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Who Needs a Business Advisor?

The simple answer to the seemingly complex question of “Who needs a business advisor?” is everyone responsible for operating a business. That’s right, the Fortune 50 CEO to the one- person show needs an advisor.

The CEO of a public company has mentors as well as a board of directors to turn to. They often don’t have a choice of who their advisors are, but small business owners do. Unfortunately, with this choice of advisors comes another choice that is often made instead. That choice is to not get any help at all.

Not getting any help at all is very often the cause of the business failure statistics we hear so much about. The small business owner will often claim that they don’t have the time or money for an advisor. Think about that comment. How can you not have the money to get help from someone that can potentially save or make you more money since you obviously are not getting it done on your own? Or how about that time you are lacking? Maybe if that owner sat down for an hour with an advisor, they would be able to see why they don’t have time and do something about it with the help of someone who has already been in those shoes.

A coach or advisor gives to small business owners something most of them don’t have; a sounding board and a board of directors to turn to for advice. These are two great resources to use when trying to avoid trial and error decisions and processes.

I’m not knocking trial and error as the way to learn things. I’ve personally used that method and did well in many cases. But that is a case-by-case basis, not for on-going daily concerns. Don’t forget that this method is also very costly and time consuming. Why not ask someone who has probably already faced the problem?

What many business owners do not realize is that they rarely go through any trials and tribulations that someone else has never dealt with. Not to mention that about 70-75% of their business is the same as every other business including HR, finances, sales, marketing, and funding. The other 25-30% is industry specific.

Small to mid-sized business owners take away much more from an advisor than big businesses. This, if for no other reason, is the case because the smaller companies have owners that wear a lot of hats. Many of those hats take time away from the things the owner actually needs to make a priority to see their company succeed. Things they should be doing that they don’t have time to get to or things they are taking care of that they have no experience in doing. These situations take away from them doing what they do best. That’s a problem.

The question now is how to find an advisor. There are many types of business advisors out there. Some are purely coaches and others are true developers and implementers that will roll up their sleeves with you when asked to. It’s up to you to pick the type of person you want or need. Here are a few things to think about:

• Do they click with your personality? There are many good advisors out there but if they don’t click with you as a business friend, don’t bother with them because you will end up fighting them even when you agree on the advice.

• Have they owned a small business before? Gray hair does not equal business ownership knowledge. I promise you that the ex-CEO or Senior manager from a huge company knows very little about successfully operating a small business. These are two significantly different worlds.

• Don’t worry if a potential advisor doesn’t know your specific industry. Remember that a lot of your troubles have nothing to do with your industry. It would help though if the advisor had contacts/resources for you in your industry for when specific problems are addressed.

Once you made the very intelligent decision of getting help in making your business a success, keep a few things in mind. You should really commit to working with your advisor for a good 6 months. Nothing gets fixed overnight. Also, since you are paying for it, please do yourself a favor and be open to suggestions, bring important things to your advisor for help in deciding and make the use of your time with the advisor a priority. Don’t forget that an advisor or coach should never decide for you. It’s your company, they are there to make suggestions and guide you.

Working with an advisor can be a very enlightening experience. You will start to see the forest from the trees and not feel like you are the only person on the planet going through tough times as a business owner.

All business owners eventually need help. The successful ones put aside their pride and desire to be at the center of all aspects of the company and get the help. Do yourself and your company a favor and be one of the truly successful business owners. Get an advisor and get all you can out of them. If your advisor loves what he/she does for a living as such as you love what you do, you can’t go wrong.

Mind Your Own Business!

The concept of minding your own business means that while you are grinding away at your day job you need to be investing in your future and minding your own business. Pretty soon you’ll be able to walk away from that day job and mind your own business full time.

The best way to do this is through the acquisition of real estate.

Let’s take a quick look at where you are losing all your money-taxes. Taxes have been around since 1913 in the U.S. (earlier in England). While the original intention was to only tax the wealthiest of the population, obviously that’s trickled down to the masses, including those in poverty.

