Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, as she interviews Conner Fennell, BOP Intern at My Business on Purpose Podcast- Tuesday Tools On Purpose.
Discover Conner's experiences, the hiring process, DISC test insights, tasks for BOP, and how this internship is shaping his goals. Don't miss this valuable internship discussion!
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
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Join Patrice Miles (BOP Business Coach) and Jessie Barber (BOP Client Connection Director) as they share essential tips on hiring interns at My Business on Purpose Podcast- Tuesday Tools On Purpose.
Learn the hiring process, overcoming obstacles, internship length, finding the right candidate, compensation, onboarding, and communication.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Thomas Joyner, BOP Director of Coaching, as they delve into the power of "Forecasting" on the latest Tuesday Tools On Purpose episode at My Business On Purpose Podcast.
Learn to predict financial currents and navigate your business towards stability and growth.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Jessica Vanbrunt, Co-Owner of Vanbrunt and Company, as they delve into Email Filtering strategies on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at My Business On Purpose Podcast.
Learn about streamlining your inbox chaos and harnessing the power of intentional email management for enhanced productivity and business success.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Nicole Grinnell, President and CEO of Bosun Solutions, as they uncover the keys to hiring success and recruiting services on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at My Business On Purpose Podcast.
Elevate your hiring game and transform your business landscape.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
Contact Info:
Bosun Solutions
nicole@bosunsolutions.com
+1 916-756-5439
www.bosunsolutions.com
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Trevor Covington, LBMC Senior Marketing Manager, as they uncover the secrets behind effective marketing strategies on today's episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at the "My Business On Purpose" Podcast!
Dive deep into practical tips and expert insights to propel your business forward.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
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For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210
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The number stunned me when I first heard it. 80% of a business owner's net worth is locked away in the asset of their business.
Can you imagine 80% of your retirement dollars bottled up in one stock?
The cash flow of the business can often quell the desire for an owner to diversify their assets into anything beyond the business. A business can be a high-return asset for sure… and with it, equally high risk.
A standard question for any business owner to ask is, “How much is my business worth if I wanted to sell it?”
The short answer is, “Whatever a buyer will pay for it!”
There are ways to begin to have an educated idea on what your business would actually sell for on the open market.
Here are four metrics that you will need to know when getting prepared to understand a reasonable market valuation for your business.
Before we lay out this framework be reminded that we are not financial or legal advisors and all such decisions should be consulted by financial and legal professionals.
First, all business owners must understand their wealth gap. This is the gap between what the owner will “need” to live on if the cash flow from their business ended due to a sale.
The majority of owners elect not to sell their business because of a lack of personal planning, or because they are not sure how they will continue to generate income.
You might have an owner sell a business for $5mm, and you think, “Wow!!! That’s $5 million dollars!”
It’s actually less than that once you consider taxes and other expenses and payoffs that usually occur in the event of a business sale.
Living off of the interest of what is left is usually not enough to cover the lifestyle of the owner prior to selling thus leaving the owner in need of an income-generating job…or starting another business, which is usually not in the desire of a recently exited owner.
The wealth gap allows an owner to reasonably look at what they will need “in the bank” in order to live out the rest of their life at the lifestyle bar they have set for themselves.
As an owner, you will simply take the annual number that you wish to live on in future years and divide it by whatever reasonable rate of return you expect to gain on your invested wealth.
You will then ask your CPA for a net worth statement not including your business. The delta between your non-business net worth and the large number on your calculator is your wealth gap.
Second, you will want to ask your CPA for a recasted set of financials showing your recasted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and ammortization).
Recasted financials will often include addbacks and adjustments. Say you are paying yourself $150,000 in salary and when you sell the business, you nor the role you play will be needed. In some cases, they will “addback” some or all of that salary to show as profit on the bottom line. This scenario would likely increase the overall value of your business.
Recasted financials are good to look at anyway and most CPA’s would be willing and able to provide recasted financials.
These recasted financials would then be calculated with an “industry multiple”. This multiple can theoretically “multiply” whatever number shows as your recasted EBITDA.
If you have a Recasted EBITDA of $1,000,000, and an industry multiple of 2, then a cursory value of your business would be $2,000,000, or “2x’s EBITDA”.
The fly in the ointment for many business owners is that the multiples of an industry or business or not controlled by owners, but instead by the private capital markets.
You can find a range of multiples for most industries on a variety of valuation databases.
The obvious question is then, “What affects my multiple and how can I be certain to be on the top end of the range of multiples for my industry?”
The Exit Planning Institute has found that 80% of the value of a business is locked away in the intangibles of the business, what they call the “4C’s” or “Capitals”; human capital (people), customer capital (how broad or narrow your customer base is), structural capital (documented and trained systems and processes), and social capital (culture and brand).
Put another, more succinct way, your product is not your product…your process is your product.
The following two metrics are likely to provide the private capital markets with a more appealing valuation multiple for a business.
Your business attractiveness score, and your personal financial readiness score.
Your business attractiveness evaluates both objective and subjective business issues such as intellectual property, customer concentration, documented systems and processes, company documentation, and management issues among many other factors.
Your personal financial readiness assesses your readiness regarding written personal plans, personal financial plans, advisory team members, and transition planning among other factors.
Too many owners naively think, “Well, I’ll just sell the business when I’m ready to retire.” That is far too simplistic for most and not very thoughtful to the hundreds or thousands of people who will be impacted by your transition.
