I’m really not sure what the opposite of fear is. But I know that like you (and me), my clients have a lot of fears associated with being ‘good’ business owners.

Being afraid all the time, even some of the time, sucks.

I’m a big believer in the need to focus on our desired end result.

And since energy follows intention, your desired end result can’t contain something you want to avoid. So, I don’t want clients to focus on ‘not being fearful.’ Instead, I want them to imagine what it feels like for them to feel the way they desire. For me, that's calm confidence. 

Take a minute and give it a try. Imagine feeling great about your business and your role as owner.

How does your body feel? What are you thinking? Where are you located? Who’s around you? What are you working on? 

See it?

Feel it?

You've just identified how a successful coaching relationship will help you feel. Your desired outcome. 

With this information, you're ready to evaluate the state current state of your businesses and make an honest assessment about what scares you - what's standing between you and your desired end result.

What’s required next isn’t the absence or opposite of fear.

It’s courage.

Courage is what we experience when we are willing to take action despite being afraid. One isn’t courageous if they do something they don’t fear. 

Isn’t that crazy! 

By definition, you act with courage when you do something that frightens you or act with strength in the face of pain or grief. And fear is defined as an ‘unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.’ Often, the underlying beliefs we have about what it means if we fail, succeed, relinquish control, etc. are allowed to dictate the choices we make. 

If I believe failing will cause me to lose the trust of someone I admire, I’m not going to fully implement growth strategies that feel risky. I’m going to hedge my bets and keep things small to stay safe. Likewise, if I believe that success will create a chasm between me and family or friends who will feel like I’ve ‘become someone else’ or ‘forgotten where I came from,’ I may set my goals lower than what I know I’m capable of achieving so as to not jeopardize the relationship. 

Our fear may be based on a learned belief that’s gone unexamined, like the idea that ‘I’m not good with money,’ which we decide can’t be true if we want to have a profitable business. So we start behaving like someone who is good with money and change our beliefs. Or we might get caught up in imagining all the things that could go wrong at the exclusion of what might happen if everything goes right, in which case we need a new perspective. Then again, sometimes our fear is based on a clear understanding of what will happen as a result of us taking action and we have to decide whether we are prepared to live with the disappointment of not taking action or the consequences of creating what we desire. 

My hope is that when clients are on the precipice of being timid, pulling back, freezing or fleeing in reaction to the unknown, they will choose to examine the belief that is driving their fears. If they are, then how do they become courageous? 

I believe knowledge and understanding is where we find our courage and the ability to make new choices about how to react when faced with our fears about failure, success, being enough, having what it takes, securing the money and people we need, appearing competent, meeting the expectations of others, and losing control. But you may have noticed that simply being more knowledgeable about business topics doesn’t often relieve your fear of being able to bridge the gap between knowing what you want or need to do and doing it. Likewise, more information and new ideas can lead to feeling overwhelmed by too many choices and opportunities.

Herein lies the power of having a coach.

Coaches help create an environment where business owners can examine their beliefs, acquire knowledge and understanding, make plans, and take action.

For coachees, part of the experience is knowing you’re not alone. You are working with someone who has faced these fears before, challenged similar underlying beliefs, seen strategies others have used to achieve success, and is totally committed to your success.  

Your coach is also responsible for helping you DO the things that will provide evidence of your ability to achieve your goals. Some of this is a result of helping you decide what to do next to move toward your desired end result. Clarity of purpose makes it easier to decide where to put your energies. 

Another part is creating an environment of accountability in which you feel accountable to yourself having made commitments to your business that your coach helps keep you aligned with. This includes reflecting back to you what you have defined as your desired end result, especially when you might be getting off track. 

Other techniques focus on helping you create an environment that support you in making decisions and taking action aligned to your goals. This may include time tracking, calendaring time to work on your business, updating and reviewing your financials, creating financial projections, implementing a business development plan, using a project management system, writing job descriptions, documenting SOPs, creating a standing meeting with your team, and/or using standing meeting agendas. 