Now, keep in mind the more money you make the more taxes you pay. The wealthy know a way of getting around this-form a corporation. Corporations offer tax benefits and protect you from lawsuits. To learn more about this talk with one of our business coaches or your attorney.

We’ve all heard the golden rule of: Pay Yourself First.

But many of us don’t do it. Until you learn and put this rule into effect, you won’t have any chance of getting out of the rat race. What this rule does is force you to come up with more income to pay your expenses.

There are some key areas of finance you should learn about, taking classes is one of the best ways to do this. Here are the basics you should learn:

Accounting

It pays to know how to read financial statements. When acquiring businesses or assets you need to quickly see the financial standing of the company you are acquiring.

Many grown adults do not know how to balance a balance sheet. In the long term, this knowledge will pay off for you and your business.

Investment Strategy

This skill will sharpen with experience. Talk to investors and observe how they play the game.

Market Behavior

Know the laws of Supply and Demand. No business owner can do without understanding these basic principles of the market. Bill Gates saw what people needed. Open your eyes to opportunities. Look at what sells and who buys.

Law

Do everything you can to grow your business within legal boundaries. Know your corporate, state, and accounting laws.

Once you know these areas of finances you can make them work for you. The rich practically invent money. You have to know where to find a great deal. Let’s continue with real estate. Look for houses in trouble or find the court in your area that handles foreclosed, police impound or other real estate situations. You can either renovate and sell or rent for residual income.

So, essentially there are two main types of investors:

1. Those who buy pre-packaged investments
2. Those who create their own investments

You know which are the most successful. In order to be one of those people you need to know what to look for and how to respond.

You must:

1. Find a good deal other people have missed.
2. Raise the capital needed for the transaction.
3. Put together a high-performing team to execute the plan.

There is risk involved in every acquisition. The goal is not to avoid the risk, but to respond to the risk with confidence and a steady hand. If you need help identifying potential money-makers, where to get the capital you need and how to put together a smart team, try our FREE test drive to gain access to our resources and tools.

Get Out of the Rat Race

We’ve all worked jobs we hated. We were underpaid, underappreciated and bored out of our minds. We either quit these jobs or were fired for poor performance because we just gave up. Instead of taking that approach you need to consider every job an opportunity to learn something new that you can apply down the line to find success.

When you give people the tools they need to come up with unordinary solutions, you are enhancing their lives for the long run. You need to take this approach. What if one of your terrible jobs had been one with no pay at all and you needed to come up with some ingenious ways of making money? I bet you could have found a diamond in that rough. This idea can also be used in your own company.

I don’t recommend going into the next meeting declaring that no one will receive pay anymore, but you can tell them that their potential raises, bonuses and other perks are now dependent on their creativity in ways to enhance business.

Let’s talk about a great concept called financial literacy. This certainly isn’t something they taught you in school but is still essential to know. So, what is financial literacy?

The old school way teaches people to be good employees and not employers. This mindset will never make you wealthy. You need to focus on becoming a good employer. You also need to learn how to not only attain wealth but sustain wealth for generations. This is what financial literacy is all about.

So, how do you get out of the rat race and start working toward a wealthier future? You need to understand the difference between an asset and a liability. Take a look at your own life and you’ll probably find the following:

Assets

• Real Estate
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Intellectual Property

Liabilities

• Mortgage
• Consumer Loans
• Credit Cards

You’ve probably been fooled into thinking things like your house, car and entertainment system are assets. They aren’t! Assets should be continuing to MAKE you money. When you continue to struggle, you are not building wealth. If your primary income is from wages and each time you make more money you pay taxes, you’re not really creating wealth either, are you?

So, if buying a house isn’t an asset (and it’s not because you spend about 30 years of your life paying it off), then what is? Here are some of the best assets to attain and when you can start to actually see wealth being created because of it:

Average time of holding on to an asset before selling it for a higher value:

1 year

• Stocks (Startups and small companies are good investments)
• Bonds
• Mutual funds

7 years

• Real estate
• Notes (IOUs)
• Royalties on intellectual property
• Valuables that produce income or appreciate

So, here are the steps to getting out of the rat race and onto your journey of creating wealth:

1. Understand the difference between an asset and a liability.
2. Concentrate your efforts on buying income-earning assets.
3. Focus on keeping liabilities and expenses at a minimum.
4. Mind your own business.

