In another lifetime I studied at length with Robert Kiyosaki at his Global Leadership Forums. One person we studied at length was Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller. American philosopher, systems theorist, architect, and inventor, Bucky created and popularized terms such as “Spaceship Earth“, ephemeralization, and synergetics. For some reason I found myself googling Buckminster Fuller, wanting to re-connect with some of this teachings. I found this quote from 1983 which pretty much explains this global crisis we are watching unfold. We are at a cross roads where our integrity is in question, it’s time for a new order:
“When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate. Since I’ve been born, the population has doubled and that total population is now 65 per cent literate. That’s a gain of 130-fold of the literacy. When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans them-selves are literate, able to get the information, we’re in an entirely new relationship to Universe. We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do”.
Interesting, eh?
From the desk of liber8yourbusiness. Small business mentors and experts in exit strategies. Wellington, New Zealand.
Every business starts as a small business. But those that grow to be big start out with a big business mentality. Big businesses have departments. And so should you. Even if the head of each department right now is you! When you do your planning for the next financial year, imagine you have four key departments – Product Development, Sales & marketing, HR and Finance. List your Key Performance Indicators for each department and the action steps required to meet this performance objectives. Then allocate the resource needed for each action…
Everyone should be familiar with the old 80/20 rule as it seems to apply across most things in life. In business it generally means that 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients. Or that 80% of your trouble comes from 20% of your clients, which is usually about right…
Apparently it’s an old Sicilian saying, tied into Mafia Godfather culture – “The fish rots from the head down”. It’s application to business should be obvious. As the owner of your business you are responsible for the culture of your company. When you employ people they look to you for their example of behaviour. If you exhibit leadership traits such as self-responsibility, courage, compassion, passion, determination and positivity, these will be the traits your team look to copy. If you are negative, blaming, stressful, unwilling to take risks or step outside your comfort zone … well, you know how your people will behave. Moral of the story – be the person you’d like your best employee to be, lead by example … and keep your fish in the freezer!
Here’s one of the best thing my dear old dad taught me about business. “You gotta have a back end!” My dad made his millions and retired age 50 when he sold his photocopier business. He told me how he managed to sell it for so much. When he sold or leased a photocopier he made a huge margin on the sale of the machine…. but this wasn’t where the real wealth of his business was. For every machine he sold, he also signed the client up to a ten year contract to supply all the ink, toner, paper and regular servicing that went with that machine. So every machine gave him ten years of guaranteed income. He could project his earnings out with total accruacy and plan his business around this. And the person who bought his business knew they had guaranteed return on investment.
Here’s a generalised principle of life… if you are in business you have to be able to sell. You cannot avoid it.
Here’s a business truth. In the lifetime of your business you will fail at something important. This could be hiring the wrong person. Choosing the wrong direction. Trusting a client who rips you off. Or just trusting your own judgement. And your failure will cost you money. You cannot be in business and get it right every time. The odds are against you. What makes or breaks a business owner’s success is their ability to cope with failure… to keep the self flagellation to a minimum and the learning to the maximum. The lesson for today is embrace your mistakes, learn from your failures and know that you are a good business person if you are not afraid to get it wrong.. sometimes.
Once you have painted a clear end picture for you business, have a clear exit strategy in mind and have put in some key milestones to get there, its time to plan your action steps to the first milestone. This should be 12 – 18 months out from today. Your 12 month plan should have clear goals in place including your income and profit targets for the year. And then your action plan for achieving these targets month on month.
Here’s an email that’s circulating at the moment. Just had to share it…
To build a business that is not dependent on you, you are most likely to have to build a team. Never believe that no-one can do your job as well as you. This is not the truth, only your ego talking.