With a projected 80% of your potential net worth locked away in your business, you owe it to your family to think intentionally through the value and the future transition of your business. You have built something worthy of legacy that others depend on, so make time to metrically and objectively think through your next steps.
For help with understanding your business value and what life looks like post-transition, please reach out to a BOP team member at mybusinessonpurpose.com/contact.
Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Matt Sohl, Creative Specialist of WireCrafters as they dive into the power of YouTube Shorts on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at My Business On Purpose Podcast.
Discover how YouTube Shorts can transform your business' reach and branding strategy.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Nicole Grinnell, President and CEO of Bosun Solutions, as they uncover the power of Fractioning on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at My Business On Purpose Podcast.
Learn how this tool optimizes efficiency and empowers businesses to thrive in today's competitive landscape.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
Contact Info:
Bosun Solutions
nicole@bosunsolutions.com
+1 916-756-5439
www.bosunsolutions.com
SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter
For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
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So, a quick thought on mindset. If we think immediately, mindset, whatever, doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. In neuroscience, it's way above my head, but I trust it, and I read about it, and it says, mindset absolutely matters. And we can actually create new neural pathways. That's a really big word. But we can create new ways of thinking that actually change our brain, and its structure, which is amazing. Mindset does matter, and our thoughts determine our behaviors and our behaviors just determine our life, really. It affects our lives. And so our thoughts is where it starts, and that affects everything, you, the folks in your sphere of influence. So it affects your day to day at life and work because those, as we say, necessarily intersect.
So I'll give you an example. We had a hurricane come through here on the South Carolina coast, and we all lost power. We've got several friends that live in our neighborhood, and we all lost power. Here was my mindset. Okay, I'm calling myself out. Here we go. We got a two-year-old. We need to bathe her. It's going to be hot. She's not going to sleep. Woe is me. We got a text from our friends who live in the same neighborhood who have three kids, and they sent us a picture, and they had thrown glow sticks in the bathtub and put all three kids in the bathtub, and had a party. Mindset. Right. I had a mindset that was bent towards grumbling and complaining. Theirs was a mindset of, well, hey, we're going to make lemonade out of lemons. We're going to just be grateful that we have hot water for the time being. We're going to throw glow sticks in there, and we're going to have fun with the kids. Mindset matters.
So the question is, do you have a spirit of grumbling or a mindset of grumbling or of gratitude? Are you making the most out of the situation that you're currently in, at work and in life, or are you grumbling? Because it absolutely determines, really, the trajectory of our lives. So mindset matters. What's your mindset? What things do you need to change in order to cultivate a mindset that is actually going to move you in the direction that you want to move or keep the mindset you currently have? If it's one like I had the other night, and we know the results, all right, it's miserable for you. It's miserable for those around you, and there's no way to live. And now science is saying, hey, we can change our thought patterns. That actually changes things within our brain that will ultimately change our lives.
So y'all have a great day, have a great weekend, and we'll talk soon.
Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach and Chris Whelan, Owner of WSI Digital Win as they unravel the power of Google Guaranteed on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at the Business On Purpose Podcast.
Learn how this game-changing tool can transform your business and boost your credibility.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
Contact Info:
Chris Whelan
Owner, WSI Digital Win
chris@wsidigitalwin.com
+1 502 552 2377
www.wsiworld.com/chris-whelan
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Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Mark Kenney, one of the Founders of Clinkit, as they unpack the strategic approach to utilizing Clinkit in your business journey and reveal how you can start letting your construction equipment work for you! Uncover practical tips and guidance for leveraging this tool effectively!
Stop letting your construction equipment sit around. Rent it out like an AIRBNB... just Clinkit!
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
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For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
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There were some industries through the pandemic that hit the jackpot with a flood of cash into the market. Real estate and construction were beneficiaries en masse drawing value from a unique cultural cocktail of a geographically mobile workforce, a shortage of housing inventory, and a rush of available cash into the market.
Sales roles in this unique market began to belly up at the bar of counter sales limiting the time needed to “beat the streets” and “shake the bushes”.
Moving into this next season, those who see growth and success in their business will be those who commit to the art and science of business development; the literal development and cultivation of new business.
The world that we are inheriting is a world captured in a simple, non-cliched acronym coined by futurist Dr. Bob Johansen…V.U.C.A.
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity
What will stand out in a VUCA world? Clarity and simplicity.
Sales is not hard…sales is tedious. Sales is the fuel in the tank of any business to ensure range and duration. Without sales, there is no fulfillment, no operations, or no administration.
You can have marketing without sales…for a while. Sales funds marketing, operations, and administration.
The VUCA clouds have formed and it is time for the bar-belliers to get off their stools and hit the streets.
Where do we begin?
First, ask yourselves this question, “where has 80% of our business come from before?”
Before you cop out and answer “word of mouth”, stop and reflect on who that word-of-mouth response represents? Friends? Past clients? Trade partners? Vendors?
Identify your top 3 channels. If you are in construction you might identify your top channel as Architects, then past clients, then real estate developers. Again, those are examples…so what are your past channels?
Once you have a top 3 list of the channels by where you have procured 80% of your business in the past it is time to coordinate and systematize that list into a series of proactive follow-up steps.
Next, take your list of the top 3 channels by which 80% of your business has been generated in the past and now identify the individual names (not just entities…but individual names) that are mouthing the word about you so that others are interested enough to call.
Add to this list names other names of those that could begin spreading the good news of your mission to their networks that you have not tapped into next.
