What If You Were Just One Small Shift…In Focus, Away From Vastly Improved Results from Your Business?

It’s only a small shift, I promise, but an important one as we’re all a bit conditioned when it comes to [resisting] …what often gets called – change. We’ll come back to this later. 

First, a true story to set the scene somewhat and impress you, dear reader, that creating and developing businesses has become waay more difficult than it needs to be!

[But if you WILL make that little shift … watch this space]

Point: Something MUST be wrong or flawed in the way ‘WE’ have been taught to build companies at a time when so many good resources are available to almost everyone.

Apollo 13

So, back to our story. Some of you may have heard of Apollo spacecraft from the 1960s. In our case, the Apollo 13 Mission, which was made into a movie, became a ‘Successful Failure’ trip to space because, in the event of major mechanical problems, the crew all got back to Earth alive—which is a success bit.

The failure was that the objective for the mission was clearly NOT achieved.
Here’s what affects almost anyone in business today, the Mission Commander played by Tom Hanks in the film, famously said following his ‘lucky 13’ return home:

“The problem was that the fault was hard-wired into the rocket design” – get this – TWO YEARS before he was even recruited to the mission.

Effectively pronouncing that Apollo 13 was doomed way before it ever took off. Wowww! So, the real-life Commander, Jim Lovell, did a terrific job getting everyone home safely.

OK

It’s a powerful TRUE event. Let’s look at how central its message is to the 80% failure rate in the commercial world. By the way, a whopping 96% of start-ups are gone by year 10. We can do better than this if this penny drops into place.

Ready? Does the way we’ve primarily been shown or taught how to start, set up & run businesses ALREADY have a ‘design fault hard-wired into it?’

If it has, it would go a long way to explain why operating companies has become such a struggle for many, if not most, business founders. When [based on considerable evidence] we decide to make that little shift or dare I say…change, we’ll find:

Business No Longer Has To Be A Struggle

Ahhh, that would be cool, wouldn’t it!! Seriously, you’re one small shift away. Bear with us.

So, there you are – as your Jim or Jane Lovell – commander of your particular space mission, AKA – running your business and fighting with, or at least managing around, the hard-wired fault. Typically, HARD work and certainly more complicated than it needs to be.

What if WE, as company founders, KNEW that there is, in fact, a fault hard-wired into the way we design businesses? We’d fix it in a flash, wouldn’t we?

Before we dive into solutions to rectify the design fault, here’s another bit of evidence for you as we contemplate that small shift in business structure design. It sounds fancy, I know; it isn’t, though; you can handle it. 

Dragons & Sharks

This time, it’s TV programs most of us know. In the UK, it’s called ‘Dragons Den’ & in the US it’s ‘Shark Tank’ where entrepreneurs present their opportunity looking for the highly successful Dragons & Sharks to invest.

Here’s the thing—the experts on these shows are successful even with the old design fault hard-wired in the model they still use. This is mainly due to their vast experience and their own failures, too, which have enabled them to first survive and then thrive in most [but far from all] of their ventures. But, if you do a little research, even with Dragons & Sharks-level investors, a significant amount of these new endeavors STILL fail.

Partly because that pesky design fault can be a problem even when highly experienced people are on board.

If you’ve read this far and you’re still with us, you must be starting to accept that something has to change. Otherwise, your passion will not likely remain your Business Dream but evolve into the ‘Nightmare’ many business owners report a few years into the ‘mission.’

Remember, it’s only a small shift we’re pointing you towards – BUT – something we all know about this thing called ‘Change’ is that we don’t like it when someone tells us we need to change/alter our behavior in some way. [Do we!]

Hence my cunning plan [little joke] is to create a circumstance that YOU see the need to make the required change and then willingly implement accordingly.

“If you decide – chances are you’ll make it right for you & your business.”

Quick tip around this change subject. Think back to other changes you decided to make – that produced good results for you. Focus on a few of those, perhaps. To connect you to times, you DID shift habits that had positive benefits.

Almost there now. It’s your decision, remember. You’re the commander, and no one is imposing the need to change… You’re aware now, and it’s up to you to decide to… implement—or not!

One final step: we need to get clear on the hard-wired design fault that most of us have manfully …actually ‘personally’ wrestled with for our entire biz-owner-type experience.

The Design Fault: We have been taught to create businesses based almost exclusively on the SKILLS & experience of the founders. Applied to what they think is a ‘great idea’.

