The concept of leverage is all about achieving ever more with ever less, do more with less, work once and get paid forever. However, when we are getting started in business this concept can seem as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. New business owners often find that they become stuck in the day to day activities of running a business, learning ever more about each discipline, juggling plates and losing time, sleep and hair.
As a Business Coach, I see this happen a lot and a business doesn’t have to be new or unsuccessful to find itself in this position. The business owner tries to work longer, harder and with more vigor but the reality is that the only way to get out of this cycle is to focus on getting better results. There are four distinct areas to ‘divide and multiply’ to achieve true leverage and these are:
- People: Getting your people to achieve more with less effort
- Marketing: Getting your advertising to return more sales with less dollars
- Systems: Getting your processes to produce more predictability with less ambiguity
- Finance: Getting your cash flow management to produce more profits with less stress
Most businesses focus on growing what they believe is a business, however, without the right foundations in place often all they are doing is adding problems onto problems. Eventually for many, it all gets too hard and begins to fall apart. Why is it that 8 out of 10 businesses fail in the first 5 years? It’s not that the owners are wrong, it is usually because they simply don’t know what to do and apply massive amounts of effort to ‘re-inventing the wheel’ without knowing it.
This is why business coaching can create such a huge impact to the bottom line. The Business Coach knows the structures and processes that should be employed to create strong foundations; they know what is needed to create momentum, improve profits, create better teams and focus on creating unique value for your customers. Rather than spending precious time reinventing the wheel or applying a trial and error approach, this knowledge and ability can be applied straight away.
To get better results you must be prepared to learn new ways of doing things and attempt new strategies – with the greatest or most probable chance of success. What you learn is also less important than what you do with that knowledge. Creating leverage in your business is a systematic approach of influencing each of the areas mentioned above. And my advice is that the smartest and most expedient way of achieving this is to employ the services of a Business Coach who has a proven track record of success. If you’re aware you have created more of a job than a business, consider a professional business coach who can help you break the cycle.
My name is Stefan Kazakis and I’m the guy to call when you need to think BIG (ger)
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For more information about Stefan's services and coaching programs please visit his website
Tags: business owner, leverage, momentum, pot of gold, profits