You will be well served working to identify between 10 and 20 individual names from each of your top 3 channels.
Finally, take the names from your lists and start with the first, most lucrative channel you have identified from the first step. Open your calendar and begin proactively setting appointments to have Facetime with each person on the list.
I know…this sounds a lot more challenging and time-consuming than just sitting bellied up at the bar.
You might say, “We still have a backlog of business that we cannot get to for weeks or months, the last thing we need right now is more sales.”
You must reframe your thinking. The best time to sell is when you don’t think you need to sell. The market can smell a desperate business.
Work hard to keep your sales pipeline pressurized so that you can tap into it at a moment's notice. It is naive to think that the market will continue proactively walking into your door and placing orders at your counter.
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are on the prowl.
It’s time to push back from the bar, count your steps, and hit the streets proactively to bring value to your market by reminding them that you are here and you are ready to serve.
Unlock the Power of ChatGPT in Your Business
Join Patrice Miles- BOP Business Coach and Jessie Barber- BOP Client Connection Director, as they explore the power of ChatGPT at My Business on Purpose Podcast- Tuesday Tools On Purpose.
Learn how ChatGPT can transform your business operations and elevate productivity.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
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This week marks the launch of the Business On Purpose annual PREP WEEK for clients. Each year at the beginning of November, we guide each of our heroic business owners through a series of repeatable, predictable, and meaningful (RPM) steps to help bring the clarity they need to get their business in shape for the coming year.
Each year brings its own swirling mix of headwinds and tailwinds, and the business must be properly prepared and maintained in order to handle the predictable and unpredictable chaos that will come.
There are eight steps that we guide our owners through to equip them and their teams with the foundation to lean into their mission.
First, every business owner (including me) will go review and update their vision story. The vision story is a seven-category outline inviting the owners to detail what the future snapshot of their business looks like and enables their team to have a clear picture of what they are pushing towards.
The Proverb is self-evident, “where there is no vision, people scatter” (29:18).
Next, each owner will write an annual letter to their business…even if the business only has a few employees.
The concept of the annual letter was inspired by Jeff Bezos’ 1997 shareholder letter where he went back and reviewed the prior year, a brief history of Amazon, and his anticipation of what was to come. It was powerful and insightful to go back and read that letter in contrast to where Amazon is today.
An annual letter works as a reflection, a vision boost, and a chronicle of the history of your business. Each owner will then read their letter to the entire team either at the end of this year, or at the beginning of next. Hemingway is not the goal…just a simple reflection and anticipation of the business.
The third tool of annual preparation is the business’ culture calendar. The culture of any organization is simply the growth and culmination of whatever cultural ingredients have been planted.
Plant chaos and confusion and your culture will follow suit. Plant clarity byway of repetition, predictability, and meaning…your culture will follow suit.
A culture calendar is a timeline through the following year showing exactly what ingredients will be installed (team meetings, check ins, training, birthdays, whatever you want) and when those ingredients will be planted, watered, and fertilized.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth tools all have to do with an owners business financials taking a past, present, and future look.
Reviewing the past will require an owner to make time to review the business balance sheets and profit and loss statements from prior years. These will provide a visual “flow” of the business finances as the owner moves into the next two steps in the financial preparation stage.
To review the present financials we ask each owner to go back and see the continuity of their Level Two Dashboard. All BOP clients are encouraged to subdivide their bank accounts beyond the one, two, or three accounts typically held by a business.
A BOP business will subdivide all receivables into 5 to 10 different bank accounts each designated for various business or profit purposes.
As these receivables are “flushed” or “swept” into the various accounts, a simple spreadsheet template (Level Two Dashboard) tracks the flow of those accounts giving the owner a helpful snapshot of the “water levels” of their business.
During annual preparation, each business owner makes time to review and adjust the percentages they have allocated to each account ensuring profitability and retained cash for growth.
Having a good perspective of what has happened and what is happening, owners will now run a simple exercise of determining a helpful budget that will guide them in decision making throughout the next year. It is a fiscal map of sorts reminding the owner and team of how much they were going to allot to certain activities for the coming year.
We talk all the time about the reality that for business owners, life and business necessarily intersect. In the final steps of BOP PREP WEEK we invite each owner to go home and have some necessary planning conversations with the people they share a home with.
The seventh, and often toughest (and yet most productive) conversation is a guided discussion around personal finances called the Financial Barn. This exercise allows the owner and their spouse to walk through every area of generosity, spending and investment that will be flowing in and out of their home finances in the upcoming year. It can be uncomfortable, and yet it is healthy and good.
Finally, with the eighth step comes the less-than-exciting work of legacy planning as we ask each owner to connect with their advisory professionals to audit and discuss the legacy and protection issues of insurance, financial advisory, legal/estate, etc.
With business ownership comes increasing risks of exposure and the need for planning and protection.
Unfortunately most business owners never make the time for these important steps in their annual planning. But we know you are different, and that you will make a decision to make the time to build a business on purpose because life and business necessarily intersect.
Reach out if you need help at mybusinessonpurpose.com/contact.
Unleash the Power of the Master Process Roadmap!
Join Patrice Miles- BOP Business Coach and Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn- New South Family Medicine and Medspa as they delve into the power Master Process Roadmap at My Business on Purpose Podcast- Tuesday Tools On Purpose.
Discover how Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn leveraged this game-changing tool to streamline her operations and achieve stunning success.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter
For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210
SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1
Revolutionize your business with the power of "Reels"!
