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Got Your 2020 Money Plan?

Your Money Plan is important.

But if you're a small business owner, it's likely you don't have it.

As the end of the year approaches, coaches start talking about planning out the next twelve months. Smart business owners take them up on this offer... and yet if I had to put a number to it I'll bet about 5% actually do the work.

The rest sit back.

They have various reasons for doing so.

After all, the holidays are coming up. They can do the work in January. (But of course they never will.)

Or they get trapped in The How: HOW will this money come in? A revenue plan is just fantasy, as far as they're concerned.

Those are two of the big reasons small business owners do nothing. They continue to drift.

money plan puzzle revenue plan business owner planning decision making choices

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Why Create Your Money Plan

I've seen a lot of people and companies drift.

Some are comfortable.

Some are so uncomfortable they can't imagine how figuring out a money plan will help.

Yet that's the truth: having a revenue plan will help.

It tells you all sorts of things, if you do the work.

Your Money Plan tells you how much you want and need to earn.

It tells you what the minimum price is that you should go to work for.

From that, it tells you the minimum size of problem you should be looking to solve.

It tells you who you should be looking for as a target customer.

It tells you how fast you need to be working.

It gives you all sorts of incredibly valuable information about how your business needs to be set up and run...if you want it to be successful.

So why do so many business owners shrug this planning off?

Why do they believe it's "not for them"?

Two Reasons People Struggle With Their Money Plan

The truth is in two parts.

First, nobody has ever told them about the key factors I just listed for you. The business owners therefore believe this kind of planning is a boring accounting exercise: and who wants to do that besides the accountants?

Second, deep down, they don't believe they're really in control. They think, if they're winning, "I got lucky." That their customers are the result of chance. That it won't last.

And in a weird way, they're right about the second part.

If you don't continually create the outcome you desire, things will fall apart.

But you do have control.

You can control who you speak with...and who you don't.

You can control what size of problem you choose to work on solving.

You can control your activity level and involvement in phases like prospecting, selling and fulfilling orders.

You can control a lot.

Probably a whole lot more than you thought.

So if you're content to stick it out in the comfort zone, abdicate responsibility for the outcome and tell yourself the lie that, "It's all luck"... you're on your own.

But if you're excited about the idea of getting your Money Plan together—and perhaps changing your business much for the better—then we should speak.

>> Jason Kanigan is a business strategist. Book a time with him to speak about your situation...and get some serious answers...by clicking here. <<

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Highest Best Use

Highest Best Use is a concept best explained by analogy.

So let me provide one, from my civic volunteer history.

I shot a video about it:

 

Highest Best Use Means Being The Real You

As a business owner, you may think your top function is some kind of technical 'doing.' That may be so...but I encourage you to investigate this. Ask around. Maybe it's leading, showing the vision. Maybe it's being the glue that holds the team together. Maybe something else. But question it.

Most CEOs can sell, for example; however, their highest best use isn't in selling 1-on-1 to end customers.

highest best use

Where they'd better be put to use is in developing relationships with other CEOs: relationships that leverage the customer list of the other party, for instance. Make one top level sale, get access to the list that will drive thousands or hundreds of thousands of other, end customer, sales.

How have you considered and used the Highest Best Use concept in your business?

>> Book a consultation with Jason to discuss your highest best use by clicking here.

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I’ll Do It Later, When…

I'll Do It Later, When... is a refrain I've often heard in my many years of business coaching.

Usually it occurs at the beginning of the process. I'm talking with someone who has come to me for help, only to discover that that help requires an investment.

"I'll do it later, when I'm more financially stable," they say.

No, you won't.

If you do work yourself into that more financially stable situation, you'll have gone into a comfort zone.

You'll find other stuff to spend the extra money on—a nice set of stereo speakers, a new computer, some fun nights out on the town.

You won't be looking at entrepreneurship. I guarantee it.

"I'll Do It Later, At Some Magic Time When I'm Ready"

"I'll do it later, when..." is a noise made by the unconfident and the panicked. Entrepreneurship almost always requires that you "jump off a cliff", take a huge risk and fully commit. If you're unable to do that, you'll make this braying noise...and demonstrate you're not ready to be an entrepreneur.

You may never be.

That's OK—the world needs employees.

But don't think for a second you have what it takes to be a business owner if you can't take that risk.

You'll have to take many, many more risks if you decide to become a business owner. It never ends. And if this first, basic, essential risk is something you can't stomach, you simply aren't cut out for this sort of thing. Go get another job.

The capacity of people to lie to themselves is shockingly tremendous. "I'll do it later, when..." they tell themselves, and they believe it! But it is a completely hollow and false statement. That time will never come. Conditions will never be right. The stars will never align.

When the situation occurs that they said they'd be willing to move ahead with their entrepreneurial daydream in, the chance will have passed. The need to make change will be gone. The comfort zone they'll be in will be too attractive, and they'll stay inside it.

I'll Do It Later, When...Is A Lie

So don't lie to me, and more importantly don't lie to yourself.

The things you say, I have heard them all a thousand times before. You are not unique. Your dreams are not unique. The things you say and do, and the beliefs behind them, are an open book to me...even if they are not to you.

fool card mythic tarot fool's journey i'll do it later

In the mythology of the tarot, the Fool's Journey is the path to success and personal power. This could also be called the Hero's Journey, and you've seen it in many movies from Star Wars to Coming To America. That first major arcana card, it shows the Fool dancing off the edge of a cliff. He's happy. He's self-absorbed. He's READY.

He just does it.

No hesitation, no backing out.

He jumps off the edge of the cliff without a second thought.

That's commitment. That's belief in oneself.

The next card is The Magician. Our Fool has learned some basic skills, and is starting to get somewhere in the world.

But if he hadn't been willing and fully committed to jumping with all his energy off that cliff, he'd have never gotten to the next stage.

These stories are fundamental to understanding human nature, and that's why I'm talking about them.

The time will never be perfect.

The "right time" is "right now", if you believe in yourself.

But only if you believe in yourself.

If you don't have self-confidence by now, you're unlikely to get any. Better for you to get another job.

First you must have the vision of yourself as successful. No one can give that to you from outside. Stop looking for it outside yourself.

What do you really want?

From the first time I heard that in my final teenage year watching the harsh business movie Swimming With Sharks, I knew it was THE critical question. Not something for others to answer for you.

Start asking it of yourself.

What do you really want?

From the answer comes the self-confidence. And from the self-confidence comes the commitment real entrepreneurs need to succeed.

>> Jason Kanigan is a business strategist who is not interested in your self-deception and comfort zones. To book a time to speak with Jason about turning your idea of success into reality, click here. <<