BUILDING THE RIGHT BUSINESS TO FULFIL YOUR PURPOSE
IF YOU’VE FOLLOWED THE STEPS IN THIS SECTION THUS FAR and paid serious attention to purpose, passion and Natural Energy, you should now either have the conviction that you are in the right business and industry, or at least be certain of the potential line of business that is suited to your purpose. I recommend that you write down all your thoughts as you progress through this content. Writing things down will help you with clarity of concept. This clarity will be vital to your moving in a more coherent and strategic direction, or to your changing direction altogether!
This direction should involve translating the results of your thinking in the Awareness Phase into specific and tangible actions that you can take to transform and realign your business with your truest self.
THE RUSSELL SIMMONS CASE STUDY
RUSSELL SIMMONS IS a hip-hop mogul. With roots in music event promotion, he co-founded Def Jam Records, a seriously successful music label. He also created the Def Comedy Jam brand, followed by the Def Poetry Jam brand. He owns a clothing label and has produced movies like The Nutty Professor, with Eddie Murphy.
Simmons himself is famously stage averse. He’s not a comic, nor a poet, a model or a fashion designer, but he created very successful operations in these areas, which all fit into his general sense of purpose and passion.
Building the Right Business for You
TO BUILD AN IDEAL BUSINESS (one that fits your personality, purpose and personal vision)
you need to ask yourself a big, central question:
Once you’ve asked that question, check your answer by asking two related questions:
Remember, some of the most successful businesspeople in the world have run great businesses in areas where they weren’t personally skilled, but where they, nonetheless, had a sense of purpose and passion.
The lesson that emerges from this mode of thinking is this: When you’re thinking about the area of business in which you’d like to operate, focus on passion and purpose and Natural Energy, not skill. Even if you initially chose to start a business in an area where you technically deliver the work yourself, your long-term goal should be for the business not to rely on you as its primary technical worker or expert.
Why?
If your business is even half-successful, you will need to spend much of your time managing it. Managing a business is a full-time job in itself. Business management has a lot more to do with leadership and your ability to influence others than mastering your technical skills. If you find this a horrifying thought, then you need to think carefully about whether growing the business to the next level is really for you. The hard truth is that entrepreneurship involves leadership. The good news is that leadership isn’t nearly as mystical as it seems. But more about that later.
It is a definite bonus to be talented, technically capable and passionate in your line of business. But, being your own best worker can also be a trap that keeps you locked into your position, instead of focused on growing your business.
See the four stages of entrepreneurial business for insight into the different phases that most people go through during the lifecycle of their business.
From these four basic stages, it is obviously not mission-critical to have the technical ability yourself. The far more urgent ability is business management and leadership. In fact, it is inevitable that, if you do start a business that relies on your own technical skills, at some point your technical ability will be a distraction (if not a curse) that hinders your ability to manage and grow a viable business.
How Personal Vision Defines Business Action
PERSONAL VISION – IT’S SIMPLE.
VERY SIMPLY PUT, VISION IS DEFINED AS WHAT YOU’D LIKE TO ACHIEVE.
Once you have decided on this, you can decide on the action – how you plan to achieve your vision.
It starts with you
IT IS VITAL TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN YOUR PERSONAL GOALS AND DREAMS and the vision and mission of your business.
What we do at work and in our communities is a manifestation of our social engagement and commitment. From the outset, at a personal level, therefore, it is critical to know why we, in our individual capacity, are involved in the business in the first place. In other words, we need to define an exchange agreement between ourselves and the business. The key to this agreement is to define our personal vision in terms of personal goals and rewards which we will gain from our involvement in the business. What are the tangible, specific and measurable things you want to achieve for your life? How much money do you want to earn per month? Do you want a beautiful home, or will something middle-of-the-road do? What about travel and holidays?
What are your objectives for personal net wealth? You must ask and answer these questions when you’re thinking about personal vision.
Why is this important?
Many entrepreneurs lose interest when things get tough. When this happens, we question – generally through the mirror of a cashflow crisis – why we are involved in the business in the first place. This happens to almost everyone in business, from staff to management to company owners. If you understand your personal vision, you will be in a stronger position to navigate difficult circumstances. Why? Because you’ll have a clear idea of where you are going, why you are taking on the challenge and what you stand to get out at the end of it all.
In your personal capacity, it is imperative to define what it is that you’d like to get out of your business, both in monthly dollar terms and how the business will help you to fulfill your purpose over the long term.
In all likelihood, your personal vision will need to take shape together with the interests and vision of other people. Most businesses end up involving more than one person and frequently involve several shareholders. It is vital for shareholders to collectively understand what they want to get out of the business. For that to happen, each shareholder needs to be clear about what their personal vision is.
When I consult with clients, one of the first steps in the process of refining or defining their strategy is to define the personal benefits and rewards that the founders want to get out of the business.
YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR PERSONAL VISION
WE USE A SIMPLE FORMULA to establish how you can start to think about the personal rewards you want to gain from your business. It’s a three-step process:
Formula:
THE QUESTION TO ASK THEN IS: How much money do I need every month to live my life?
Assuming that you will never work again, how much money would you need to pay all your bills, cover all your expenses and do the things you want to do? Is it $50 000? $250 000? $1 Million per year?
Now, add 20-35% to your answer. This should be the estimated minimum pre-tax profit that your future business needs to generate.
This exercise is very helpful, whether your business already exists or is in the conceptual or start-up phase. The thinking described above should be the same for businesses involving more than one owner or partner – the only difference is that each owner, partner or director must think along these lines as an individual. Then, the business needs to take the collective amounts into account.
Thinking about personal vision in this way will help you to build a supporting business model and strategic future vision for your business. From this foundation, we then begin developing an appropriate strategy which encompasses the aspirations the founders want to achieve through the business.
Remember, it’s your ability to talk about the business in detail that creates the common vision that puts everyone on the same page as you. Backed by a detailed understanding of the mechanics of your company’s profit structure, you’re now striding towards a clearly defined destination.
You can share this vision and understanding of your business with future investors, existing employees, future employees, your coach, spouse, life partner and loved ones. These are people from whom you can get the additional support and accountability you need to achieve your goals.
ONCE YOU HAVE TAKEN THE TIME TO WRITE YOUR PERSONAL VISION, you’ll have a foundation from which to start re-thinking about your business.
You can’t, after all, reach a goal you have never defined.
So, you’ve done some thinking.
You’re aware of yourself, your purpose and passion, and the areas of activity where these might take shape.
You have a sense of where you’d like to go and what you’d like to achieve for yourself – you’re ready to take action.
This is an important time. You need to ensure that the action you take is structured and coherent, and that it has the best possible chance of leading to success.
The second stage of the A-Game Business Blueprint is where we take Aim. This is the Action Phase. We start to integrate your personal dream and vision into your future business. This is the time to review the business structure, and to reinvent it to fit the real you and the market. We do this by designing an innovative, profitable and scalable business model to support the vision – a business model that will give you the edge over your competitors.
