3% of all business owners make 84% of all private biz income. Why? They’re not covering for unknown weaknesseses.
So you think you’re in charge? Let’s see.
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This article was published on January 10, 2009. So far, 3 people have left their thoughts. Share your own thoughts.
Your Guiding Principles are more important to your business than anything you sell.
As my great Irish friend John Heenan says: “If you don’t have a vision for your own life, you become part of someone else’s vision for theirs.” Without clarity of purpose, we don’t own our business, it owns us – we’re employees of ourselves.
Everything we do comes from a belief system, whether intentionally or subconsciously. Do you guide your biz or does it rule you? Who’s really in charge?
Some see this as the soft side of business, the part you can ignore because you can’t track how much money you make directly back to it. “Stop playing office and start making the donuts,” would be a typical response. But that response would only come from someone who is willing to become part of someone else’s vision for their life, and doesn’t want to make more money in less time.
Making money is not an empowering vision. Want to make more money? Get a reason to do it, then have some principles on which you run your business. We talked about they “Why?” (vision) in business a couple weeks ago. This is more about the values that lead us to “How” we run our business.
Like rails that guide a train, your business principles are the core strategy to having a business that knows where it is going and how it is going to get there. If you think you can just make donuts and not know why or what your business stands for in the process, you’re going to miss out on building a business that you own vs. a business that owns you.
Here’s our guiding principles:
The 7 Guiding Principles of TeamNimbusWest:
- Make more money in less time
(don’t work harder, not really even smarter, just more effectively) - Focus on our lifetime goals, not just on growing our business
(a BHAG will keep us going, but “grow the business” is a lifeless idea. So is retirement.) - Work ON your business, not just IN it.
(The key to growth – perfecting as we go by strategic planning, not just production.) - Get off the treadmill, own the business instead of the business owning us.
(The purpose of our business is to create a lifestyle for ourselves and our family.) - Highest and best use of your time.
(Yield per Hour – stop doing things others could do; do what only I can do.) - Make decisions on where you want to be, not where you are.
(Clarity of Purpose leads to Hope which leads to Risk. Take good risks to grow.) - Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something.
(Stop planning. Implement now and perfect as you go. Speed of Execution rules.)
What are the guiding principles of your business?
You’ve got values and beliefs that are the foundation of everything you do and those values and beliefs are running the show. You might as well write them down and see if you agree with who/what is actually in charge. If not, change them and take control of your vision…
…so you can make more money in less time, get off the treadmill, and get back to the passion that brought you into business in the first place, in order to build a mature business in support of your lifetime goals. (Just had to get my guiding principles in there one more time). ?
Add Your Own
Thoughts
Lea
01/10/09
Great article! I may be getting really woo-woo here, but this article is the 5th I’ve read this week, all along the same lines of having a powerful vision for the future. Yesterday a friend of mine argued that focusing on where you want to go takes you out of living in the present. But I disagree. I think that having a clear vision allows you to relax and take full advantage of the present moment.
Anyway, thank you for being part of my impetus this week for getting really clear, not only on where I am going but WHY I am going there!
Debbie Fiskum
01/10/09
Chuck,
I, too, keep hearing similar mantras from different sources so there must be something to them!! I really like the philosophy of Team Nimbus W. You integrate lifestyle with business and approach building a business that way.
I got a lot out of the Lifestyle goals workshop. Would love it if you had the business goals sooner, but I’ll just have to write my own!!
Thanks, Debbie, www.Home-Decor-Genie.com
Chuck
01/11/09
Les,
Your friend who says “focusing on where you want to go takes you out of living in the present” is right. Sort of.
When we know where we’re going, the present no longer stands by itself, but everything we do in the present begins to have a very clear impact on our future. We stop doing things “reactively” in the present, and start doing them “proactively”. So if we know where we’re going we won’t be happily bumping along in the present on our way to nowhere.
The key is to strike a proper balance and correlation between the future and the present. Someone who spends all their time thinking about the future is a dreamer.
A VISIONARY knows where they are going, and acts that way right now. That’s the right balance. If your friend wants to be a visionary, he will find that “right now” becomes more important than it ever was when he was blindly groping along by “living in the present”.
Debbie – Thanks for the comment on mixing lifestyle with business. We all do it, we just don’t articulate it or make it intentional. The artificial separation between the two is what makes many hate their jobs. I spend more time at work than anywhere else – it has to be a reflection of my lifestyle.
We’ll probably do the Strategic Business Plan workshop in March – stay tuned.
Best,
Chuck