valuable someone’s contribution to your business may appear to be, if they are a source of negative radiation then they have to change or leave. And the sooner the better.

It’s also important we structure our business so we don’t find ourselves on a treadmill that we don’t enjoy and don’t feel that we can get off. Running on a treadmill and feeling like you can’t get off it becomes a breeding ground for negativity in ourselves. We all have to be careful of that one.

We need to run our businesses knowing that whilst we can not do everything in the business ourselves, we are responsible for it. There is seldom any benefit from thinking of ourselves as a ‘victim’. There is NO place for a ‘Victim Mentality’ in the mind-set of the business owner.

As business owners, we all need to watch out for negative radiation. And never be a source of it. It is only when we accept that we are responsible for what we create – good and bad – that we can move forward. Business Freedom is not just a nice concept. It can be reality. But it often does require a fresh way to look at old and sometimes stale situations.

Business Freedom!  It’s all about choice – and the choices you make about how much time you are required to work in your business.

With Business Freedom, it becomes your choice whether you work in your business or not, and how much you work in it.   It is also your choice what you do with your business – whether you keep it, close it, expand it, reduce it or sell it.

In simple terms, in order for you to have more business freedom, your business needs to be

• Profitable
• Predictable
• Expandable
• Able to be operated without you

It may or may not surprise you to learn that many – if not most – businesses do not meet ALL of these criteria.

Why not?

Well, it’s not necessarily because they are bad businesses. And it’s not usually because the owners of the businesses are bad business people.

From my experience, it is because the businesses have not been developed or structured to meet these criteria.  But sometimes “Business Blindness” gets in the way.

Starting, owning and running a business takes passion and commitment and persistence. And courage. Guts.

Often in the middle of the passion, the commitment and the persistence, we business owners become blind to what is actually happening in the business. We become blind to what we need to do to improve, change or re-structure the business to give us what we want. It’s Business Blindness!

The business needs to give us more of what we want – and less of what we don’t want.  But in the heat of business battles, when the very survival of the business can be on the line, we sometimes forget what we really wanted when we started the business.  We get caught up in “the business” – and often keep going doing stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense – in the name of persistence, commitment and passion. That takes courage – but it’s just dumb.

Business Blindness is Dumb.

Blind passion is dumb. Blind commitment is dumb.  Blind persistence is dumb. And having the courage to continue to do dumb things – is just dumb.

Staying on the business owner’s treadmill with no business freedom is just dumb too.

But, Business Blindness is voluntary.  It’s our choice.  Or generally, more correctly, it’s when we abandon our right and responsibility to make uncomfortable choices. Sticking our head in the sand of our own business also leads to blindness…

We don’t have to be blind in our own business, but we do need to remember to open our eyes.  And we do need to make better choices – and take responsibility for our choices.

It’s time to open our eyes and re-look at our own business. We need to take more time out of working IN the business and start working more cleverly ON the business.

Most business owners don’t make enough time to work ON their business. Generally, it’s not because they don’t want to, but because they get so caught up in the “doing” of their business that they have no time or energy left to figure out what needs to be done to extract themselves from their own business.

But that is just continuing the Business Blindness – and continuing life on the treadmill!

One definition of insanity is “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.   To get Business Freedom, you don’t want to be doing the same things over and over again – if they are not working for you. You will need to be doing things differently. And you’ll probably need to be doing different things.

It’s important to realize you can change. Things can change. You can change the things you do.

Some Big Questions for you…

1. Do you want your Business Freedom?
2. What type of Business Freedom do you want?
3. To get that type of Business Freedom, what needs to change? and then…
4. How do you do it?

Removing yourself from your business will give you your business freedom and build the value of your business.

Another major point in my recent talk with John Warrillow, author of Built to Sell, is not just to get your business in a condition that will make it attractive for others to buy but also to focus on getting it into a condition that will make it attractive for you to keep.

Getting your business running as a profitable cash generating machine operating without you can make your business a very valuable asset for someone else, but it also gives you plenty of options for the future if you keep the business. You can have your business freedom and the time and money to enjoy it.

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MBF 005 | How To Value A Small Business
By Richard Keeves
August 31, 2010

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This episode, we discuss how to value a small to medium sized business. And we get some special tips to help you get a lot more for your business when it comes time to sell.

We look at the business valuation question from different points of view. The seller and the buyer will probably have different ideas of valuation, and when you start throwing accountants and lawyers into the mix, it can get even more confusing. Many people start off with an independent valuation from a professional business valuer.

This episode, we explore how business valuers think. We explore the reasons why some small businesses are worth more than others, and these reasons are not always obvious.

We find out about typical business valuation formulas and special “rules of thumb” that are commonly used for some types of businesses.

We learn answers to some of the commonly asked questions that business owners who are trying to sell their business will ask the valuer.

And we also learn questions that really need to be asked but often are not, generally because business owners don’t know to ask them. It’s another example of how ignorance is not bliss and it can be very expensive.

So, why is this important? Well, at one level it’s pretty obvious. You want to sell your business for as much as you can. But a good deal is a win-win – and ideally it’s got to work for everyone involved.

But more importantly, the sooner you start thinking about your business and how it may be valued by someone else, the sooner you can start taking steps – today – to re-shape your business and turn it into an even more valuable asset.

Download the episode transcript in PDF here (411kb)

Do you know what gives your business value to a prospective buyer? And how do you increase that value?

And have you found business valuation formulas to be different to those covered here?

