Stay Ready!
Years ago, one of my Mom’s friends, Gloria, announced to her husband after 25 years of marriage that she was going to divorce him and that he had to make immediate arrangements to move out of the house (as she was the sole owner). After Gloria gave the news to her husband, she didn’t wait around for a response, she went back to the kitchen to finish drying the supper dishes before watching her favourite television show. After about 10 minutes had past, her then husband stood in the dining room staring through the pass‐through into the kitchen and said, “Who is going to press my shirts now?”
The consummate entrepreneur is always ready to pivot and roll with the punches. After all, this is your business, and if you can’t roll with the punches ‐ you might just get knocked out. The assignment of every successful entrepreneur is to stay vigilant and aware of how strong the business is working for us. Is it a profit centre or only a cost centre? Self‐employed professionals have to go it alone and make the best decisions we can every day. We need to hear when to make a move, when to say yes when opportunities are hot and know when to say no when they’re not. It’s our job to change the course of action of our business in order to survive. We have to assess situations quickly, know what to leverage and what to prune ‐ quickly. It’s a little like keeping a ‘Rose of Sharon’ in check. If you don’t watch it almost every day, that thing will grow with abandon, without any shape or form, and soon take over while weakening every other thriving plant beside it.
Admittedly, living with us entrepreneurs can be difficult because we appear at times to be changing directions constantly, with seemingly no logic as if we are navigating a first place finish in the local regatta. Unexpectedly our spouses find us working all weekend even though we committed ourselves to a ‘Walk for Heart’ charity 5k with the kids. It can be difficult to live with us but our life is our work and our hope is that everyone will benefit from the success and freedom our strong choices will afford us.
“The first step in a growth policy is not to decide where and how to grow. It is to decide what to abandon. In order to grow, a business must have a systematic policy to get rid of the outgrown, the obsolete, and the unproductive. Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’ve stopped doing.” Peter Drucker.
I always consider three things in order for my business to remain strong:
• Yeses make me money
• No’s save me money
• Maybe’s cost me money
I have to know where my prospects and partners fall within these markers; otherwise I’m wasting a lot of time and money. The best sales reps know how to say NO as well as they know how to say YES.
Next time you are pondering whether to make a move or take a different tack in order to get different results in your business, go for it. You must trust in your instincts and in your knowledge of the goals of your business. There will always be people who only want you to stay to ‘iron their shirts’ not recognizing the value you bring to the organization and/or relationship but that cannot stop you from running towards your ultimate goals. If after some careful thought, you decide that the timing is right to make a change and you feel it will put you in a stronger position to make better choices for your life and the lives you touch, forge ahead! Thank the naysayers for helping you to see that it is your time to move and get on with it. If not now, when?
By: Alli Mang
© Copyright Alli Mang All Rights Reserved
(Excerpt from Alli Mang’s book, Your First Moment Earns You More Moment – Stand Out in Today’s Job Market – both in audiobook and book form from www.amazon.com)
