Hey y’all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose.
The question on the table today, how to make your business adaptable? And I guess before we dive into this question we have to take a small step back and ask ourselves…
What does it mean to be adaptable?
And is it important that we are building a business that is in fact adaptable?
An article written by Martin Reeves in the Harvard Business Review cited that Adaptability is the new competitive advantage for businesses.
“Instead of being really good at doing some particular thing, companies must be really good at learning how to do new things.”
They go on to describe some characteristics of companies that are willing to adapt.
“Those that thrive are quick to read and act on signals of change. They have worked out how to experiment rapidly, frequently, and economically—not only with products and services, but also with business models, processes, and strategies.”
As I am recording this, the 43rd Ryder cup of Golf is underway! It’s a fun golf event played every 2 years between the US and the European team. An article in Golf Digest had this to say about the Ryder Cup,
“One of the reasons many—most—players crave playing in the Ryder Cup is because it is unique in that you are playing for your teammates, for your country... It isn’t, as Koepka points out, just about you. In the week-to-week tournaments that go on around the world, including the four majors, you succeed or you fail. Period. It is why golf is so difficult mentally. It’s all on you.
But the Ryder Cup is different. At the end of the weekend, individual records really don’t matter very much. All that matters is the team result.”
The best Ryder Cup teams in history have all been able to adapt.
If you and your company are going to be able to adapt, you have to be ready to adjust to new conditions.
But how do we do that?
I am glad you asked that question. We have ideas on how you can become a company that doesn't get left behind as you continue to adapt to the ever-changing environment.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.
Do you give anyone license to speak into your life? Does anyone have a voice? Well, let’s talk about why that’s important today. Good morning friends, Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose.
I was driving home from the gym this week and pulled up at a traffic light. Normally I kind of just zone out. Not really taking much in. It’s a great time for quiet and thought before a day of coaching.
As I’m sitting there at the light, I notice the truck in front of me has a license plate that’s a funky series of letters and numbers. I love quirky license plates. It took me a minute to figure this one out, but the letters were all caps. SG2BME. So Good to be me!
Bold! Right?
So good to be me! My thoughts started racing. Wonder what that guy's life is like? I mean he does have a nice truck. Wonder what he does? Wonder why it’s good to be him! Haha.
But then, I thought. That’s a pretty cocky statement. Like that dude is flaunting that his life is good. Did no one tell him that? Did he ask for anyone’s opinion about how that comes across? Is it a joke? Does he have anyone close enough to him that they would speak up? Man, I hope so...
Ok, maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but the question should remain. Do we have people in our life we give permission to tell us the truth? Do we have a tribe that we let in on the good and the bad?
Another example for you, my wife runs a small business from home selling teaching curriculum around the world. She’s REALLY good at it. This past week she had a mastermind retreat of several business owners who do the exact same thing. They watched several keynote talks and sat around in the evenings discussing their businesses. They talked about the areas they have momentum, the areas they’re struggling and both cheered each other on and challenged one another.
It was such a valuable time for her! To have another set of eyes watching her business telling her the truth.
It’s, in all honesty, one of the main values we bring as coaches. Holding business owners and key leaders accountable to what they say they’re going to do. Providing perspective and honesty when necessary. Encouraging, cheering on, challenging, and grounding them when the time calls for it.
But here’s the thing... we have to be invited into that space. I think sometimes we believe the lie that we have it, but we’ve never invited anyone in. We guard that space, because we’re too arrogant in believing that we don’t need it. Or maybe we believe the lie that we don’t have time. Either way, there’s a major area that’s a blind spot for you if you don’t have someone looking and speaking into your life and business.
So, take a minute to pause this video and think through this...who is honest with you? Does anyone have the freedom to tell you, “Getting a license plate that says, ‘So good to be me,’ probably isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had!” Now I’m joking obviously, but who do you allow in to that space?
Do they know they’re allowed in? If the answer is, “They should know!” That’s probably not good enough. Set a time and place for those conversations to happen. Set up a lunch twice a month to facilitate that happening. Tell them you want everything they got!
Do you need a coach? Someone with content to lead you through and game-changing accountability to match it? Yes, you probably do!
Only you can open up the door for it. Don’t miss out. Don’t be the guy driving around with no clue how he’s being perceived.