Join BOP Business Coach Patrice Miles and Business Coach Brent Whitaker as they delve into the power of Reels on the My Business On Purpose Podcast: Tuesday Tools On Purpose.
Discover why Reels are more than just a trend—they're a game-changer for your business! Learn the importance, gain insights, and walk away with actionable strategies to level up your brand.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter
For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210
SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1
"Hey, Brent, what are unique core values?" Well, they're just that! Not to sound flippant, they're unique to you, to your business, to your family. 'Cause yes, we create those with our clients for their businesses and for their family because operating out of those filtering decisions through their unique core values makes a huge difference in life and work.
I got these the other day from a client that we work with. These are their family core values. Listen to these. These aren't integrity. These aren't discipline, these aren't, um, honesty. Those are core values.
We should all at our core have those values. Unique core values are just that. One of theirs was "Be where your feet are". And they, you know, the challenge is to, to define that. What is "Be where your feet" are mean. It means to be present. When we are at home, we are focusing on family and relationships. When we are at work, we are focused on work. We're being intentional.
Uh, being intentional to be in the moment, to be present and checked in. One of theirs is "Rest". Good gracious! We all need that. This is how they defined REST- Create space from the chaos by giving your mind, body, and soul time to relax. This is vital to give us margin. They said spontaneity to keep, keep things light and fun. We value... listen to that. We value unplanned activities to challenge us and get us out of the day to day rut or predictability of life.
What do you think their family's gonna look like if they filter decisions based on the unique core values that they've cultivated? It makes a difference if you implement them. And if you define them, they are game changers.
So question, "What are some things you and your family value?" Create a space maybe around the dinner table, cut off distractions, set a timer, and just brain dump on a piece of paper, a Google doc. Just start throwing descriptors out there…
We value.. being together…
we value laughter and goofiness…
we love having folks over to our house…
and building community…
Make the list then go back to the list and start narrowing those descriptors down. If you value being together then maybe your Unique Core Value is “togetherness”. Use a thesaurus. No, seriously. Type in some of the keywords and get some synonyms. Use some words in front of the main world to make it stick…
Cultivating togetherness…
Intentional ___________ you get the idea.
Make it fun, make it YOU. Then, make sure you have no more than 5 Unique Core Values. Have them displayed in the house, talk about them at dinner. One question we ask is “Where have you seen us live out a Unique Core Value this week? Again, it really has been a gamechanger in our household, and if you would have told me even 2 years ago, that I would be excited about having the Whitaker Family Core values. I would have looked at you like you were from another planet. What do we want to instill in our family that will leave a legacy? Trust me. Your family will feel differently from taking the time and investing in these. Check us out at mybusinessonpurpose.com/roadmap.
LinkedIn Strategies for Success!
Join Patrice Miles (Business Coach, BOP) and Carter Polsgrove (Regional Sales Manager, Momentum) as they dive into the power of LinkedIn on the My Business on Purpose Podcast: Tuesday Tools On Purpose
Learn the best practices, tips, and tricks to maximize your presence on this professional platform. Discover how to use it strategically, whether on your personal page or company profile. Uncover the secrets to building a meaningful network and boosting your business!
LinkedIn Tips and Tricks:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YfLs65P-GolMBKUSTfrgXfQNW4HWQLnh/edit?pli=1
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter
For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/
LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210
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Futurist Bob Johansen describes our modern context with the acronym VUCA - volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
He goes on to explain, “Leaders will be buffeted, but they need not allow themselves to be overwhelmed, depressed, or immobilized. Leaders must do more than just respond to the whirl of events, though respond they must. They must be positive change agents in the midst of chaos.”
That is our very aim, to liberate owners from chaos and make time for what matters most.
Since 2008 virtually every business owner has thought, “when will the next recession come and how bad will it be?”
Yours truly has wrestled with the same question during moments of emotional and mental weakness in my well-documented struggle with fear.
Recently though I have wondered, “could I approach a market dip with enthusiasm and expectation rather than doom and gloom?”
I believe so, here is what I mean.
The lowcountry of South Carolina, where our family lives, has been on the receiving end of active hurricanes almost every year since 2016. It is nice to believe that we can hurricane-proof our home. The reality though is that the best we can possibly work towards is a thoughtfully hurricane-reinforced home.
I was in earthquake plagued Northern California a few weeks ago and saw first-hand the construction efforts of code enforcement mandating an over-engineering of residential spaces in an effort to thwart the devastation of an earthquake. And yet, there could always be a scenario where the disaster-proofing is just not enough…but we can work to build up a healthy resistence.
Even some well run businesses were knocked off of their foundations during the Great Recession. In most cases, the businesses that were recession-reinforced were able to withstand.
Here are a few non-negotiables to reinforce your business so that if a market dip comes you can go into the storm with expectation and anticipation instead of doom and gloom. These are in no particular order.
First, your Vision story is even more important than cash.
Liquidity (accessible cash) is a delightful tool that we would all love to have in excess, but what is more crucial is vision.
In a market-storm debris usually gets thrown around and if your perspective is lost your course can get easily thrown off.
Ed Sheeran says in his song Lego House, “I think the braces are breaking…” In a storm braces have a chance to break and equilibrium thrown for a bit. While the storm is raging, and when the storm is complete it is both refreshing, comforting, and re-centering to know and have confidence in your heading. Ship captains and airplane pilots would surely agree.
