The Business Investment Series Finale: What a Journey!
“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” ~Sir Winston Churchill
Over the past four weeks, you’ve made quite a journey. If you’ve missed a step, don’t hesitate to bookmark this link – it’s your key to every post in my 8-part Business Investment series.
You might have started the first installment thinking that it was all about the money – that money’s what creates a solid and sound business investment. But by today’s installment, I hope you’ve come to realize it’s so much more.
Building a solid business investment strategy involves your intellect, emotion, finances AND your willingness to tap into resources to help move you along. That means asking for help. Shedding dead weight. Delegating. Admitting what you love and letting others take the reins on the things you don’t. It’s spending your income wisely and reinvesting in YOURSELF through networking and interaction opportunities.
And it’s about having a sounding board – a coach, an ally – to help guide you when you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Today’s post is short – because the meat of the matter lies in the other seven posts in this series. It ends with my challenge to you:
Bookmark the first post in this series. Now open up your calendar. In six months, I want you to set a reminder for yourself to begin reading this series again. My bet is your lists will change (and some things won’t). Your perspective on your business investment will have changed and manifested itself in incredible ways. Hold yourself accountable.
And at the end of the seventh month, you’ll read this post again. And you’ll set a new reminder. Isn’t it funny how it never ends, this path to improving your business?
Need help? Just ask! It's an investment...
“I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it’s half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me.” ~Althea Gibson
Last Thursday, I tasked you with making a list of all the places in your business where you’d like to “do better.” It could have been anything: bookkeeping, sales, keeping your office clean, client follow-ups…No matter what that list holds, we’re going to tackle some ways you can empower yourself (and your business investment) to make some positive changes before you’re even done reading today’s entry. Got it? Get it? Good! Let’s have a look at the wide world of wonders just waiting to boost your business investment!
We all need help. Asking for it, however, is another thing entirely, isn’t it? Now, there are people who ask for help because they’re lazy, but I know that’s not my audience. You’re the type of people who are self-sufficient starters. And you hate thinking there’s something you can’t do yourself.
I know. Because I’m the exact same way.
But I’m going to change your way of thinking about asking for help.
Asking for help doesn’t mean you can’t do it yourself. It means you’re smart enough to know where the best focuses are for your time and energy.
So, I want you to take that list you made last Thursday and figure out who you can ask for help. Take all of those things you wanted to make better about your business and embrace them. I’ll be you know someone who can help you with those things. And if you don’t, you know someone who knows someone!
And the asking is easy. Put humility first. Here’s a great way to start those conversations:
“I’ve always found that I have the best success when people refer me to things I’m looking for. I was wondering if you happen to know any great _________s. Would you mind keeping an ear out for me?”
And in return, ask them if there’s anything you can look for to enhance their business. People love to share their expertise and experiences – it’s the reason we’re all able to pursue our passions. When we allow people to share with us, we open the door to share with them in return.
So grab that list and match it up with people you can ask for help. And Thursday, we’re going to take that perfectly matched-up list and put you on your way to a passionate pursuit of what it is you love, accompanied by the people who love helping your achieve it!
If you missed any part of the Business Investment series, just click here to see all of the posts!
It's time to connect all the pieces of your business investment puzzle!
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Theodore Roosevelt
So, we’ve spent just over two weeks now reviewing your business investment on EVERY level: intellectual, emotional and financial. Today, we’ll chat about where the rubber meets the road: the point where they all converge.
It’s not at Starbucks or the grocery store.
It’s your every day business practices.
You, dear reader, are a veritable balancing act! You’re pretty much an expert juggler, yet it’s likely no one’s ever called you that. You’re an unstoppable machine when it comes to your business investment…but you know what? You can do better. We all can! And it’s not even as difficult as it might sound at first.
I’ll be honest with you: there are things I do better than others in my business. But just because I don’t do some things as well as others doesn’t mean they’re not important or I don’t get credit for trying. The key to building a better business investment is what we’ve gone over these past two weeks: identifying your intellectual, emotional and financial investments and seeing what we can do better.
Some of you have realized that you could be spending your money in different places. Others have realized that you need a colleague to bounce ideas off of, and I’ll bet one or seven of you have noticed that you’re not truly monetizing your intellectual investment to its full potential. This convergence is where we can all do better. And sometimes, we need some help.
I’m lucky that my career as an executive coach lets me work with people seeking to balance this convergence each and every day. And we ALL need help creating that balance. Here are some examples:
- Great with making money but NOT great at managing it? A virtual assistant and CPA can help keep you in line.
- Great with balancing the bank account but NOT so at client goodwill? A part-time assistant could make follow-up and thank you calls for you, as well as manage your email campaigns to stay in touch.