As one quick example, this means that around 80% of owners report as NOT being from a sales or marketing background – VOILA! We see the current epidemic of developing businesses with ongoing significant lead generation and conversion problems. In layman’s terms, ‘WE’ via our current approach to launching companies – has quickly created something that:

• WILL STRUGGLE – probably till the founder(s) run out of energy/enthusiasm – possibly cash..
• UNLESS or until this first showing of the hard-wired in design fault is rectified. PERIOD.

Most businesses fight and manage the design fault before something has to give, usually somewhere in year four. They can also address the fault and design or REDESIGN (it’s not too late) as it largely just involves that—one small shift in focus perspective, or whatever you choose to call it.

The number one effect of the design fault is that founders/owners invariably SPEND [not INVEST] more and more of their time, which is the scarcest resource, working on aspects of the business they neither enjoy nor have any particular skills in. No wonder their energy drains. And frankly, the tasks don’t get done that well either, causing more harm than good.

This IS the bad seed already taking hold—the beginning of the path to the Dream turning into a Nightmare. Like the one bad apple, it will spoil the whole barrel unless it’s removed.

So…

Are we ready for THE solution? We’ll start with a headline format and then apply it to the real world.

Solution

The starting point, AKA, where that small shift in focus begins:

1. We need to design businesses specifically around the Passions & Work Style of the Founders.
2. Then supplement any missing or required functions via involving OTHER people!

As many people reading this are from forms of Wellness/Coaching/Knowledge businesses, ask yourself this question: 

Lawyers & Accountants invariably partner up in some way with complimentary professionals. So do dentists & architects. There must be good reasons for this & of course there is. Business can be challenging as we all know. And trying to Go Solo increases that difficulty substantially.

As we begin drawing to our close, is the penny dropping?

It’s NOT a [lack of] skills problem causing the 80%+ business fail rate. It’s a lack of STRUCTURE or poor design, in the words of the legendary Steve Jobs at Apple.

Here’s some great news. Those—perhaps you’re one—80% or so non-sales or marketing background founders DO NOT have to become or even attempt to become salespeople or marketers. They don’t have to learn how to post on LinkedIn, etc. That’s all the old failing paradigm [to use a fancy word] design fault way we’ve been erroneously led to believe in.

It’s the ‘It’ll be OK if I just learn to do XYZ’ lack of skills trap. As an aside, it constantly prevents flow from developing .. it often gets called ‘Traction’, which is almost impossible to achieve amid all the Learning Distractions going on.

You are strongly advised to ‘LET IT GO’ – make the small perspective shift … and FOCUS on WHAT STRUCTURES are required to enable your enterprise to really achieve its goals?

A symbolic shift we might all embrace is to leave behind the term ‘Start-Up’ about a company. Which generally refers to one typically in its first year and not fully formed yet. Think about the term for a second. We don’t just start a race, do we? We at least intend to finish it or perhaps set a personal best time. A race has an ‘Objective’ whereas the term Start-Up concerning commerce – often puts us in a limbo position as no one quite knows when the Start-up actually becomes a fully fledged emerging organization.

INSTEAD

What if we called the early-stage of business… the Design Phase? It’s still being properly structured to thrive by achieving its opportunities and objectives. If you’re already in full swing in your company and have realized it’s time to make that shift … then you’ll go into the RE-Design Phase. There’s no problem with that, and it’s possibly quite freeing for many hard-working yet struggling founders out there.

In our humble opinion, business was never meant to be a struggle.

If you are shifting to the advocated Design/Structure your business to thrive mode, a catchphrase sometimes used is … Focus on WHO can help you rather than ‘How will you/I Do it?’ Think about it, very few great endeavors are done alone. Business is no different.

Passion, skills, and ideas get most of us started working for ourselves. But then it takes design [biz-mapping, as we call it] to install the Structures that will get most of us to the success our efforts may well deserve.

Partners and clients of ours sometimes refer to this shift in focus as – From EMPLOYMENT mode to SELF-EMPLOYED mode & realizing there is another option, namely: TEAM Employed. The emphasis shifts to biz founders TEAMING up with others to increase their odds of success dramatically.

It’s time to draw things to a close. Have you started your list yet of WHO can help you? [Start today.] You might also want to work backward from the work you can see needs to get done to better shape your quest for Collaborators/Partners/JVs & Alliances.

The help and support are OUT there. All you had [have—preferably] to do is decide it’s time to make that small shift and design your way to massive success. Ready for that?

To sign off … ‘All You Need is a Simple Plan That Works! Almost anyone can implement that in line with their unique work style or personality. A positive attitude is NOT essential, though it helps. It’s the most motivating thing in the world—one small shift.

The Business Dream is back in full Technicolor. Enjoy the ride to the stars.