The only way you can lead a team to run is to write the vision down (literally...write it down) and communicate it with incredible repetition.
Second, cash will offer buoyancy and give you options.
In a typical room full of business owners if I had everyone raise their hand who could make it through three months of business with no revenue...not many would be able to respond.
The hurricanes here in the lowcountry exposed some businesses to the reality that they could not even survive one week of zero revenue generation let alone a few months of market correction.
We recommend that businesses have an accessible stash of three to six months of cash reserve to live on under the assumption that no new revenue was generated. This is not a move based on fear, but instead on wisdom.
A decision based on fear (or greed) is to have two years of cash built up (unless maybe you are a farmer:). Hoarding is not healthy either.
The likelihood of zero revenue is not very high in most industries. If you have cash, you have options.
One option is to float the entire business with no reduction of overhead, personnel, etc.
Another option is to thoughtfully trim the business expense in line with the new revenue. Obviously this is easier to do with a team of subcontractors verses a team of full time employees.
The most exciting option is to have cash available to purchase other businesses at a discount. Remember all of those hands in the room that would not go up? Many of those represent good products that are simply poorly managed and can be revived by your leadership. You may be able to purchase their business (assets, people, contracts, relationships, etc.) at a discount during a stormy market. You cannot do that though if you do not have cash.
The smoothest way to build cash that we have seen and exposed hundreds of business owners is to subdivide your bank accounts and metaphorically cut up each receivable that comes into your business so that every penny has a home immediately. When you begin thoughtfully watching your money…your money magically begins to be used with intentionality.
A third tool of reinforcement are team meetings that ensure the right things will be communicated in the right way.
Having endured the geographical displacement of a few hurricanes now has helped train us on the importance of predictable communication channels.
Obviously, our family is together so we are able to communicate in real-time and with frequency.
Our mayor has done a great job of communicating certain times where she would communicate to displaced citizens using social channels.
Our local Sheriff would also hold regularly scheduled updates accessible to anyone anywhere.
If you do not have a regular method and frequency of communication (i.e. - agenda-driven, leader-led, regularly set team meetings), then a market-storm will further exacerbate the irregularity, frustration, and unpredictability of a communication-challenged culture. Don’t wait for a market storm to communicate using team meetings, build that habit now.
If you have clarity of knowing where your business is going (your vision), cash to keep you afloat (your fuel), and a reliable method of predictable communication (your lifeline) then your braces are less-likely to break and Ed Sheeran will be a musical companion during an opportunity rather than a prophet of doom through a storm.
Unlocking Health Benefits Solutions for Small Business Owners
Join Patrice Miles- BOP Business Coach and Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn-New South Family Medicine and Medspa on My Business on Purpose Podcast as they dive into the world of Direct Primary Care (DPC) - a game-changer for business owners.
Learn how DPC can transform your employee benefits, making healthcare accessible without breaking the bank.
Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on. Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://bit.ly/healthypatrice
SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/ LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1
January 1 is too late to begin the annual preparation for your business.
Studying the habits of elite military and sports organizations you will see a theme of early and relentless preparation; a willingness to bypass the chaos of the moment and all of the random fire-stopping that comes with it, and instead electing to focus time and energy preparing for what is coming.
In business, we have a poor habit of future preparation and instead give ourselves to chaotic duct-taping and a strategy of “crossing that bridge when we come to it”.
You can do it differently and reap the benefit of early preparation with the satisfaction of long-term predictability.
What you plant today will be harvested 3, 6, 9, and 12 months from today. If you plant chaos today, chaos is the rotten fruit that will be gathered on the ground. If you plant repetition, predictability, and meaning today, the robust and fulfilling fruit of preparation will be harvested and replanted over and over.
Every year beginning in November, we walk our heroic clients through a thoughtful series of exercises to get them equipped for the coming year in an event called ANNUAL PREP WEEK.
The name is a bit misleading in that we now spread the work out over a series of three weeks (we used to do it all in the same week).
Our solitary focus is to liberate owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.
The purpose of the BOP ANNUAL PREP WEEK is to provide one place each year for each owner to master plan the next year.
We have structured PREP WEEK over a series of three days (one per week for across three weeks), and ask for a distraction-less two hours each day.
The first 20 minutes of the two-hour block is spent on a Zoom meeting in a mastermind including every client that BOP serves across the country. We use that time to inspire, instruct, and provide the action items that will be required of each owner for that day.
Each owner will then break from the Zoom meeting and spend the next 100 minutes on their own, with no distractions working through the various elements based on the theme of that day.
Day One of ANNUAL PREP WEEK is a day spent on preparing and tweaking each owner's Vision.
During their 100 minutes of day one each owner will work first on reviewing, tweaking, and updating their vision story.
They will then begin writing an annual letter to their team reflecting on the year that has gone by and casting vision for what is coming in the next year.
They will then open their culture calendar and update any cultural ingredients they want to ensure get embedded into their business culture for the coming year.
Finally, on day one, each owner will send out the Healthy Employee Engagement Survey. This is a twice annual survey of their team to determine the backend health of their business based on the perspective of their team.
A week later, we follow the same outline; 20 minutes on a group meeting via Zoom and then 100 minutes of undistracted, focused time and use that time for a powerful time of Financial preparation.
Most business owners go into each year hoping for the best with their fingers crossed instead of a budget set.
During Financial Prep day each owner will first go back and evaluate their subdivided bank accounts and tweak the percentages placed in each account and in some cases add an additional account based on the goals set out in their vision story.
