Starting a Small Home Business

Attention Entrepreneurs – Warning Signs You Should Fire Yourself

February 9th, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized — Small Home Business Author

I was on a coaching call the other day working with a client on the goals and the vision she has for her business. We talked about some of the goals she had set a few months prior and about what she had done to realize them. Unfortunately, not much had been done. Sure, she had been “busy” with her business but she was not achieving her objectives. And it didn’t seem like urgent business to her.

So, I began thinking about a lot of my clients (that includes me) who are in business for themselves and I wondered, “If you were working for someone else, would you get fired?” In many cases the answer was a resounding yes. Because we work for ourselves, we have the last word, whether it’s a good word or not. We make the decisions and we decide where we want to spend our time and efforts.

The problem for many solopreneurs however is that time seems infinite. If I make a mistake here, I’ll just figure something else out. If I don’t get to it today, I’ll do it tomorrow, or next week, or maybe never. I hear entrepreneurs all the time talking about spending time on low pay-off activities instead of getting crystal clear on what the high pay-off ones are and focusing on those.

Can you imagine what your boss would say if he saw you spending an inordinate amount of time on low pay-off activities when there were plenty of high pay-off activities you could be doing? That would be unacceptable and you would likely face an ultimatum that sounded something like this, “Start producing the best results you can or you will find yourself out of a job.”

So, in an effort to help my clients and myself become the most productive and successful CEOs of our own mom and pop shops, I have identified the 7 warning signs that you should fire yourself.

1. You lack a clear plan to get from where you are to where you want to go. If you go about your day doing whatever “moves you” with no regard to the specific results you are looking to achieve, you will get exactly that – no specific results.
2. You spend time on low pay-off activities because they are in your comfort zone. You may love creating low cost or free reports and you may find that it brings a lot of people into your pipeline but let’s face it, more is not always better. If those free reports are bringing in a lot of people who have historically never brought in any money, but you are able to convert 30% of your live workshop attendees to full paying clients, it is pretty clear where you should spend your time. Sure, putting on a workshop may be more work but what is the ultimate goal? If it is just to have fun then absolutely have a blast creating a library of free stuff. But, if it is to make money, you have to concentrate on the high pay off activities.
3. You have no systems in place. If you operate by the seat of your pants and find yourself explaining or doing the same thing over and over again, you are losing ground and losing money. Systems may not be sexy but they force you to be efficient so that you can spend more time working on the high pay-off activities.
4. You do everything yourself. When was the last time Bill Gates made his own travel arrangements, typed his own letters, or fielded his own business phone calls? If you want to run a million dollar business you can’t do it all alone. How much groundbreaking work do you think Bill would have accomplished if he was doing his own books or managing and shipping each order that came in? Why do you think you are any different? You are the CEO, the lead creator, the money maker. Create and implement your brilliance and make money. Delegate everything else.
5. You dress for the business you have not for the business you want. If you have all of the money and business you could ever want and you never want to bring in another client or dime then yes, you may project any image you so desire. If you want to walk around in public wearing your PJs, go for it. But, if you have any desire to grow your business, whether it be from $20,000 a year to $100,000 a year or from $2M to $10M, you have to live and present yourself as if you already have it. You are your own walking billboard. You have an opportunity to make an impression no matter where you go, on-line and off. Take it seriously and think of it as the least expensive advertising you’ll ever do.
6. You do things in the privacy of your own office you know you would get fired for in a J.O.B. By that I mean, you spend time surfing the Internet when a thought comes to mind of the latest handbag you heard about. Or, you spend hours on personal emails or dreaming of your next vacation. You are the boss so you can essentially do whatever you want; but, if you have even the slightest inkling that you are not achieving everything you want in your business, you have to make a choice. You can either continue to enjoy some of the perks of being your own boss or you can actually start acting like your own boss. What are you going to put up with? If your goal is to make a million or a billion dollars this year and you are at $100,000 right now, I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to happen if you spend time shopping for purses.
7. You spend a lot of money learning and no time implementing. Imagine this. You go to your boss and say, “There is a training I really want to take that costs $3500. Will you pay for it?” Your boss says, “What do you plan on doing with what you learn in this class? How will it help our company reach our goals or increase our bottom line?” You pause for a minute and when the answer comes to you, you say with confidence, “I don’t plan on DOING anything with it. It just sounds like something I’d like to know more about and it also lets me get out of that project I wasn’t having any fun on”. Can you imagine anything more absurd? And yet, entrepreneurs make these kinds of decisions all day long. They have hard drives full of audios and pdfs and have so many binders in their office they need a separate moving truck just for their bookshelves and yet they have done nothing with the information. The next time an opportunity for education or training comes your way ask yourself this question, “Am I committed to learning this process or information and am I 100% committed to implementing what I learn within 30 days?” If the answer is no, don’t do it and accept that another opportunity will come along soon. If the answer is yes, go for it and hold your feet to the fire. Deliver on the promise you make to yourself and you will see results.

So those are the warning signs that you should fire yourself. Hopefully, if you are guilty of doing any of them you see the value of turning things around and turning yourself into your own best employee. If you do, you will have the bottom line to show for it.

Melani Ward is a numerologist, marketing strategist, and business coach who helps women entrepreneurs own their creativity and power and use it to claim their role as the star in their life and with their clients. Her clients include the well known, the up and comings, and niche entrepreneurs who are poised to make a significant contribution to their community and the world. Find out what story you’re telling about your business with her free report “The ONE Story that Leads to Extraordinary Living” at http://www.changingyourstoryblog.com