 

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MBF 004 | Exit Strategies Part 2
By  Richard Keeves
August 11, 2010

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In this episode, we continue our discussion on Business Exit Strategies.

This is Part 2 of my chat with Canadian businessman, and fellow freedom fighter, John Warrilow, author of Built To Sell.

I talk with John about:

• the toughest part in the process of reshaping a business to sell it,
• the best way to find the most valuable part of a business to sell, and why the most valuable part may not be the profitable part,
• the typical lead time to prepare a business for sale and then sell it,
• some of the dilemmas in having a family business and handing it down to your kids,
• if there is a different exit strategy mind-set for business owners of different ages, and
• how to avoid becoming complacent with your business

And John tells me how he thinks entrepreneurship is a bit like baseball, and what a home run looks like…

Download the episode transcript in PDF here (367kb)

If you really want to maximize the price of your business but still sell it ‘soon’, how long do you think it will take to get your business ready to sell? And how long to sell it?

 

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When is the right time to start planning your exit from your business?

“Begin with the end in mind,” writes Stephen Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.

How many business owners have actually done that, anyway? Let’s take a look at some statistics I came across with last year.

Some research by the Commonwealth Bank in Australia showed that only 47% of small business owners have an exit strategy such as selling their business. Of those with an exit strategy, 22% intended to just close their doors and walk away. The report also said that 60% of business owners planning to close shop are still actively re-investing profits back into their business.

Not only that, the same survey report also reflected that half of these business owners are working over 50 hours every week.

Another article that showed some statistics came from smartcompany.com.au, an online business publication which published a research conducted by Pitcher Partners, an accounting firm, also based in Australia.

Pitcher Partners found that the average age of small business owners is 55 years and 81% of them plan to retire in the next ten years. However, 75% of them had no business exit strategy.

In another survey, the Cameron Research Group showed than only 10% of small business owners had a documented succession plan. Another 44% had thought about succession but had no plan and nearly half or 46% had not given any thought to succession. Only 15% of small business owners intending to exit their business in the next five years had a documented succession plan.

At one level, this is a tragedy waiting to happen. In a few years time, there will be a lot of unhappy business owners.

Sadly, it’s a tragedy already. This is a ‘problem’. There are so many people running their businesses without exit strategies laid out – and they will want to get out of it at some point, but, sadly, they don’t have a plan on how to do this.

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MBF 003 | Exit Strategies and how to turn your business into one you can sell
by Richard Keeves
August 6, 2010

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“Exit Strategies” are the focus for this episode. We discuss research showing many business owners don’t think about their “Exit” until it’s too late, and what you can do about it.

And we talk with Canadian businessman and fellow freedom fighter, John Warrilow author of “Built To Sell – how to turn your business into one you can sell”.

Download the episode transcript in PDF here (380kb)

When do you think is the right time to think about your business exit strategies?

 

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MBF 002| The 39 Principles of Business
by Richard Keeves
August 6, 2010

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In this episode, Richard Keeves outlines his 6 Essentials and 39 Principles of Business Freedom. These form the framework for the Business Freedom philosophies covered in MyBusinessFreedom.

With these principles successfully implemented in your business, you can achieve whatever business freedom means to you. Without them, you may stay trapped on the business treadmill

Download the episode transcript in PDF here (227kb)

What are you working for?  What are you building in your business?  And what does business freedom mean to you?

 

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“Now, hear, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep you in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

– The Red Queen to Alice, Through the Looking Glass

Many business owners get to this stage, where it seems that all they do is keep running and not getting anywhere.

They work so hard just to keep their businesses running and hopefully being profitable that their energies are drained. Stress levels go up, and effectiveness and results often go down.

Getting off that treadmill can seem so hard, especially while it’s going pretty fast. In fact, just the thought of jumping off the treadmill while it’s moving is pretty stressful in itself. You just know that somehow or other, there will be pain.

So, you just stay on, and keep running. Just to stay in the same place. And then the Red Queen comes along and tells you to run even faster… Sound familiar?

Too many business owners become slaves to their own businesses, when what they really wanted was freedom. They started the business with a dream and desire to fulfill a passion, meet a need in the market and hopefully make some money along the way. But they get trapped in the business – and don’t get to enjoy the benefits from the business – including having a meaningful, fulfilling, and balanced lifestyle!
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How do you reply when someone asks you, “How’s business?”

What do you think, and what do you say? How does your staff talk about your business?  And what’s the message they pass on to others?

Over the years, I’ve been involved owning, working in, and working on various different business through differing economic conditions.

I was once told that a good answer to the question of “How’s business?” is to say, “Interesting, really interesting.”

‘Interesting’ covers a range of possibilities, and if the person who asked you was doing anything more than just being polite, it can open up an ‘interesting’ conversation.

Let’s face it, you probably don’t want to brag about how well you are doing, nor do you probably want to spill your guts with the woes of the world and reveal intimate details of the stresses and strains you are under. I can tell you, I’ve tried both ways – plus a whole lot more.

After years of trying different responses, I sincerely believe that the best response is, “Business Is Great!”  It works, no matter who you are talking to – customers, suppliers or staff.

Now, my next comment may seem more than a little self-absorbed and not very customer-focused, but the most important person you can be talking to about how business is, is yourself.

Yep, I sincerely believe that how you talk to yourself and how you choose to see the world is the foundation of how your business will be.  After that, your staff is the next important. Then your customers. Then others…

So, is business really “great”?  Or is this some positive-thinking delusion-inducing affirmation that you are using simply to con yourself and others?

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