And, of course, your coach helps you raise your own bar, level up as they say, as you continue to grow your business and hit new milestones. Your coach should be committed to providing you with the insights, support, and encouragement you need to regularly reassess the current state of your business and reorient to new desired end results. This may be a shift from growing your team to finding ways to replace yourself so you can step out of day-to-day operations. Or you might be ready for your next adventure and turning your attention to figuring out what it will take to sell your business. 

Some might say your coach helps you feel the fear but do it anyway. I prefer to think that coaches help you examine the fear, and acquire the knowledge and understanding you need to make intentional choices about what you want. Then, with their help, you can take action - act courageously - knowing you have the support and resources you need to succeed regardless of the outcome. Each time you do this, you become more confident in your abilities as a business owner and tap into the pleasant feeling of calm.

If you’re ready to cultivate your ability to lead your business with calm confidence, the next step is to schedule a call so we can learn more about each other. 

We all know that the ability to grow and scale a business is dependent on the ability to systematize and operationalize. Where I see business owners and leaders fail is when they put systems and operations ahead of the humans who make them work.

Obviously, it serves no purpose to create and document systems for work to be done effectively and efficiently if the only people who can do that work are those who initiated it or who designed the system for their own needs. So at the core of operationalization is the successful assignment and delegation of work. And a consistent theme that I encounter with clients is that business leaders know that they need to delegate and prioritize the management and coaching of their people and teams, but they also feel that it’s their weakest area of leadership. In a nutshell, what I hear is this; “I respect that they're human, and they have emotions. But I don't want to spend my days managing people and their feelings. I just need them to get the work done.”

Understandable, but also unnecessary and perhaps even unreasonable. In my experience, you can maximize the impact of well-designed systems and effectively delegate using focused and intentional time spent coaching, and training, and managing people when you tap into the power of human nature.

It’s human nature to want to do meaningful work well and be rewarded for it. If you want to spend your days being a visionary and a strategist and have your human team spend their days performing at their highest capacity,  emotionally engaged and committed to their work, you can neither abdicate your role as coach and leader nor be a micromanager or therapist.

I believe it’s your job as a leader or manager  to ask, “What do you need to get the job done?” Then get the resources your people need and remove the obstacles in their path. There’s no need to step in and in all likelihood screw things up by trying to help or take over, insert your last-minute opinions, or dictate how something should be done through what I call “random acts of management.”

If that sounds like a dream come true, then there are three requirements you need to take into consideration:

• One, you must create an environment where people can grow into the work that needs to be done. No one gets it right the first time, or every time. So you must have a culture that embraces failure, rewards progressive improvement, and supports continual learning.
• Two, you must attend to all 6 of what we call the “Cs” – The Six Facets of Human Needs™ – as part of your company culture.
• Three, you must offer a path to higher levels of ownership and reward.

Granted, we can’t always make promotions available in terms of title or status. But if we’re growing and scaling the business, we can find opportunities to hire and promote people into higher levels of challenge, ownership, and compensation, which is one of the keys to being able to grow and scale.

As an example, I recently took on a new client who had a history of losing new account managers before they had time to really learn the role. She wanted someone who was highly aspirational, but she was hiring them at the lowest entry level, assigning them the easiest and lowest risk clients, and telling them that when they mastered those clients they could move up. I suggested that her next hire be assigned to a high value client. We made sure the new hire had the adequate level of clarity about both the importance of the account and the requirements of the role. We also ensured that the appropriate level of training and support were in place. Ultimately, we got an account manager who was performance driven, and rather than bringing them on the lowest rung where they would naturally lose interest due to the lack of challenge or meaningful contribution, we gave them the chance to contribute in a meaningful way from the outset. Now my client has a very successful employee who has told her, “If you had done what you'd always done before, I wouldn't have stayed.”

Another way to both protect your time and energy as a leader and to promote your team into higher levels of ownership is to learn to delegate coaching, mentoring, and training. Leaders, as they say, create more leaders. And when you focus on creating leaders within your teams, you’ll not only be able to scale faster, you’ll also be able to offer more opportunities for your team to be connected to each other, to have greater opportunities to contribute and meet new challenges, and you’ll be sending a strong message that you have confidence in each and every one of them.

