Business
The Future Of Business – One Thing You Must Eliminate
The Future Of Business – One Thing You Must Eliminate. I was working with a client this week, and a common problem almost every business suffers from arises. It’s human nature of course, but it inevitably shows up on some level. It’s the one thing you must eliminate if you plan to survive the future of business, the business world of tomorrow. There’s very little room for it.
Most of us move forward by feeling, we tend to allow our emotions to make decisions for us, not really a good idea. I’m not suggesting you eliminate it completely, intuition is important. Gut feeling saves us from our selves sometimes too, we need to have that instinctive sense. But that’s not the thing, it’s bigger than intuition or instincts.
Almost everyone I know suffers from fear, that’s easy peasy, it’s not the fear that’s the problem, it’s the worry that something bad might happen. It never does, well, 90% of the time it doesn’t.
No, the thing to eliminate is the fear attached to risk, the word risk is a bigger issue. It’s a double-edged sword isn’t it, damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. There is always going to be some level of risk in business, it’s the engine that drives success really. We all make decisions based on this fear, big and small, the fear of things not working out and so on. Calculated risk is the best place to be, as long as you have good perspective, all the information you need, and everything has been well thought out. Then everything comes down to one question:
Can I survive the worst case scenario?
The hidden question is, What’s the level of risk?
You see, the price of doing nothing is much higher than doing something, there is always going to be risk, so embrace it. There is always going to be failure, so embrace it, it’s how we learn.
Eliminate risk, risk tends to mean there will be a winner and a loser, don’t do that, fear will handle that for you….move forward always, don’t look back.
The reason most people don’t do something significant in their lives, is because they won’t pay the price of taking a chance, taking a risk. It feels painful, and we tend to stay away from anything that makes us feel bad. These people don’t learn, and they don’t tend to change the world, and we all want a better world.
Risk is good, but it’s only good if you have done the hard work to assess it, so make it a calculated risk. Once you have done the hard work, execute! You must eliminate the fear of taking risks, your businesses future depends on your taking risks to move forward, in order to make it more profitable.
When The Dog Days Of Summer Hit Your Business
So summer finally arrived, now it’s the dog days of July & August, and business has dropped off right? It happens every year, but most business owners don’t plan for the drop off. So when the drop hits, you start to panic, you make offers you normally wouldn’t make, you do things you normally wouldn’t do.
I too have the same problem, in fact, we all have the same problem, it’s called needing more clients / customers every month. We all at some point experience the dog days of summer drop off in business, or maybe it’s attendance for your workshop and so on. Why are we so shocked or suddenly surprised when it happens?
One of the best tips I can give you is this, find like-minded partners in your business community. Why not get together with 2 or 3 other businesses and work together for the common good of your businesses. Help each other get through the summer months by building a promotion that involves all of you, and share the costs evenly if at all possible. This is very common in the online world of doing business on the Internet, it just makes sense. The MLM businesses call this having the best interest in your success, why, because everyone wins.
Brainstorm ideas together, work the details out and promote it like it you would the Olympics, invest in it. This is not a new concept, it’s just one we tend to over look or blow off, mostly because it seems like it’s too much work. Well, welcome to the world of being in business, work is part of the deal when you started your business.
The work is actually the easy part of solving your problem, the real issue is foresight. Taking the time to stop and look ahead 3 – 6 months can help prevent these down turns in July & August. It takes effort, you may want to bring someone in to help look at your situation from the outside looking in, they will see things you can’t. Why? Because you are too close to the problem.
This all sounds so simple doesn’t it, if it was these short-term struggles wouldn’t happen to most businesses. So keep it simple, because simple is hard enough.
So, find some partners going through the same struggle in your area, make sure they are not competition : ) Pose the question of doing a promotion together, and get creative. Do something significant, not the usual giveaways and 10% discounts, do something special for your business communities / tribes. Make your clients/customers want to get involved, they have the money, give them a reason to buy. Your customers are worth it.