Last thing I’ll comment on is this. You may say, “Thomas I can’t spend all my time wondering what someone else is thinking and trying to please them!” You’re absolutely right. That’s why you give that permission to a select person or a select few people. People who care about you and will tell you the truth. NOT everyone else.
Find someone you trust and let them in today. If we at Business on Purpose can do that for you, let me take you to lunch and see where it leads. We’d love to match you up with a coach who can hold you accountable and lead you to a place of freedom instead of chaos as a business owner.
It’s so so worth it!
Have a great day everyone!
Although I am a child of the 1980s, I never fully embraced its music; too much hairspray and synthesizer for me. But for all of the studded leather jackets and the poorly designed Buicks of the ’80s, the famed duo Hall and Oates did have a song title that still resonates, Everywhere I Look.
They decried, “Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping, everywhere I look I see people shaking off all the old ways, so why can't we follow through”.
A modern version of that classic 80’s rock dynamic might declare, “everywhere I look I see wealth and stuff, so why are we so anxious and unnerved?”
In the west, we equate material wealth with personal success. I heard a statement last week that stunned me, “success is the sickness that is slowly killing us”.
Wow. Is that true?
Could it be that success (or our response to success) has a part to play as a catalyst for the significant decrease in human wellbeing?
Regardless, we have solid evidence and reason to believe that the well-being of our souls, our minds, our bodies, and our spirits are teetering on the cliff of discontent and isolation.
There has been increased attention lately from companies (Shoreline Construction, Nike, Bumble, Hootsuite, and LinkedIn to name a few) providing a week off for their employees. A senior leader within Nike explains their suggestion to, “take the time to unwind, de-stress and spend time with your loved ones. Do not work…”
This could be misconstrued as another line item in a long list of employee benefits companies are hoping will provide a reason for talented leaders to remain long-term. But this is more than a corporate benefit strategy. This is a real recognition that what we have been through, and are going through is unique, peculiar, and something worth acknowledging.
Everything is shifting.
Just last week I was attending a conference where leaders from a variety of faith and commercial backgrounds were in attendance. During a general session, a researcher began explaining the seismic shift up ahead for faith communities (churches, synagogues, etc.) Even the religious leaders, those most thought to be “stuck in a rut” are being presented with significant changes that culture is about to impose on their outward manifestations.
Minus the hairspray and synthesizer, we are about to find ourselves echoing the lyrics of John Hall and Daryl Oates, “Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping?”
Sleep is healthy, in moderation. The question is what do we do with the time we’re awake?
There are four disciplines that we can embed in our day-to-day that will provide us each a good rich soil for human wellbeing.
First, practice the simple (and hard) art of thinking.
Meditation is a common word used when discussing this personal discipline, but I don’t want your mind to immediately cliche this idea with a trance-like “ohming” exercise that most of us think of.
Part of the challenge of human wellbeing is that our minds are cluttered, confused, and foggy.
Just yesterday Ashley and I took our cars to the car wash. We drove in feeling loud and cluttered because our cars were loud and cluttered. After a wash and a lot of time cleaning out and vacuuming, we left feeling just a touch more peace-filled and orderly.
Making time (don’t miss that... making time) to think deeply provides you with opportunities to begin decluttering, organizing, and culling all of the thoughts, impulses, and invitations your mind has received.
Making time to think also allows for the space to replace negative, unhelpful, and degrading lies with uplifting and progressive truths that will literally renew your mind, providing that same sense of peace, orderliness, and clear-headedness that you know you want.
Merely thinking is highly valuable, and is a step that most of us do not intentionally take leaving us wondering why we remain so cluttered.
I literally schedule time to think... and then follow my schedule!
The second discipline to encourage wellbeing is reading and writing.
We now have no excuses to not read and write. Audiobooks are pervasive, and books have never been more accessible.
Imagine if I asked you, “would you pay $20 to spend six hours with Peter Drucker?”
Of course, you would. Books allow you to do that.
We obsess about getting to meet famous people in person. Why? Honestly, so we can tell our friends we met them. What’s more powerful is to actually learn from the people we hold in high regard. Meeting them will last for a minute or two...learning from them will last our entire lifetime and will continue to return.
If I had to pick one discipline in all of human existence that I would want for everyone to learn and implement... reading.
As you read, it is most helpful to write.
I’ve heard it said before, “if you don’t write it down you don’t own it.”
For the last couple of years, I have been writing a sentence a day (for most days) in a journal that is titled “A Sentence A Day Journal”.