The question I’d like for you to ask yourself is this: Are you looking at systems and operations as something your people need to support, or are you looking at your systems and operations for how they can support the people in your organization? Successful delegation that leads to increased business growth will always be best served by the latter.

Sweaty with desperation, sleep deprived, and wearing the clothes they had slept in on the terminal floor, I doubt any traveler in an airport, flying Southwest airlines in December 2022 would’ve talked about the silver lining in the experience.

Once, Southwest was the protagonist in the stories business coaches told about how to use the business model canvas, or as an example of a company that excelled at dominating a niche and exploiting a gap in the market left by incumbent competitors. Its mission statement has probably been cited in countless MBA classroom lectures. Its legendary people-oriented culture is evident in every punchline filled safety presentation or spontaneous gate-side dance party, the envy of many, lauded by flyers and employees alike.

Now we will add the Southwest meltdown of 2022 to the library of cautionary tales about what happens when a business stops using its values to make decisions, rewards short-term gains over long-term investments, and no longer takes time to empathize with its customers.

We've all heard these stories before. The ones about delaying repairs, replacements, or upgrades until something horrible like a mine explosion or derailment happens. Or the ones about big companies losing touch with employees and customers as they grow, conducting mass lay-offs via email. Some might write the Southwest debacle off as just another example of big business gone bad, forsaking customers and employees for shareholders. 

I believe that while being a publicly traded company with shareholders to please made Southwest's leadership more susceptible to poor decision-making, it would be too easy, dismissive and reckless to think small and mid-sized companies are immune to their own pressures to make short term decisions without fully considering long-term costs. 

Regardless of how many people you employ, how much revenue you earned last year, how your net profit stacks up to the competition, or whether you operate locally or nationally, Southwest's missteps provide important reminders about leadership, risk analysis, understanding your business and revenue models, being accountable, and being a good steward of relationships.

So what can we take away from everything Southwest, its employees and customers endured during the great meltdown that will help us build stronger businesses? 

There may not have been a silver lining but I offer you four golden nuggets, aka what we can all learn from Southwest Airlines: 

1. Great people can't succeed in broken systems. Systems work as designed. Southwest's scheduling system wasn't designed to handle the volume, complexity, uncertainty or volatility of current air travel. Workarounds reached the limit of what they were capable of. Highly skilled and deeply committed employees filled in the gaps, responded to customer needs in real time, and took a direct hit when no amount of kindness or flexibility could counter the brokenness of the system. The decision not to invest in technology sacrificed two of the company's most valuable assets, the trust and confidence of its customers and employees. Golden nugget: Put away the duct tape and chewing gum you’re using to hold things together. You know what’s not working well. What’s holding you up or slowing your team down. Identify which systems are 1) non-existent or 2) need improvement to support your business moving forward and develop a plan for building/fixing those systems. Using a work plan and financial projections, you can pace improvements and investments to align to your revenue goals. Putting it off won’t make it go away so figure out how to fix it. 
   
2. Know whose ass will have to cash the checks you write. I can't imagine being a Southwest gate or customer service agent over the holidays with people screaming in my face, sobbing into their hands, and trying to find luggage and lodging while changing a diaper on the terminal floor. Airline employees had seen some unthinkable behavior on an average travel day. What they witnessed in the great meltdown was a Defcon 5 level chaos that no amount of training could prepare them for. Chaos that was the result of decisions made by suits in conference rooms who were far away and emotionally removed while their employees’ asses were on the frontline. Golden Nugget: It costs you nothing to get feedback and input from your team on big decisions, especially those that they will need to execute and/or live with the consequences of. Your team has a wealth of knowledge. They can help you avoid unintended consequences or have a plan in place for if/when things go sideways. They can have your back if you have theirs. Consider what you might be asking someone to deal with, manage through, or work around. Don't blindside them. Give them support and cover. Put your ass on the frontline with them.
   