Once updated, each owner will then open up their Level Two Dashboard. This is a simple dashboard that tracks the flow of cash within each bank account week by week. It is a real-life gauge of the finances of their business in REAL CASH. They will use this time to update their tracking dashboard with new accounts or percentages.
Finally, each owner will go through a simple process of allocating dollars towards a basic budget for next year giving a snapshot of where all revenue dollars might be allocated based on the vision they have written.
Down the final homestretch, we lead each owner into Day Three of Prep Week with a focus on the future legacy of both the owner and the business.
After a powerful and final 20-minute Zoom meeting with all owners, each one heads off into a healthy time of solitude for 100 minutes to first review their own weekly schedule. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. It is a sobering exercise to ask, “How am I spending my day?”
Next on Legacy Prep day, we have each owner walk through a sequence where they reach out to supportive 3rd party professional advisors (legal, insurance, financial, etc.) to ensure they are adequately diversified, protected, and equipped to deploy their assets in such a way that will ensure the vision they wrote is obtained.
Finally, in what has become the most invasive and freeing moment of PREP WEEK is when each owner sits down to have a necessary financial discussion with whoever they share their household with reviewing their personal budget to ensure it aligns with their personal vision. We call it the Financial Barn discussion.
Many couples are not in the habit of having this important conversation, so BOP helps to coordinate what could otherwise be an awkward time.
Life and business necessarily intersect, and PREP WEEK is a repetitive, predictable, and meaningful way to liberate owners from chaos by allowing each to thoughtfully prepare and enter into a new year.
When do you begin? Now.
A question we are asked by every person interested in business coaching is simply, and honestly, “So, what do I get?”
The first answer to your question is equally as simple, “Our goal is to get you what you said you wanted.”
The very first question we ask any heroic business owner after learning of some of the details of their business is, “What do you want?”
The question is both broad and direct.
Ultimately, your goal becomes the coordinates of the destination we set our sites on. If we coach you to somewhere you do not want to be, then chaos grows and overtakes. Our aim is to liberate you from that chaos.
Being coached by the Business On Purpose team also means that you gain immediate access to the BOP community, a team of coaches, support roles, and heroic owners just like you outside of your local area that we will connect you with both virtually and in person at one of our four annual live events.
You get priority access to ticketing to one of those four local events all taking place near Hilton Head, SC in the artistic town of Bluffton.
Each quarter we host a planned event with over a hundred owners and key leaders to build out their 12-week plans, or invest in an off-site team day. We want you to come to at least one per year so you can connect with the BOP community in person. Many times, we will work to have you spend time with a local owner so you can physically see how they are implementing the chaos-busting roadmap of BOP in their business.
Throughout the year, you have unlimited access to 24 optional group coaching meetings; two each month. These virtual meetings are live and tailored to the struggles and challenges you are facing. You get to work through those challenges with the mastermind of a BOP Coach Team and other owners just like you altogether at once.
As a BOP client, you and your team will have unlimited access to the 24/7 On Demand BOP coaching content. Every single module of the Installation Roadmap has been digitized so your team has access to this important resource outside of your mandatory 1 on 1 coaching times with your dedicated coach.
Many businesses now use the BOP coaching content as initial training when onboarding a new employee to their business. It’s there, why not use it!
The hallmark of your coaching experience will be your 1 on 1 relationship with your dedicated, and highly skilled BOP coach. This is a relationship that will start in the weeds of your business and grow into a connection that adds lifelong value to your life and business.
You will have 24 mandatory annual meetings with your dedicated 1 on 1 BOP coach that are scheduled months in advance, hold to a tight agenda, and are complete with coaching notes, action items, and follow-up discussions. These meetings are air-tight so you focus your time working ON the business.
Each year in November, your coach will get you set and ready for the anticipated BOP Annual PREP WEEK. Over three additional coaching sessions, you will join the entire BOP client community of owners to focus on three areas of preparation for the upcoming year: your business purpose and culture, your business finance and budgeting, and your personal life planning around estate planning and personal budgeting.
Finally, also included in your BOP coaching experience is the value added when the entire BOP coaching team meets each Monday at 4pEST to walk back through the scenarios and realities of the prior week so each coach learns from the others and we re-deploy new wisdom and principles back to you during our 1 on 1 time together.
BOP has perfected the communication feedback to benefit you both directly 1 on 1, and indirectly behind the scenes.
There are over 52 available touchpoints in our coaching relationship with you so that you are never left feeling aimless and unaccountable.
So “what do you get?”
You get way more than you probably need…but most importantly, you get what you said you want…liberation from chaos.
Hop on a no-strings-attached meeting with one of our coaches by going right now to mybusinessonpurpose.com/contact
I’ve heard a million excuses for why people don’t have the time to write things down, so why do we do it? Well, let’s dive in to that today.
One of our Core Values here at BOP is Write it Down. Now, it has a ton of different applications. From Writing down our Vision to taking notes at team meetings, to documenting processes, and even to producing Coaching Notes from every meeting we have with clients. The list of ways we write things down is exhaustive.
And yet, we get pushback all the time from clients and key leaders about whether or not it’s truly necessary. All I can say…it absolutely is. Don’t believe me, well two instances in the past week, not month, week, of when it's been worth it.
A little back story from the first instance. I was working with a contractor who was frustrated about the cash in their business. We were looking at their Level Two Dashboard, and pause, this is the simple tool we use to, you guessed it, write down the weekly cash position of the business. In looking at it, his cash position was somewhere in the neighborhood of 450k.