Even just a sentence a day of what you have seen, heard, or read will be a powerful display of all that is being invested inside of you, and it leads to a life of well-being.
Thirdly, to have a sense of wellbeing, try to sweat multiple times per week.
Weights, running, wrestling, kickboxing, infrared hot yoga, dri-tri’s, biking, or a good ole’ fashioned powerful walk. Whatever you’ve got to do, and more importantly, whatever you enjoy most... go do it multiple times per week and sweat while doing it.
Get out of your chair. Stop staring at the screen.
In the same way that books are now pervasive, fitness is equally pervasive. You can sweat just about anywhere for any reason and call it fitness.
My personal goal is to sweat for at least 30 minutes a day for four to five days per week.
That takes the pressure off from feeling like I have to follow a perfect routine. I can just sweat, and enjoy.
A final helpful discipline to promote your personal well-being is to practice periodic restraint.
What are those things that you love and have been relegated to auto-pilot in your day-to-day life? Scrolling social media? That quick stop in for an energy drink and a donut mid-day? Coming home and turning on the numbing entertainment of that same show everyday?
What if you mixed it up once a week and did something else? What if you restrained yourself from that familiar creature comfort, and did something different during that time?
When we restrain from the comfortable, it pushes us to new places and new things allowing our eyes to see things we would not otherwise see, our ears to hear things we would otherwise not hear, and our souls to begin understanding new things that can provide a unique peace and orderliness.
Let’s write a new lyric, “Everywhere I look I see well-being and flourishing”. We can when we begin to intentionally practice those things that lead to well-being and flourishing.
Hey y’all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose.
It is once again the time on the calendar when the Business on Purpose team looks ahead and plans out our next 12 weeks of action. Each of us makes sure we get our 12 week goals and actions planned out, and we invite our clients and their teams to join us in the challenge of taking back our time and defining the important goals we want to accomplish.
The idea of the 12 week plan has been around some time, and one of the best books that has been written on the topic, I’m sure you have heard us mention it before, “The 12 week year” written by Brian Moran.
I tell you all this, because this past week I got my copy back out and started reading through it to prepare myself for the upcoming 12 weeks. As I reread some of the chapters and concepts each 12 weeks there tends to typically be a different chapter that challenges me and helps realign me if you will.
The chapter this past week that really hit me hard is titled, Interest versus Commitment. In the chapter, Moran writes, “When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit, but when you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”
Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season?
I was with a good friend of mine this past weekend at his annual Banquet he hosts for the non-profit organization he directs. I got there early to help out a little bit, and we were talking about the unprecedented times that most nonprofit organizations have found themselves in over the past couple of years. And we all know that story. We are still living it really. It’s not just for nonprofits out there, if for you as business owners as well.
But where I was truly inspired by my friend, was his commitment to this cause. He told me that living through the past year and a half has made him more sure of the work he and this organization is doing. He is not stopping. He is not taking no for an answer. He’s not making excuses, just moving forward and fighting.
That is commitment. I love the quote from this chapter that Moran uses, “commitment is an act, not a word.”
The 12 week plan is a powerful tool for several reasons. One of them being, the commitments you make... a.k.a. the goals you are setting for yourself, are for the next 12 weeks. Not a year, not multiple years, not a lifetime... 12 weeks.
Again, I want to ask you the question,
Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season?
If it interests you, this could be a long uphill 4th quarter coming up.
If you are committed, make some goals for these last 12 weeks, and push on. Fight for those goals. They won’t let you down.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.
What is every business out there dealing with right now? Employees and hiring! So how do you make sure you are hiring the right people, or maybe more importantly not hiring the wrong people? Let’s talk about that today. Good morning friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.
I can’t tell you the last time I walked into a restaurant and I didn’t immediately see a “We’re Hiring” sign in the window. Or go to a local nursery to grab a few plants, yep, they’re hiring too. Mechanics, Banks, contractors, everyone is hiring today.
So how do you make sure that you get great people? How do you make sure that you’re not just winging it and hoping for the best?
Well, here are 4 practical steps to making a great hire... EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
1. Build out the foundation for what you want!
I can’t tell you how many times I sit with a business owner to talk through why they had to fire an employee. It almost always comes back to this... we missed something. So how do you build a process to weed through the junk and know who exactly you’re hiring?