3. Make meaningful apologies. Southwest got slammed for the technology meltdown. But its response, whoa baby, that’s what really did them in! From being slow to offer refunds, track down luggage, and cover incidental expenses to then touting all the ways they were helping customers on social media, they missed the mark at every turn. People will remember how you respond when things aren’t going well. Learn how to say your sorry and understand what it will cost to make things right. If penny pinching got you into hot water I can promise you that the cost will only grow the longer it takes to make amends. Golden Nugget: Good news - we humans make mistakes all the time so there are plenty of opportunities to practice making meaningful apologies when the stakes are relatively low. Better yet, you can use this time to do some scenario planning to help you evaluate the direct and indirect impact of specific decisions. That allows you to anticipate the risks and benefits, as well as your response plan, before the dumpster fire begins. Sometimes you have to apologize for things you never saw coming. But when you know there is a high probability that a decision can result in bad things happening and you choose to roll the dice, you have to also be willing to pay the premium required to make things right when the worst case scenario happens. Think through what happens if things go bad before they do. 
   
   4. Live your values. Southwest's employees trusted that they would be given the people, systems, processes and policies they needed to fulfill the promises the company made to its customers. Customers trusted that Southwest would fulfill its promises to be safe, focused, and reliable and to win the right way. Anyway you slice it, the decision to delay mission-critical technology investments violated the company's own values and promises. Had the leaders been using their values to make decisions, the crisis could have been avoided. Golden Nugget: Your greatest decision making tool as an owner are the values on which your business was created. They are your foundation. You and your employees should be able to give everyday examples of your company values in action. Customers too (that’s what people write rave reviews about!) Consistently acting in alignment with your values creates trust. Behaviors that deviate from or directly violate those beliefs cost you the trust and performance of employees, and the trust and loyalty of your customers. 

Often, there are a lot of mouths to feed and someone is usually starving a little bit.

- Me on the Marketing Matchmaker podcast

In my experience, the person usually starving in a small business is the owner.

I want to change that.

In my recent conversation with Jennifer Tamborski on the Marketing Matchmaker podcast we went deep about earning a living and generating profit right out of the gate!

We got real about building your business from a profit mindset. That starts by defining your vision, i.e., being clear about what a successful business will do for you financially and how it will allow you to create a life you love.

Some of the things we talked about include:

• Asking yourself
  • Does my business help me work with the people I want to do business with, selling what I want to sell, and helping them live better?
  • Does it help me create the lifestyle I want?
• Getting serious about what you want your business to do for you - name the number!
• Knowing your runway
• Knowing what you want and what you need to build the business you desire
• The power of profit - what it allows owners like you do
• The fear of numbers and date and why you need to push past the fear
• Lagging vs leading indicators
• Getting curious about your business
• Numbers + plan = profit
• Creating new realities
• Loving what you do and making money

Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ImeUkdaNJ3Q%3Fwmode%3Dopaque

I think there's nothing more exciting then imagining what the future holds or what your life might be like 5, 10, 15 years from now.

Some of us daydream about the trips we'll take or where we'll retire.

Those dreams might also be about what our business looks like, how much money its making or how many people it employs. Maybe its the number of cities or states where it operates or about being recognized as an industry leader.

Recently, I've met several business owners who want to exit their business in the next 5 years.

Some want to sell.

Others want to step out of day-to-day operations while retaining ownership.

Five years seems like plenty of time to make that happen.

It would be if they had been organizing and building their businesses with that end result in mind.

Don't get me wrong. These are what most of us would consider successful business owners.

They create jobs, offer award winning products and services, deliver superior results compared to their competitors, and have been around for a while. They have good bones.

But being able to exit requires more than revenue and profit.

For this dream to become a reality they need to get super clear about the current state of their business and then identify what shifts need to occur in their thinking, operations, org chart, compensation structure, and revenue model that will enable one of two things:

1. The business can run without them and generate enough net income to

• pay the owner enough to live the life they want,
• competitively pay the executive(s) needed replace the owner, and
• create sufficient profit and cash flow to support continued growth.

2. The business can be sold and

• run without the current owner without losing value,
• have sufficient resources to support long-term growth, and
• adds immediate value to the new owner's portfolio with a clear path to continued/increased profitability.

