Blog Articles

What’s your next move?

 

Whenever we go through a period of flux, there comes a moment when we think to ourselves

 

• Am I on the right track?
• Is what I’m doing the best way?
• What should I do next?

 

The good news is…. you’re asking the ‘right’ questions

 

Most people out there will simply be do nothing, paralysed by the fear of doing something different for fear that it will be the wrong thing to do.

 

This my friend is the entrepreneur’s moment and the moment when we realise, we are either a risk taker or we are risk averse!!

 

The funny thing is, many of my friends and family think I’m a huge risk taker, but the truth is I’m actually NOT!

 

I’m someone who only ever takes educated risks which means that in the background I’m constantly analysing what my competitors are saying and more importantly doing, I then cross this with what ‘I’ see customers of my service doing before making a decision to take any given action.

 

If you’re reading this and saying to yourself, that’s all very nice for you John but that doesn’t tell me what my next move should be, I’d like to encourage you to run the same process I’ve found works for me more times than not.

 

Step 1 – STOP and take some time out to re-calibrate on what is and is not working.

 

Step 2 – Go back to your vision board of what winning is to you i.e., what your life looks like when you’ve won and compare that with where you are now, is it still on point?

 

Step 3 – Create a mind map of all of the major stages that you've got to go through on the journey to arriving at your own personal nirvana.

 

Step 4 – Create a sequence list of exactly what you’ve got to do in order to hit that next milestone.

 

Step 5 – Start taking massive action to knock off the next tasks to get you to that next milestone.

 

Does this now give you clarity on exactly what I’ve got to do next?

Does it make the journey easier?

 

What it most definitely does is give you the inspiration to be ‘inventive’, to find ways to overcome just about any challenge even if that means hiring in someone else’s talents to achieve what your not good at or capable of achieving on my own.

 

As the old saying goes, no man is an island and that’s 100% true when it comes to building a business that works.

 

I received a call the other day from a chap you has been at the coal face of his business for the last 10 years. Up until Covid he was firing on all cylinders and building quite a nice sustainable business that was giving him a decent enough lifestyle.

 

Unfortunately, the lockdowns have decimated his core business and he’s running at about 25% of where we was pre-covid. He’s burnt through his bounce back loan and there’s no sign of his previous clients coming back on-line any time soon. He doesn’t want to borrow any more money in case he’s throwing good money after bad, and his confidence has taken a huge hit.

 

So what’s his next move???

 

Experience tells me that this is not so much a business challenge as a ‘confidence’ and ‘perspective’ challenge, in that ‘if’ he were to take a helicopter trip over his business and the landscape that it sits in, he just might see where all of the opportunities actually are, BUT and it’s a great big fat BUT, that would mean he would have to come out of the business to be able to see it with fresh eyes before he can go about the task of becoming seriously inventive (entrepreneurial).

 

Which brings me to a pet peeve of mine i.e. people not understanding the difference between a self-employed person, a business owner and an entrepreneur.

 

To me it’s a mindset thing, in that the self-employed have a very different mindset to a business owner and an entrepreneur is a quantum shift up from there and by 'up' I mean each have achieved a higher altitude than the one below in terms of how they see the business landscape.

 

As someone who buys into and builds businesses to sell, my focus is always on the answer to 2 very specific questions

 

1. Who would want to buy it?
2. Why?

 

My mission is to answer both questions and to do that as fast as possible for the price I want to achieve.

 

With this mindset, clearly the focus is on making that business's balance sheet, ebitda and net profit as strong as possible while creating a client base that competitors are hungry to buy…

 

I’m hoping this example has given you a light bulb moment that if, like the chap I’ve mentioned, you are wondering what on earth your next move should be? you now have a different perspective on exactly what your next move must be!

 

If I can help in any way, please feel free to direct message me and together we’ll carve out some time to get you back on the right path...

 

All the best

 

John