It all starts with building the foundation. Do you have core values you lean on and use as a filter? Do you have a crystal clear job role that this person will be fulfilling? Do you know the numbers you’re going to ask them to bring in or the background needed to thrive in this role? Do you know how many references you would like to hear from? Are there any technical skills you can ask them to display?
Or maybe you work backwards. Who’s your best employee? The one that if you could clone that person, you would do it in a heartbeat. What qualities do they have and what are the things you bring to the team that you need more of? Ok, now ask questions and look for those qualities in the person you’re interviewing. Ask specific things to references about those qualities?
We can’t always expect to train the person perfectly and hope for them to end up ok. If ever there is a doubt, we lean away from hiring. Because here’s the thing. When you make a poor hire, it always ends up costing you more than had you not hired at all! It affects your cash flow, your culture, your time... everything!
2. Meet multiple times and slow down
Your interviewing should be a process, not an event! SLOOOOOW DOWN. Our BoP interview process starts with a phone call. Just getting to know them. Hearing their voice and how they present themselves. So often people jump in with all the benefits of this job, salary, benefits, hours, etc... save that stuff for further down the road! After the phone call, we have an initial face-to-face interview. If that goes well, we call references and send over Job Role, expectations, core values, and long-term vision. Then we do another in-person interview to dig deeper into anything that stuck out.
Lastly, we do what almost no one else does, we host a dinner or lunch with their spouse to look for any further red flags or reasons NOT to move forward. It happens time after time. The spouse doesn’t get to see your culture from up close, or maybe he or she is not as bought in and having some doubts. You can’t see that stuff unless you go out and spend some time together.
When I got hired by BoP it was nearly a 6-month process. And you may say, “We don’t have 6 months!” Ok, I get that, but that’s because you’re hiring in chaos. But what would it look like to intentionally slow down and start preparing for future hires today?
3. Know your numbers and be honest on future possibilities
This one hits close to home for every business. We trade dollar for dollar on a hire, so we never have any margin for slow times of year. A new hire should bring in 2-3x what you pay them. If you say the job is worth 20/hr, or around 40k/year for full-time employee can it bring 80-120k in revenue? If not, it’s going to stress your cash flow!
Know what you can afford and what your employee should bring to the team. Communicate that clearly so that expectations are in writing. Then, that gives you metrics to come back to early on in the onboarding process. It gives you a chance to set the standard and hold accountable.
On the be honest part, in many exit interviews, employee after employee mentions they were OVER promised in the interview. You see, we want this job to sound amazing so we casually throw words around like “Upward mobility” or “Profit sharing”, maybe “future partnership” or “regular raises based on performance” with no real metrics for tracking and implementing those things. Stop doing that! You’re setting a bar for yourself that you have zero intention of reaching. It comes across as dishonest and leads your team members on.
4. Have an onboarding plan to ensure the people you move forward with are supported
We recommend meeting weekly for a minimum of 90 days for every new hire. You want to capture their eyes, what they are seeing from a fresh perspective before it is lost forever.
One of the things we’ve challenged our clients on recently is making the best hire possible, but also on equipping the people already in your business! It takes too much time, money, and energy to retool your entire team with new hires. So, how do you add needed pieces and equip the rest to rise to the standard? Training, training, training!
Don’t shortcut that. Don’t expect them to know what to do! Build out your process for getting them up to speed and then stick to it.
So, if hiring is on your mind. Like I think it is. If your team needs a boost and some fresh energy…
That’s it! Now go do the work and make your hires. The people are there. And they’re waiting for you to lead them
Have a great week!
Hey y’all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose.
I asked a few of my clients and friends who are business owners over the past couple of weeks, what keeps you going in your business?
On the not-so-fun days. The hard days. The want to check out at 10 am and be anywhere else days. Here were a few of the responses…
“Getting the opportunity to serve clients through the biggest purchase/sale of their lives. It is an opportunity to share my life, share my experiences, share my knowledge, and stewardship outside of myself.”
“The challenge of life that keeps me going in business. It can always be tweaked to work better for your clients, your team, and yourself. I’m motivated to create a life of freedom for my family.”
“Freedom … Although I work hard and it would seem I am “Tied Down” to and by my work, it actually provides me with the freedom to do something worthwhile, something worth doing, I love my work and the freedom it provides …
“Personal Satisfaction … I get up in the morning excited to be able to provide work for my hands, and in turn work for many others hands … I get to put smiles on faces, customers, vendors, delivery drivers, coworkers, concrete techs, Mason’s, laborers, supervisors.”