“There’s just so much pressure and so much fluctuation with paying vendors and subs and still not feeling like we have the buffer we need.”
So, what I did, was scroll back to the first week in January and just started laughing. “Hey, if you look back at January you only had 125k in cash in the bank to start the year. So that’s a 300 thousand dollar improvement in cash over the first 8 months of 2023. That’s a pretty impressive amount of progress!”
And the business owner was blown away. He could see with his own two eyes the undeniable progress that, if he hadn’t recorded his numbers consistently, he would have still felt stuck and unsure of the growth of his business.
But taking the time to write the numbers down and record them provided freedom from the chaos in a refreshing way as he entered the fall to where he knew his pricing was sound, and his operations were leading to predictable profitability for the foreseeable future. And he doubled back down on continuing to record and write it all down.
The second story. I was working with an installer who was so frustrated about some employee issues. “My guys just don’t get it. We’re so busy and so working so hard that they constantly complain about how hot it is and how they don’t like what they’re doing and we just don’t feel like a team right now.”
So, after listening to the conversation for 30 min or so, I scrolled back down through our coaching notes to look at what we were discussing this time a year ago. Sure enough, some of the same thoughts came up then, too. It was a seasonal discussion in August of every year as the summer just takes its toll. But, the good news is he saw that there would be an end to it.
The other thing we noticed is that we had spent 2 to 3 coaching meetings talking about materials and pricing delays and revisiting his estimates to make sure he could hit his margins. It was a period in his business that was so exhausting as he never knew what was going to happen next.
He looked at me after I finished and laughed, “Well I’m glad I’m not fighting those battles anymore!”
Perspective! Hits you right between the eyes when you look back and often realize how far you’ve come and the battles you’re no longer fighting. When you can pull the plane up to 10,000 feet and survey the landscape with clarity. To give yourself some sanity in the midst of owning and running your business.
So what do you need to commit to recording? Is it your cash position, so that you can know how your business is performing? Is it your vision for your business, so that you can know where you’re headed and make sure your team knows?
Maybe it’s some systems and processes, to ensure your team is set up to thrive in their job roles and can be held accountable to a standard?
Maybe it’s even just writing down your Core Values and your mission, so your team can know who you guys are trying to be as a business!
It all matters and it all adds clarity in the midst of chaos. That’s the goal friends.
But remember, it doesn’t start big…it starts small. Think of one thing to record each week and then build on that. And, as always, if you need tools or accountability for this…we’d love to help!
Thanks so much for listening, have a great day!
Let's be honest. As business owners, we can often be the creator of our own chaos, which means we create chaos for other people.
Hey, it's Scott Beebe with the Business On Purpose platform.
Make sure to go to mybusinessonpurpose.com/healthy and you can take a Healthy Assessment of the backend health of your business and see if you're one of those that stirs up chaos. You know, one of the biggest reasons of chaos stirring in a business is, lack of communication, which means a lack of clarity. And you go, Well, Scott, we talk all the time. Well, if Ashley, my wife, and I just talked, quote, all the time, that meant we're texting, phone calling, that sort of thing. But we never sat down to have intentional conversation on a walk, a bike ride, the back porch without distraction being our constant companion, then that's not really talking. That might be communicating back and forth, but we're not actually growing. We're not developing. And so we've got to do something different. The reason I'm doing this podcast is I just got asked about the difference between meetings. See, there's a variety of meetings that we have when we talk about the five foundational cornerstones of any business vision, story, mission statement, unique core values, hiring process being the center, we've added this fifth team meetings. Now, usually we get eye rolls when we do it right. God, we hate team meetings. We don't like team meetings. They never do anything. In fact, one author wrote a book, Team Meetings Suck. Or maybe the title is just Meetings That Suck. But nonetheless, they share a lot of sentiment from a lot of people that we've got to be aware of when it goes into meetings.