If you need help getting out of the poor mindset and into the wealthy one, try our FREE test drive and work with one of our experienced business coaches today. We went through the first three and next time

Maximize Your Resources-Part 3

In the last post we talked about three more ways you can work on maximizing your current resources. They included:

• Reveal your business’ soul
• From breaking even to breaking the bank
• Stand up and stand out

Today we’ll talk about the last three areas you can work on to maximize your current resources. They are:

• An offer they can’t refuse
• Would you like fries with that?
• Stay away from the edge of the cliff

An Offer They Can’t Refuse

The secret to success is to stay ahead of your competitors- maintain the competitive edge. To do that you need make it easier for your customers/clients to say “yes” rather than “no”. You do this by eliminating all the psychological, financial, physical, emotional and other road blocks they may have.

You can take the risks for them by offering warranties and guarantees that make the customer feel more confident in you, your business and your products/services. You also must be serious about your offer and follow through if a situation does arise. The quickest way to the bottom is to play games or take back a warranty or guarantee.

Would You Like Fries With That?

It’s the oldest trick in the book. I mean, really, how many times a week do you fall for it? Every time you sell a product or service, you need to offer an add-on, upgrade or back-end product to go with it. These products must be complimentary to the original product being purchased and must create a higher perceived value.

Avoid the Edge of the Cliff

Continuing to test and measure your systems, products, marketing methods and all other aspects of your business allow you to see problems before they happen and therefore avoid falling off the edge of the cliff.

Here are a few specific areas you can test for potential improvements:

• Marketing
• Sales Copy
• Customer Service
• Sales Letters
• Sales Presentations
• Employee-Customer Interaction

Through testing these different areas you will find products/services where you can raise the price, maybe others where you can lower the price or offer that product as an incentive item, and find many others areas for improvement that will better utilize your current resources. This wraps up our series on how to maximize on your current resources. If you need help working through any of these or the previous areas, try our GUIDED TOUR to work with one of our amazing business coaches.

Maximize Your Resources-Part 2

Last time we talked about the first three areas to work through in maximizing your current resources. They were:

• Recognize the obvious
• Unconventional breakthroughs
• Face the facts

Today we’ll cover the next three, which are:

• Reveal your business’ soul
• From breaking even to breaking the bank
• Stand up and stand out

Reveal Your Business’ Soul

Every business has a soul and you likely felt it the strongest when your business was just starting. It’s that passion, newness and momentum you had at the very beginning. Sometimes that can get lost along the way as your business gets stagnant and set in its ways. You have to break out of that rut and get back to your business’ true soul.

The philosophy of putting your client’s needs above your own is the true key to success. You need to serve your clients not sell to them. They want to build a relationship based on trust, not a used car. Add to these responsibilities your ability to solve problems, handle special situations, be a friend to your clients and focus on offering valuable, high quality products/services. Only then will you get back to the basics and find you have more resources than you thought.

From Breaking Even to Breaking the Bank

One of the classic and most used ways to attract clients is to offer them a ridiculously low price on their initial purchase and lock them in for future purchases. You see this approach with movie or book clubs and even credit card companies who offer lower interest rates for the first six months.

Essentially, you are offering them a deal on their first purchase and then you offer them back-end and add-on products along the way. These are naturally higher prices and will bring them in to more of an intimate relationship with you and your company.

Stand Up and Stand Out

You need to stand out from the pack among your competitors. They only way you can do this through consistency and value. You do this by discovering what your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is and perfecting it. Here are some tips to help you find and develop your USP:

1. Look for unfilled needs in your industry.
2. Use preemptive marketing.
3. Use a technique that is clear and to the point.

This wraps up this post. If you need help with any of these areas and techniques, try our GUIDED TOUR to access a wealth of resources and tools.