These are just a few of the answers I got back. And I wish I had the time to share all of them. Because there is not a wrong answer when it comes to looking at what drives you to keep pushing the ball down the field.
In an article written earlier this year in Forbes Magazine, they were discussing small business strategy, and they offered a column about entrepreneurs navigating seasons where they need extra motivation if you will. On that list, one of the thoughts that stood out to me,
Connect with your peers and share advice
The article goes on to say, “Take the time to study other entrepreneurs, whether they are your competitors or simply your peers. What are they doing these days that seem to be working for them? What are they doing that doesn’t seem to be working? Most people are facing the same challenges you are, and we all have a lot to learn from one another.”
Sometimes what keeps us going is the people we have surrounded ourselves with.
So who is in your corner? Who are the people in your life that not only celebrate the wins with you, but also will be there to spur you on?
I’m not sure where you are in your business right now. Maybe things are going great, and you are living in a season that you wish would never end.
If that’s the case, take some stock right now. Take the time to make mental and written notes about what is going on, how you are feeling. Bottle it up if you will, because as we all know as a business owner those times can often be fleeting. But don’t forget the feeling you have... it might be what you need to keep you going down the road.
Or maybe you are in a tough/difficult season. The kind of season where you ask yourself, is this even worth it anymore? Short answer, we would say yes, it is. So maybe if you are in this season right now, it’s a good time to make a list and remind yourself what motivates you. What keeps you going.
And no matter what season you find yourself in as you listen, do me a favor. Reach out to someone today. Remember those people I mentioned earlier, the people in your corner (it can be a co-worker, a peer, your coach, your best friend, your spouse or partner...the list goes on. But reach out just to tell them thanks for being that for you. It can make all the difference in the world.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.
What little things do you allow in your presence that affect the culture of your business? Do they even matter? Absolutely! Let’s dive in and talk about that stuff today. Good morning, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here, and I am so glad you tuned in today.
I was sitting with business owners all of last week talking through each of their employees and the little nit-picky things that frustrated them. One went off on the owner in front of the entire team... literally got in his face and yelled at him for 2-3 minutes. Another, was caught taking a nap in the back room while on the clock. Even another, had been caught saying that she fully finished an assignment and was caught in a lie.
Any of this stuff sound familiar? Of course, it does! It’s the little things that, in the moment, you push aside because there are bigger fires to put out in other areas of your business.
But what happens when you push these things aside and never deal with them? Never expose the behavior or have a conversation setting further expectations? Well, those behaviors become accepted and they slowly, but surely become engrained in the culture.
A good friend of mine had noticed some troubling behaviors from the leadership in his business. There were some small things that began to add up, but since he was on commission in his business, he thought... well, I won’t rock the boat. It’s none of my business!
About a month later we were talking about it and he finally decided to do something about it when he heard this quote, “What you allow in your presence IS your standard.” Whoa...that’s heavy. “What you allow in your presence is your standard.” Immediately he knew that by saying nothing, he was consenting to the behavior. Not encouraging it, but failing to act and do anything to right it.
So, what are the little things that get swept aside as you think, “oh, it’s not that big of a deal?” Are there little shortcuts your employees take instead of fully finishing a job? Do they fudge on time cards as they think they will just round up a few minutes to get the full hour of work? Maybe they tell you they finished an assignment, but really just did it halfway and there are mistakes throughout?
What do you do in those instances? I can tell you some of the responses I’ve gotten from clients.
“Well, what if I call them out for it and they leave... I don’t have anyone to replace them right now!” While that may be true, I think most employees, if spoken to with respect and without emotion can handle a little accountability. But this is also the reason for more frequent onboarding and training meetings. When the only time you meet is to come down on an employee that makes this way harder. But if you have a system in place to meet frequently, to praise often, and to handle accountability in a timely fashion, this becomes something that makes you better.
Or another response I get, “It doesn’t matter. Even if I bring it up, they just don’t care and will probably do it again.” My response to that. How do you know? Maybe they’re waiting to see if YOU care enough to call it out. Or care enough about them to sit down and lean in. Here’s what I can guarantee, if it doesn’t get called out it will continue to go on as long as you allow it. Because what you allow in your presence will become the standard for your entire team and that cannot be tolerated.