Here's the truth about meetings. Too often they're just a continuation of the chaos that we've done chaotically throughout the day. So we bring that chaos into the formality of a team meeting rather than allowing that to be a hub of clarity. There's a couple of different meetings I want to share with you. Number one is the good old fashioned team meeting. Now, I'm going to give you a rundown of what that agenda should look like here in just a second. But for most of you, you should also have what's called an operations meeting or a project meeting or a production meeting or in our case, for a business coaching firm. We have a coaches meeting. That's where we spend the majority of time following up on a couple of different elements around our weekly scorecards that we have as coaches. But more importantly, we dive in to the reality of our client work. Questions that we heard last week, conundrums that we were in trying to help clients through to help liberate them from the chaos of working in their business. See, if we leverage our team meeting to do our client meeting work, then we would never get to the purpose of our team meeting, and we would never create culture. Remember, Torbjørn Ekelund of that great book "A Year in the Woods"? He said that nature is God made, but culture is man made. It's manufactured. What does that mean? That means anything related to culture in your business was directly created by you. And the people you work with don't like your culture. Guess what? It's kind of on you. Like your culture? Great job. It's on you. Part of the reason we have team meetings is to create culture. That's right. We can create culture. We generate it, we manufacture it. We're not waiting in reaction to those things. There are other times that we need to communicate in a reactive format to see what's been going on and what we need to do to change that. That's where it comes into the project meeting or the production meeting or operations meeting, depending on what kind of industry you're in. Now, the over 50% of the industry that we work with are construction, infrastructure and supporting entities around that. So we talk a lot about project meetings. So we'll talk to a client about a team meeting. They'll go, oh my gosh, ours last 3 hours. Why do they last so long? Well, it's because we had to talk about all the problems at 31 21 Maple Street. Wait a second. That's where things begin to break down. See, here's the thing we've got to remember about team meetings. Project meetings is too many of them are not agenda driven and leader led. In fact, they keep the seesaw of predictability out of balance. What in the world is that? The seesaw of predictability balances two primary elements that lead to unpredictability, which ultimately lead to micromanagement. Many of you wonder what's the difference between micromanagement and healthy leadership? Well, it's the seesaw of predictability. Imagine on one side of the seesaw you have the right questions. Imagine on the other side of the seesaw you have the right time. If you ask the right question at the right time, you have equilibrium, you have a lack of chaos, you have clarity and you have leadership. But if you ask the wrong question at the right time or the wrong time asking the right question, then you are out of balance and you're now in the realm of micromanagement. So if you want to know if you're micromanaging or not, then just ask yourself, am I asking the right questions at the right time? A right question might be, hey, do you have last week's sales numbers? The right time. At a designated agenda driven, leader-led team meeting, the wrong question might be, hey, do you have sales numbers from 2014? The wrong time? texting at 11:37 p.m. on a Friday night. The moment we start asking the wrong question at the right time or at the wrong time, we ask the right question. That's when we know definitively we've moved into micromanagement. So instead, let's take the time and make the time and take the effort to build an agenda driven, leader-led team meeting. Give you the outline in just a second. And also an agenda driven, leader led project or production or operations meeting to talk about the actual work being fulfilled. So what's the difference between the two agendas? A team meeting should go something like this. We always start with BIG wins- Begin In Gratitude. We ripped that off from Dan Sullivan years ago. And so we start every team meeting, every coach's meeting, every director's meeting, and every client meeting that we do. Hundreds a week, starting with big wins. Why? Is because we can definitively begin in gratitude. We can set the tone of the call. This isn't some Tony Robbins, pie in the sky, toxic positivity sort of thing. This is really setting a tone so that we begin to work through our agenda at that point. Now, once we're done with big wins, shouldn't take any more than 3 or 5 minutes. We then move to our first agenda item that is walking through our culture calendar. The top side of the culture calendar is the date of the first day of each week. Take Monday of this week, and then Monday of next week, and then Monday of the following week. And then the left side of the graph, which would be the vertical side of the graph, are all of the ingredients that you want to insert into your business to build great culture. Do you want monthly team days? Do you want a weekly team lunch? Do you want regular team meetings, regular project meetings? Do you want individual one on one check ins, vision days every other month? Do you want unicorn rides for the kids every quarter? Whatever it might be for you? There should be 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 elements that you see that you want to build into great culture that goes on the vertical element. We call that the culture calendar. And then every week in the team meeting, after big wins, the leader of that meeting checks the agenda, which tells them to go look at the culture calendar. They review it, everybody stacks hands, and we move on to the next line item, which is 12-week plans. Now, if you're a client of ours, you know what those are. If you're not, it's essentially our goal setting tool. Every team member, owner, key leader has a 12-week plan. Goals with multiple tactics per goal. And so during that time on the weekly team meeting, no more than 1 hour, the leader goes around to each person after big wins, after checking the culture calendar, and says, all right, Tim, give us an update on your 12-week plans. All right, Hannah, give us an update on your 12-week plans. And so we're holding each other accountable to the business goals. These are not project goals. Sometimes projects might creep in, but ultimately they're our business goals. For the next 12 weeks to make sure that we have alignment in our accountability. Then there's also a line item at the very end just to go back and make sure everybody's got their action items for the next meeting and then we leave that's it. No longer than 1 hour. And if it bumps up to an hour, you cut it off and you learn for the next time try to keep it within an hour. Then the project meeting is where you can deep dive into projects. I would still start it with BIG wins because project meetings you're usually talking nothing but problems. So let's set the tone for something different. And then within each project, I would highly encourage you to set a timer. Too many of us owners get on our high horse and we start pontificating about what we see rather than really using that time to encourage, to leverage, to understand, to offer feedback and to gain insight. And so we get on our high horse because dang it, we're the ones who started the business and we start telling people what to do rather than active listening, offering feedback and then maneuvering through the real issues that you're dealing with. Each project ought to have an allotted amount of time. A project meeting really shouldn't be no longer than 1 hour. If you have to go 90 minutes then that's it. But absolutely zero minutes longer than that. Why? Is because you're going to exasperate your team and eventually they'll either leave physically or they will leave mentally and emotionally and you as the leader cannot afford that. So team meetings, project meetings should be agenda driven, leader-led, really no more than 1 hour. Always start with BIG wins, should have an agenda so they follow a method of predictability so people don't get exasperated with what's going on. And by the way, each of these to start with should happen every single week. And if the owner's not there, they should happen anyway. Just because the owner is gone doesn't mean we don't meet. What is that communicating when we do that? So that's the difference between those two meetings. And every business should have a version of a team meeting, which talks about the macro-level culture and goal thing and then from there should also have some sort of project meeting to talk about the in the weeds element and they should be absolutely separate. Why? Clarity.
Remember the RPMs of great leadership, Repetition, Predictability and Meaning.
All those together equal clarity so that you can be liberated from the chaos of working in your business.