- Is your family vacation the same weekend as a great conference you want to attend? Split the cost with a friend or colleague and attend “virtually” for half price! R&R and education – easy.
Now, here’s your action task for today: make a list of places in your business (and personal) life you’d like to add more balance. On Tuesday, we’re going to talk about how to get the help you need so you can do the things you love doing each and every day. Make it a great weekend!
Will you take the next exit? Your road to business success starts HERE.
“Many people make the mistake of thinking that all the challenges in their lives would dissipate if they just had enough money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Earning more money, in and of itself, rarely frees people. It’s equally ridiculous to tell yourself that greater financial freedom and mastery of your finances would not offer your greater opportunities to expand, share, and create value for yourself and others.” – Tony Robbins
You betcha! Today, we’re talking about your financial investment in your business (and I promise not to use my Sarah Palin voice). For the past two weeks, we’ve gone over various other investments in our business, all to have it funnel down into today’s discussion about money. Where you put it, what you do with it and how you spend it as it relates to your business.
I used Tony Robbins’ quote above to demonstrate one simple fact: you won’t be happier if you have more money. So here, at the beginning of our discussion of your financial investment in your business, let’s agree one thing: making more money isn’t the goal of your business.
It’s success.
When you consider your start up costs, overhead, ongoing expenses, payroll and whatnot, the dollar figure can be staggering. You work to sell more, do more – any kind of more to generate cash. The truth of the matter is: do you really know where your business investment dollars are going?
Here’s a checklist I use to evaluate the dollars coming in and out of my business:
Proposed Expense
Purpose
What will this benefit?
Do I have/need data to justify the expense?
What is my long-term goal for spending this money on my business?
This is a checklist you can go through even BEFORE starting your business! Every financial aspect of your business should be calculated and understood. If you understand what’s coming in, where it’s going and why, you’re on the path to creating a nimble business. One that can shift with you – grow with you – as your business grows. And back to the idea that your goal is to be successful and not make more money – you can only be successful if you build a solid foundation. Your intellect, emotions and money must all come together and have tea (and regularly!) and be honest about what they’re all getting from one another.
Money ill-spent insults your intellect and causes a break-down in emotions.
Empty bank accounts leave you emotionally stressed and make you wonder how you’re ever going to monetize your knowledge and skills.
So here’s your action task for the day: take 20 minutes and be honest with yourself about where your money is going. Maybe use the checklist above. Ask yourself: does the way I invest in my business honor both my intellect and my emotional well-being?
And on Thursday this week, we’ll look at all of your investing methods in a combined light. There’s a beautiful synergy you’re building through this process and at the end of Step 8, you really will understand why I called this series The Best Business Investment You Can Make!
Miss a post in the series? View them all here: Business Investment Series.
What are you investing in your business emotionally?
We’re getting quite a bit of mileage out of the list we made over a week ago, aren’t we? If you happened to miss the first three installments of my “The Best Business Investment You Can Make” series, here’s the links so you can find them with ease:
Installment 1
Installment 2
Installment 3
Now, today we’re digging into our emotional investments in our business model. WE can’t help it but to be emotionally invested in our businesses. If we aren’t, well…we should get out there and find something else to to already! Our emotional investment in our business is what allows us to tap into our intellectual investment and use it to its highest potential.
On that list we made last week, I asked you to fill it with how you feel about your business. When things go right, when things go wrong…we feel something, right? So you highlighted that list, and those highlights represent everything you wanted MORE of in your business. Things you wanted to feel MORE. More frequently, more intensely. Have a look at those highlighted items.
I’ll bet you they’re all pretty wonderful things, aren’t they? Of course they are. Nobody wants to feel more fear or insecurity when it comes to pursuing their passion! Highlighting those good things puts you in the right mindset to create more of them. When we preoccupy ourselves by focusing on all the things that weigh our minds down in business, we don’t give ourselves room to prosper. We take all of the energy that could be used to generate more of that good stuff and simply…waste it. We waste it worrying and complaining. There’s nothing good about either one.
To maximize your emotional investment in your business, you need to focus on the upside. Sure, stuff happens. It always will. But when you focus on what you want more of, it’ll come. It’ll make next Tuesday’s discussion about your financial investment even easier since you’ll put in motion a plan.
The plan, you ask? Well, today, you’re going to make a list of all the highlighted things you want more of in your business. Then, you’re going to put them in an envelope and hang them on your refrigerator. We spend a lot of time in front of the fridge, so you’ll have to see that envelope of goodness every time you grab a drink or snack. We should remind ourselves of the good things more often!
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Tuesday for Step 5!