Or maybe a last response I hear…”I’m just too slammed to get to that today. When things slow down I’ll have that conversation.” Well, guess what, things are NOT going to slow down. And things are probably piling up because your team lacks training and accountability to do it right the first time. The more you push it off, the more these LITTLE things pile up and force you to deal with them down the road. No, deal with it quickly, respectfully, and efficiently. Draw the line in the sand for what your standard is every time you see a deviation.
So stop this right now and ask yourself, “What am I allowing in my presence that is affecting our culture?” What has slowly become the standard that we never intended to?
Write a few thoughts down, schedule a few meetings to address some things, or find a tactful way to do it at your next team meeting.
One of my favorite quotes by Dabo Swinney, head football coach at Clemson, is “Praise in public, criticize in private.” It’s powerful. Brag on your team in front of everyone, but maybe pull them aside to address accountability in private.
Now, there’s always things that need to be addressed on a macro scale, but don’t make the mistake of shaming or humiliating your employees out of an emotional response. No, be calculated, fair, and direct, but always in private when speaking to one employee.
Alright, I really challenge you to take the time today to figure this out. To reset your standard. It affects culture and culture affects everything.
Have a great week friends!
HELP! My business grew too fast.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Before we dive in...I want everyone to take a deep breath. You’re not the first person and you won’t be the last to feel this level of chaos.
For those of you who grew really fast…
Wise leaders throughout history have always been truthful to lead the faithful to understand, “in this life you will have chaos...but do not worry.”
I will tell you the same thing, “in this business, you will have chaos...but do not worry...you can be liberated from chaos.”
How?
Systems, Process, and Purpose.
Think about it... how does Nick Saban build a behemoth of a college football program in the midst of competition like we’ve never seen?
How do Novak Djokovic, Dawn Staley, Christiano Ronaldo, and others dominate their respective sports?
What you see and what you don’t see.
What you see are the game days, the trophies, the interviews, the lights, the flash, and the makeup.
What you don’t see are minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of preparation, of practice, of miscues and mis-steps, frustration, and hopelessness.
You don’t see the moments in the toilet, with your head hanging down, feeling like you’ve been kicked and it would just be easier if we did something else.
Ed Sheeran describes it in his British lore, “You have to keep writing songs and get them out of you.”
We all have immature and undeveloped leadership inside of us that eventually has to come out, and then it is refined.
How do we get a handle of a business that has grown too fast? The same way artists, athletes, and the military deal with a situation that has escalated too quickly.
Clarity and Order through TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING.
When I was at the University of South Carolina we had to sign a piece of paper for the NCAA saying that we had not committed more than 20 hours per week to our football program.
Thinking back, we had winter workouts, we had spring practice, our summer workout program, the regular season, and then if you performed well, a post-season bowl matchup.
Doing the quick math, a college football player will easily train somewhere in the neighborhood of 500+ hours per year, and will spend only 50 hours per year in live game-time situations.
We spent at least 10 times as much energy and effort training than we did playing.
Military training is far more intense than that, and for some, they may never see live action.
Chaos calls for systems, process, and purpose.
In his adventurous book Sea Stories, Admiral William McRaven re-lives a mission scenario where helicopters were called in for an extraction, and in preparation, they had planned second by second alternatives and triggers.
Emotion would not steer the helicopters because it was life or death.
Chaos is not all bad. McRaven recalls his time in the conflict and chaos of war, saying, ““War challenges your manhood. It reaffirms your courage. It sets you apart from the timid souls and the bench sitters . . . It builds unbreakable bonds among your fellow warriors. It gives your life meaning”
This fast growth you have experienced can provide you with meaningful stories, adventures, and memories. Or it can eat you alive.
How do you know? You don’t, all you can do is build systems, process, and purpose... and then do the hard work of repetition and implementation.
Hey y’all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
Where is the vision in your business? Or maybe a better question, where is the balance in your vision?
Looking back. Starting at what’s straight in front of you. Or looking ahead. Let’s take a look.
Maybe you are busy looking into the past of what has happened this month or year (or years past)?
There is an article written by Scott Petinga titled “Why looking back is key to moving a business forward.” In the article, he asks the question: how do you get the most out of your past to get the best out of your future? He goes on to give 5 examples of how to spend productive time looking back on the life of your business.
Those are just a few examples of what looking backwards can look like and what it can mean for your business.
So we talked about looking back, but maybe you are so busy with the day to day operations that you can only focus on the here and now. What is happening in the next 24 hours if you will? Just to survive and make it another day.