This means that any owner who wants out of day-to-day operations in the next five years needs to

1. Pay themselves competitively and consistently - i.e. what they would pay someone to replace them
2. Create the process documentation and invest in the technology needed to make work replicable and as error free as possible
3. Invest in hiring, training, managing, coaching and advancing talented people who can execute and achieve business goals
4. Work with reliable suppliers, distributors, professional service providers, and vendors
5. Create a portfolio of differentiated products and services that are competitively priced
6. Generate sustainable reoccurring revenue
7. Diversify revenue so its not dependent on one customer or business line
8. Maintain accurate and up-to-date financial records including forecasts and KPIs
9. Demonstrate consistent profitability and positive cash flow

The business has to be able to run without the owner and the brand needs to be distinct, reputable, and recognizable in the industry.

Your business is only as healthy, and potentially saleable, if its customers, employees, market position, financial position, and assets are strong and reliable in ways that can be tested and evaluated. There can't be any skeletons in its closet, discrepancies in its documents, or questions about ownership or legal/regulatory compliance.

A potential buyer will also want to know about your personal financial position. They are evaluating whether or not they want to become you - the owner. It only makes sense that they would want to be confident that the business will consistently contribute to their personal wealth and not be a financial drain. Similarly, if you want to step out of day-to-day operations and retain a regular income from the business you have to replace yourself at market rate.

This last part usually means the business has to start doing what it has not yet done or probably isn't doing on a regular basis - provide you with a consistent, competitive, market rate income and generate enough profit so you have money to invest in a new senior level hire.

So if you're wondering where to start, this is the place. Make sure you're paying yourself what your job is worth. Then

• Look at what people are making to run companies like yours. How does it compare with your monthly salary and/or draws?
• If someone had to step in and run your business without you tomorrow, how hard would it be for them to keep things going?
• How profitable is the company? Specific clients or products?
• What story do your monthly financial statements tell?

Asking and answering these questions will help you get in touch with the reality of your current state of operations. No judgement. No shame. No shoulda/woulda/couldas.

You run your business. You are not your business. So anything that you find that you want to do better or differently isn't a reflection of some personal shortcoming. It just is what it is.

And it can be different if you want it to be.

Remember, no one builds a successful business alone and no one prepares for an exit by themselves.

So if exiting the day-to-day operations of your business or possibly selling it to someone else is something you might want to do, start looking at your business through that lens.

Be curious about what you learn.

Ask for help.

Forgive yourself.

Dream.

A lot of entrepreneurs I know struggle with being seen.

Most of them aren’t Elon Musk.

They’re more like Bill Gates. They let their business speak for them.

However, without a Microsoft-sized budget (and marketing team) it’s hard for your business to speak for itself without some help from you.

Being seen - through social media posts, websites, podcasts, articles, interviews, books, ads, etc. is an integral part of brand building for most small businesses.

Customer want to connect with the person behind the brand.

You want people to understand your passion and drive- why you do what you do and why they should care enough to buy what you’re selling.

Yes, the more visible you are the more likely it is that you may attract some detractors, perhaps even some haters.

On the flip-side, say nothing and the people who are already looking for you and what you do can’t find you.

And they will do business with the people they can find.

So, if you care enough about your idea to create a business.

And you care enough about your business to make it profitable.

It’s time to be seen.

Not sure where to start, follow my lead!

I was recently featured on the Innovabuzz podcast hosted by Jurgen Strauss.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=j_rkYQp8oME%3Fwmode%3Dopaque

And in August you might have seen/hear me on Conversations in the Nic of Time with Nicci Roach.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=avUocdfMiCY%3Fwmode%3Dopaque

And Yinka Ewuola was kind enough to experiment with a Cash Chat live on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

https://www.linkedin.com/video/embed/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6987814075288141826?wmode=opaque

At some point since you launched your business you’ve probably asked yourself

Does every business owner and entrepreneur feel like this or is it just me?

It’s not just you. Every client or colleague I talk to has thought to themselves

• When does this get easier
• I’m doing so much, so why do I feel like I’m not getting anywhere
• Am I doing the right things
• Why am I’m exhausted and feel like I don’t have much to show for it
• I have so many ideas, how do I choose which one to pursue
• I know what to do, why can’t I do it
• Why am I doing this

Feel better knowing you’re not alone?