The Future Of Business – The Chamber Of Commerce & The Tribe
Most of us have routines, I have a regular habit of stopping into the same place for my morning coffee, no it’s not Starbucks or Tim Horton’s. It’s the Roasted Grape, the coffee is amazing and the food is even better. People think I own the place I’m there so often, or have shares in the business….I don’t.
One morning I stopped in for coffee, there was a networking group meeting at the time, I knew at least half of the people there. I sat off to the side drinking my coffee when I heard my name, they asked me to join them, I asked…are you sure? I know me, I’ll talk if you give me the floor : )
After the session was over, a number of people approached me to chat, that’s why we go to these types of events right? I tend to ask more question when I sit at these round tables, mostly to make people think, because that’s what I do. Much of my work is reviewing business plans, asking a thousand questions, consulting, and public speaking. Sometimes, 4 – 5 times a year I will hold a workshop on the future of business – the open and free business model.
After chatting with a number of people, I posed the concept of, I think your local Chamber of Commerce should adopt the Tribe Model. I was asked the big question of course, what would that would that look like to you? I had to stop myself, I didn’t want to just blurt out a bunch of thoughts without actually thinking it through more. I’m not even sure I have it clear in my head right now, but I want to get it down and ask you what you think of the idea?
The biggest difference between a tribe and a community is….PASSION! The leaders and the members of the tribe have a high level of passion for something, it could be anything, as long as it benefits the tribe. It could even be a cause. Communities are more of a “gathering place”, they’re kind of stagnant and are formed from common interests of community members, or the squeaky wheels. Great tribes are always in motion, communities are not, they tend to be pretty static and have a hierarchy that operates from the top down.
Communities are like churches to me, they think in terms of programs and projects rather than being in a constant state of flux. Flux merely means flow, and that flow is always forward thinking.
We should look for tribes within communities, but don’t assume the community is a tribe. Great tribes tend to be formed by people with expertise, desire and passion, but don’t put to much emphasis on expertise.
These are a few initial thoughts, it’s very high level, but you know who the people are within your communities that are passionate about something in the business community. The Chamber should let these passionate people build, rather than try to control them. But that would mean chaos, and very few are willing to let chaos happen, why, it feels to out of control.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this concept, or your ideas on how your local chamber could adopt a more open and free model, one where the members are in a constant state of flux. It would mean a radical new way of thinking about chamber.
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The Future Of Business – Making Money Slow
The Future Of Business – Making Money Slow. What do I mean by this, keep it simple. Most who tackle the online world of making money think in terms of getting rich quick, I would suggest you make money slow. Also, make your money goals achievable, trying to make a million in year one is not realistic. The future of business is about building, it takes time to build something bigger than yourself, start small and start building with the end in mind.
I get asked all the time, how do I make money online? In many ways, it’s not much different than offline, solve a problem, fill a need, provide awesome service, and be honest. Building trust offline is easier than building it online, mostly because it’s easier to hide.
When I started making money online (2007) I started with something I was interested in, something I could manage alone, and knew people need my service. I started with a private webhosting company, I serve clients and friends, it’s grown away from that model, but it’s still a size I can manage on my own. But I started with one question…do you know what it might be?
I asked myself how much I wanted to make per year from my webhosting, just using simple math, I did this:
$30,000 ÷ 365 days per year = $82.19 per day
That number is not only reasonable but achievable, that’s 7 days per week. Keep in mind, this is online hours not traditional business hours. You may have loftier goals, but I felt starting with something achievable was a better goal. It wasn’t about how fast or much, it was a building block, and then I would add another building block.
If you only want to work Monday – Friday, break the math out again:
$30,000 ÷ 312 days per year = $96.15 per day
It takes time and persistence, most people don’t want to wait, making money slow is better for a couple reasons. One, it’s easy to manage, and number two, it pays for itself rather than taking money from your household budget. In other words, I didn’t use my own money, the clients covered costs out of the gate. I still build business that way today.