I am a present liver (not sure if that’s an actual term used, but you get the point). By design I live in the here and now, and if I am not intentional about looking back on life to learn and looking ahead in life to dream... I will just live day to day.
I’ll be honest, some days that just feels good. Focus on what is right in front of you, and get it done. Task, completed. Job, finished. Proposal, read. The list can go on and on.
Okay, so we have talked now about looking back on your business to learn and grow. We've talked briefly about the here and now and just seeing what is right in front of you so last but certainly not least...
Do you have the space, the margin if you will, to look at where you are, and where your business is heading? The direction you are going. The path that you're on. This is the “dreaming.” The planning. The “what’s next.”
Here is the reality as a business owner, if you are not taking the time to look ahead, no one is doing that for you. It has to start with you.
So how do you do it? There is time and seasons and space for all 3, but what is the healthy rhythm for balancing your vision?
Step 1: Identify your default if you will. Typically the clients we work with default to 1 of these 3. So where are you? Do you find yourself looking backwards all the time, or looking ahead and dreaming, or just busy with the day to day what’s right in front of you?
Step 2: And I’m sure you have heard us say this before... write it down! Go ahead... rank them if you will.
Do me a favor...ask yourself which of these visions are you best at and which do you struggle with the most? And write it out. Which vision do you live in, and maybe which you have been neglecting?
Step 3: Create the intentional time and space for each. Start with the vision you haven’t been able to do for some time. If you haven’t given yourself time to look ahead and dream about where your business is heading, make that a priority. If you haven’t been able to look back over this past year and learn and grow, make sure to do that.
Step 4: Create the habit. Don’t just make this a one and done. This isn’t Kentucky basketball...that one’s for you Joerdan...make this a weekly or at least monthly habit that you do for yourself and for your business.
I love cooking. I don’t do it as often as I would like, but it’s fun being in the kitchen or over the grill. It’s fun for me starting from scratch and watching the ingredients come together to make something others will enjoy.
Your business needs all 3 ingredients. A healthy balance with your vision.
Look back
Look at the here and now
Look ahead
Thanks for listening.
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The frustration was immediate as we were in our regular coaching meeting working through the action items to implement. My question was simple, “is the SEO company you hired providing you with their documented activity and updated results?”
The answer was deflating.
This well-established and progressive business owner shared, “not only do we not have reports and updates, but he is also degrading and makes us feel like idiots when we ask him questions.”
I lightened the mood by asking, “so is that the magic touch to win the favor of clients? If so, I need to commit to be more of a jerk in our coaching time.” The laughter came and went, but the frustration lingered.
Unfortunately, the common theme when talking to small business owners about hiring a marketing agency is simply…
A lot of money with very few demonstrable results.
Why?
What’s the similarity between a marketer, a business coach (we can self-deprecate a bit:), and a palm reader?
The barrier to entry is on the ground; anyone can hang a shingle and become one.
I’m not much of an expert on palm readers, but I do know that with any other profession. there are really great practitioners and really bad ones.
So how do you find a great marketing agency to work with?
A few things to consider.
First, NOBODY will know your business or be as passionate about your business as you. You cannot delegate your passion.
The majority of the time, we see small business owners abdicate the marketing responsibility to a distant, remote person who has you as one of many clients and does not wake up every day obsessing about how to grow your mission.
Marketing agencies, by design, have a book of business... multiple clients. They can only market what they know, and they can only know what you and your market tell them over and over again.
Markets change constantly.
A marketing initiative that works today will likely be tired and irrelevant in six months. It’s akin to a doctor having checkups with patients to monitor and tweak their treatments. Things change, and if you allow your marketing agency to be measured on activity instead of outcomes, then they are prone (not in every case of course) to hit “rinse and repeat”.
Second, because your marketing agency needs to see and hear directly from you (or someone in your business) you must commit to a weekly “touchpoint” with your marketing agency.
This is a very brief check-in on story, content, activity, and results. It empowers your marketing first to capture the nuance, the client successes, and all of the little bits that happen day to day that in most cases go unnoticed and uncelebrated.
I will say this, if your marketing agency balks at this as a condition of working together, RUN.
You are hiring them as an employee of sorts (on contract of course) and in many cases paying them what you would invest a significant part-time or even full-time employee. If they are unwilling to have a weekly meeting that actually benefits you and them... move on.