Good.

Ready to feel different moving forward?

Great!

To help you get started, I recommend using this end-of-year/beginning-of-next reflection time to

1. Celebrate all the things you’ve accomplished (especially the small things that often get overlooked)
2. Sharpen your vision for your business by getting as specific as possible about your desired end-result - what success looks like for you
3. Translate your desire into action by setting specific goals for the year and working backwards by quarter, month, and week to dial in your focus

It’s usually with steps two and three where you may want some help.

That’s why the next step is incredibly important.

Now ask yourself, am I ready to do something different? Am I ready to work with someone who can help me feel more confident, capable, and competent in my role as a business owner?

In my experience, the best time to engage a business coach is when you’ve decided

• I don’t like how I’m feeling, and
• I’m ready to work with someone to get different, better results than I’m getting on my own.

To help you identify whether you’re ready to start talking to coaches to find the right one for you,

I’ve created a short self assessment to help you tune into what you’re feeling and get more clarity about what changes you want to make to take your business from where you are to where you want to be.

It’s a mix of questions that I hope will help you get in touch with your feelings about what you’re experiencing and whether you’ve had enough. Likewise, if you’re ready to do different things to get different results, this will help you start to identify which improvements will produce the biggest result for you.

If you’re not ready, that’s OK. This exercise will still help you decide where to focus your efforts moving forward.

But if you’re ready to start talking with coaches to find someone you think can help you get the results you’re looking for, now you’ll have a good idea of what you’ll want to accomplish together and what successful outcomes will look and feel like for your business. There’s nothing more you need to do to prepare to engage a coach.

Ready to explore your coaching options?

Send me an email and we'll talk about how I can help.

You’ve been running your business for a while.

In a lot of ways, it’s given you what you wanted – more time for family, flexibility, autonomy, and independence.

But you’re still not paying yourself consistently or as much as you want.

Being a business owner is some of the hardest and most rewarding work you can do.

I want to help you make every ounce of time, energy, passion, and creativity you pour into your business pay you back 10-fold in financial abundance and personal fulfillment.

I want to help business owners do more than replace a paycheck.

I think it's important to start the conversation by asking: What you want your business to do for you financially?

Not what it has done or what it can do.

What do you WANT and DESIRE for it to do?

Think about near and long-term financial goals. But don't let current circumstances (or imagined future circumstances) stop you from getting crystal clear about what financial rewards you want your business to create for you, your family, and your community.

Think about how much money that will allow you to take home to pay for day-to-day expenses. How much you want to save for retirement, vacation, or home improvements. What kind of financial future you want for your children or the resources you want to be available to help you take care of older relatives. How you can support the people and causes you care about most.

Think about how it will feel to have financially abundance - so much so that your cup runs over with choices and opportunity. Imagine how you will spend, save, and invest to grow your business working only as much as you want, when you want, and with whom you desire.

Write down how it feels and what it looks like. Visit this place often. Use it as your guide. It will help you identify what actions will move you closer to that reality.

Write down the numbers. Think about where you are, where you want to be, and what it will take to get there.

Not sure about that last part?

I've created a spreadsheet to help you work backwards from what you want to spend and save, to figure out what your revenue and profitability goals need to be.

You can download the spreadsheet template here and find a short video tutorial here. (passcode 7Vidfqo&)

This example is a place to start.

Maybe the revenue you're generating and what you're paying yourself isn't where you want it to be.

Or perhaps you're already doing WAY more than replacing the paycheck you had at your last employer.

In either case, I hope you'll use this template to visualize the revenue needed to take you to the next level.

I hope this exercise gets you excited about what's possible and thinking beyond what your business is doing for you right now.

Your goals can be as modest or as ambitious as you want them to be. The important thing is that they're yours and that they're based on what you desire, not necessarily on what is currently true.

Are you excited?

Let's channel that excitement into figuring out how to make these goals real.