I share this with you for one reason only, to help you stop making ridiculous goals. Don’t worry, if you stay the course and make money slow, your bigger dream and goals will most likely take care of themselves. It still comes down to simple math, providing incredible service, having a product or service people need, and then provide them with unbelievable support.
The old saying of “Keep It Simple” comes to mind, I once heard some say it differently, “Keep it simple, because simple is hard enough”. I hope this helps when you feel overwelmed, especially when you aren’t meeting your financial goals. This method may seem over simplified, but it works for me, it keeps me from getting out of balance, small moves are easier to overcome when they don’t work out, and sometimes that means investing smaller amounts of money. I always ask myself two questions before spending money or starting something new, what’s the worst thing that could happen, and could I survive it? If the answer is yes, I move forward, if it’s no, wait.
That to me is The Future Of Business – Making Money Slow.
The Future Of Business – It Will Get Harder & Harder To Get Attention & Build Trust
The Future Of Business – It Will Get Harder & Harder To Get Attention & Trust. I chat with many who say it’s hard to get attention online for their business. There are many ways to skin the cat, you could spend lots of money trying to do online what you’ve always done offline, but that seldom works. The online world is a unique beast, people don’t want to be sold, they don’t want to be yelled at in Social Networks, but they do want things on their own terms. And that is one of the many challenges business owners are facing everyday, but why don’t business owners understand, because it’s still confusing.
The two biggest reasons it will get harder to get attention & trust, it’s sheer numbers really. The first issue is the noise, I mean the volume of it, and you’re in there somewhere trying to be heard. Let’s look at the noise problem, there are currently 2.2 Billion people on the Internet, almost a Billion on FaceBook, and factor in all the other Social Networks. Each network has an approach on how monetize or generate revenue, and some have models for business owners, you know, FaceBook Pages, Google Plus Pages for business and so on. But 2.2 Billion people are producing a crap load of content (noise), and it’s a tidal wave of information, a giant global wall of noise, it’s already hard to be heard right? The second issue is….Well, there’s still another 3 Billion people coming online, and our tools have not progressed at the rate they need to, so we can all filter the noise effectively.
It is perceived, the larger the following you have online, the easier it is to be heard, and supposedly you are trusted at a higher rate. If we used the Industrial Age way of thinking, that would be true, but it’s not!
Consumers online are much more in control of you and your business than in any other time in history of doing commerce. It takes nanosecond for them to find out how ethical you and your business is, and if it isn’t ethical, you will probably never get heard again. Bad service, bad communication, and bad treatment of customers, are all on hypersensitive mode today.
It is perceived, that if you were an early adopter of any technology, you will be heard and seen as a leader, that too is not true. You may be for a short period of time, but eventually your output of content will be your voice, and if the masses don’t like your voice, you will be ignored. If your product or service does not deliver what it supposed to do, you will be ignored.
What does all this mean? It’s going to get harder and harder to get attention and build trust. The world is getting fussier, more sensitive, and has what some would call hyper sensitive BS protectors on. And that filter will work at a high rate.
So what’s the answer, probably far too many for you to adopt I suspect. Products & Services from this day forward have to be compelling, solve problems, deliver what it claims, and do so at an almost perfect rate. I can’t imagine what that means to be completely honest, a perfect delivery rate, a product or service that never fails, it gives me a headache thinking about it. Oh and BTW, I have the same problem you have, are you hearing me? I didn’t think so, too many people out there disrupting my disruption.
In the end, do the best work you can, deliver the best solutions you can, and be the best person you can…treat you customers the best you can, and above all, support them better than anyone else can. At least then you might have a chance to be heard, and your might be able to build trust through your efforts. You won’t be able to take a day off from these problems, they will be in your face everyday.
Deliver solid customer service and create a buzz, build a tribe, and your tribe will help you rise above the noise, and then maybe, you will have built trust.
The Future Of Business? It will get harder & harder to get attention & trust. Do think it’s getting easier, or harder?
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