Thirdly, clearly write ALL of your expectations down before signing up with any marketing agency.
Please don’t be offended, but most of the failure of marketing agencies is not the fault of the agency, it is the fault of us as business owners for not communicating clear expectations.
Think through, write down, and agree to outcomes first, and then everything else second.
The goal of a marketing agency is first and foremost to either grow your revenue and margin or grow your brand awareness (which ties directly back to revenue and margin).
Marketers may disagree and say that it is more complex than that. For businesses above fifty (50) employees that may be so, but for businesses like yours with between two (2) and fifty (50) employees, marketing is almost exclusively tied to growing the revenue and margin of the business.
Write down your expectations and don’t be veiled. It will then be up to the marketing agency to decide if they can perform to the level of expectation you have set.
Fourth, don’t get sucked in to “number of hours” or “number of posts” per week or month. Marketing is about OUTCOMES, not about the quantity of any one technical strategy.
Views, likes, and impressions; we obsess over these because they are quick and give us an immediate snapshot into our public vanity. We know deep down that they are a bit like jolly ranchers... taste sugary but offer no long-term health benefit.
Unless you are willing to spend BIG money on paid advertising (and I mean BIG), you are likely to see very little return on direct social media advertising at the scale you can afford.
I know I know...someone reading this will be the exception. Let’s focus on the general rule.
Social platforms (YouTube, Blogs, Podcasts, etc.) are truly valuable assets IF you see them as air support to your ground game.
In most businesses, still the number one lead generation strategy is good ole fashioned face to face referrals and follow-up.
Your social presence is critical to provide authority and credibility when someone hears of you from one of their friends or contacts. When you get referred, the first place they go to learn about you is online.
Don’t be fooled, your online presence is very important...but it is not most important.
What is your ground game? How do you get in front of potential customers and clients face to face?
When you set expectations with your marketing agency, it needs to be around outcomes regardless of strategy.
MOST marketing agencies will try to sell you a marketing engagement that is $X per month and includes # of blog posts, # of social media posts, etc.
We have over 500 episodes on our My Business On Purpose podcast and we love providing that as a tool... but does it lead to us being able to liberate business owners from chaos?
What is the outcome? Not the activity.
Finally, know your numbers and set a budget.
I have heard it said before that a very conservative marketing spend for your business is 3% of annual revenue, and an aggressive spend is up to 15% of revenue.
Do you know how much that would be? And if you spent that on marketing, do you know how much that would have to return in revenue in order for the marketing spend to be worth it?
A marketing agency should be able to tell you, if you spend $X with us throughout the year, we will not be doing our job unless it generates $Y in revenue.
Outcomes, not activity.
Many marketing agencies are brilliant at delivering results. Just make sure that is who you are working with.
If not, move on.
Hey y’all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
As I am recording this, September is upon us. Which means football is back! High School football. College Games. NFL Sundays. It’s happening. I love this time of year. I was at our local high school football game a couple of weeks ago. It was the first game of the season, played at home in front of a rowdy crowd, and the atmosphere was amazing.
As I was keeping up with the game, I was watching the coaching staff having to make in-game decisions changing the game plan as it progressed. The play calling didn’t change. The pace of play didn’t change. And most of the offensive and defensive packages they had been in weren’t changing. Really, the change that was most evident came with the personnel (the players) on the field. Switching guys around finding the right positions. The left tackle moved to right guard. The center switched over to play the defensive line. The starting wideout moved to running back. The quarterback also became the punter. It’s football, these kinds of changes happen.
But it did get me thinking about some of the businesses we work with, and thinking more specifically about the personnel within these businesses.
So the question of the day...
How is your personnel? Your employees.
Are they currently playing the right position, where you are able to utilize their full potential?
We hear it so often with business. The idea of getting people on the bus, and making sure they are in the right seats. And this is true. It is also true that as the leader of the business, you need to make sure you are finding time throughout the year to evaluate your team and make sure your game plan is aligned with your vision story, your unique core values, and your maximum effort to run the business you have dreamed about and built.
Now, this isn’t just about hiring and firing... while that can definitely play a part in this conversation, I am more interested in looking at the current “roster” if you will, and making sure each player is playing the right position.
Here are a few ideas for you as September is upon us…
Having the right personnel in place can make all the difference in the world when it comes to your business. It’s up to you to make sure your team is moving in the right direction with the employees you have in house.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.