This means more thinking (and some calculations) about your

• Product and/or service mix
• Pricing assumptions
• Client/customer mix
• Marketing strategy
• Sales strategy
• Renewal and upgrade strategies

And, of course, the expenses related to making, marketing, selling, and delivering your products and/or services.

After that, it's all about consistent execution fueled by your excitement and enthusiasm about what's possible.

I know you'll start strong.

And I know staying strong is a struggle.

As an owner operator and player coach, you're probably working in your business far more than you're working on it. You're probably used to making a plan, getting started, closing new business, and then pausing your business development activities to take care of the business you just closed.

At some point, those projects end, clients cycle out, or you realize you still need more new business to hit your revenue goals. 

To generate something means to cause something to come about or to bring into existence.

To generate revenue you have to consistently do the things we call marketing, sales, and customer service to create the result you want.

Knowing this and doing this are two different things.

I have no doubt that you know this. That you believe this. And that it is incredibly hard for you to do this.

It's ok. You're human. This is normal.

Every high-achieving person has someone (or many someones) helping them do the things they know are necessary for success. People like me in myriad industries and parts of life love helping people like you plan and execute a pathway to success on their own terms. 

It's never too late to get started.

So if you want to break some old patterns and create some new results, let's get excited together and get to work!

We're experiencing inflation.

There's talk of recession.

You're getting nervous.

You're a planner. And you plan top get ahead of this.

A quick search for ideas leads you to countless articles with "5-steps" to take to prepare your business for the recession.

Recession or no recession, there are some things you can always be doing to make your business more resilient.

First, what does having a resilient business mean?

For me it meant building business and financial models that could weather a 128% decline in revenue from 2019 to 2020 and still sustain me, my family, and my business. 

A business that in 2021 could recover most of revenue lost the year prior and increase 2022 revenue by 48% over 2019.

I’m not saying I knew I could make it through the pandemic relatively unscathed and bounce back.

What I knew was that if I was going to own my own business - be my own boss - I had to be clear about a few things right from the start.

• I wasn't replacing a paycheck. It had to do more.
• I wasn't going to live client-to-client or fiscal year-to-fiscal year.
• I wouldn't grow the business at the expense of not paying myself.
• It was my responsibility to make sure the revenue and expenses were managed well.

Were all things things true from the outset? 

No. But it wasn't long before they were. 

And I'm still getting better at creating a business that consistently gets better at attracting my ideal clients - interesting, driven, creative business owners who I can help build sustainably profitable companies.

So what does this have to do with building a recession-proof or resilient business? 

Let's break this down a little more:

MORE THAN A PAYCHECK

I didn't want to replace my income. I started my business to make more money than my current job was paying or a comparable job would pay me in the future. 

When I think about what my business needs to do for me, my family, and my community the answer is that it has to provide MORE than enough.

For me and my family that means being able to generate I want to take home every month to pay the bills,  add to short-term savings, increase retirement savings, and to pay the taxes on my net income.

For my community it means having more than enough to make donations of time, talent, and treasure. 

For my business it means having what is needed to fund operations, maintain a reserve, and have profit left over for whatever I want.

I didn't replace a paycheck. So in response to the pandemic, inflation, or a recession I have more than a paycheck to fall back on.

PLANNING

I know what it's like to worry about making payroll.

And I know how easy it is to spend the money when times are good.

I also know it often feels like you have little control over whether its feast for famine.

BUT you do!

That's why with every client I discuss and often help build financial projections.

By projecting your business into the future and imaging what you want its financial future to look like, you’re able to see beyond where you are to where you're going. It maps the way to turn the desire for more than a paycheck into a reality.

With regard to resiliency, it gets you in the habit of exploring What if scenarios while you have time to be curious and creative.

It takes theoretical revenue numbers and make them real, backed up by business development strategies that require clear actions tied to and aligned with expenses. 

It gives you an anchor that keeps you tethered to your goals even when a storm makes it harder to stay focused.

SAVING

And financial projections are a great tool for figuring out what it will take to save enough money to cover 3-6 months of expenses AND build a reserve from which you can take your regular owner's draw should sales dip, payments lag, or COGs increases more than revenue.

Similarly, finding ways to save time and gives you the flexibility to evaluate your options and make new choices.

By pro-actively managing cash, credit, and savings you increase your resilience and ability to survive a recession.

• Get credit before you need it. Don't just think about banks. Suppliers can extend credit too.
• Refinance and repay debt.
• Build a reserve.
• Manage cash flow. Take a hands-on approach so you know when money is coming into and going out of your business. Some expenses "hide" on the balance sheet. Your income statement only tells part of the story.
• Invoice on-time to get paid on-time.
• Follow-up with people that owe you money. Collect.
• Create contracts with payment terms that get you paid early and often, with late fees and other penalties for when that doesn't happen.
• Cutting expenses only goes so far and you do have spend money to make money. Know what you're spending money on and why.
• Negotiate.
• Look for and leverage economies for scale for buying power (like group purchasing through associations.) 
• Reduce waste and rework. Neither show up as line items on your financial statements but they cost you real money.
• Automate what you can.

Feeling overwhelmed or burned out?

Hoping the proverbial train hits you so you don’t have to make it to the light at the end of the tunnel?

I feel you.

I have a long history of putting my head down and holding my breath hoping to make it to the other side of whatever it is that I’m trying to accomplish before I collapse.

I’ve worked myself sick.

And I know that

It sucks.

It’s not sustainable.

And I don't want me or my clients to keep doing this as we build the businesses and lives we love.

Yes, building your business takes extraordinary amounts of time and effort. It calls on us to be resourceful and persistent. Usually, it requires us to have lots of irons in the fire, running parallel tracks to achieve our goals.

And we are bombarded by all sorts of societal ideas about hustle and start-up culture, unicorns, and college drop-out CEOs.

Yet we have to remember who created the rules of engagement. How one does business today has its roots in how white men created their businesses in the early 20th century. How we finance business today is the product of how white, male technology entrepreneurs financed their businesses in the mid to late 20th century.

This is not ancient history.

It hasn’t always been this way.

And none of these norms were created by or for women, especially Black women who now make up the largest segment of new business owners in the U.S.

Being able to define the terms of engagement - the culture of their business - is the one of the main reasons women start businesses. For Black women who want to lead, starting their own business is often a chosen path when corporate advancement is delayed and denied, when, by definition, the rules of work don’t work for them.

Replicating the norms of businesses built and led by others doesn’t unleash leadership, wealth, health, satisfaction, and achievement. So if we start our own businesses in order to create a life we love, we have to create new rules and ways of doing business.

Of course, our clients may not be thinking about rewriting the rules of business. For many, the status quo isn’t seen as broken. And the behaviors that do the most damage to our bodies, minds, and spirits are culturally defined as the attributes of success.

As a result, everyday I coach clients who struggle to

• set and keep boundaries
• avoid overworking contracts
• resist the urgency of others that pushes them to make fast decisions or commit to unreasonable timelines
• prioritize their own business plans when faced with client demands
• define success on their own terms
• embrace their ambition and demand their economic worth

They deserve to make choices from a place of calm confidence, not fear or scarcity.

Everyday I learn from my clients, friends and colleagues new ways to show up to work and build businesses that honor our need for

• purpose
• dignity
• rest
• challenge
• impact
• learning
• connection
• love

I’m inspired to reimagine work by my colleagues at Gladiator Consulting who are just finishing a two-week, company-wide pause (a purposeful, unapologetic interruption of work) as they prepare to do their mid-year retreat.

And by clients like McDaniel Nutrition Therapy who recommended the the book Four Thousand Weeks which offers a sobering perspective on the limited time we have, the limited control we have over it, and how that clear-eyed approach to understanding and being present in our current reality can help us make critical choices about how to spend time doing what we want and have to do to achieve our desires.

And by my coach, Dixie Gillaspie, from whom I am learning about what it means to be the primary creator in my life and choose to live a life I love.

I believe that by making intentional choices (over and over again) and focusing on creating new systems and structures rather than trying to fix those built by others to serve purposes that do us more harm than good that we truly have the power to transform what it means to own, run, and scale businesses, and redistribute wealth and power.