Ten things business owners say (and ten things they don’t)

Do you want to be a business owner? Or do you just want to be your own boss? There's a difference and it came up today in a conversation with a client. Every person who owns a company has to decide whether they want to go down the entrepreneurial road of being a business owner or whether they just don't want to be told what to do. Here's how to tell the difference between the two.

Top ten things business owners say

1. How do we get there? True entrepreneurs have a vision. They enlist their team and advisors to help them determine the best way to accomplish that vision?


2. How much is it going to cost? They are keenly aware of the numbers and measure their return on investment on EVERYTHING, even if they use some unconventional formula to do so.


3. How do we measure it? As intuitive and creative as entrepreneurs are they know that progress has to be able to be measured objectively otherwise they'll end up doing everything themselves.


4. No, we're NOT going to do that? Since they know the direction they want to go entrepreneurs can be single minded when it comes to excluding options that detract from the core focus or mission.


5. Good job. These are not insecure people and they know how to recognize others and give credit.


6. We screwed that up. Security isn't only being able to give praise it's being able to take responsibility for mistakes and use the experience to get even better. Mistakes might be embarrassing but not life threatening.


7. I trust you (just don't screw it up). Good leaders delegate important tasks. They understand that the stakes have to be high for their managers and employees to grow and develop. There's no such thing as "play money" in an entrepreneur's business. Ultimately you will get a chance to prove yourself in a big way, but if you screw it up there will be real consequences, for you and the business.


8. What do you think about this? Back to that whole security thing. True business owners aren't afraid to hire people smarter than they are and when they do they expect to get their money's worth.


9. OK, now let's fix it. Crying over spilt milk isn't in their DNA. The challenge and necessity of fixing screw ups is more important than beating a dead horse.


10. Let me think about it......OK. Business doesn't give you time to be 100% sure. Entrepreneurs know when and how to make quick decisions.

Follow your passion, but…

How many times have you heard "Follow your passion to be successful in business?" I believe that's true, but sometimes I have a hard time staying on track. When you run a business it's easy to get distracted. Sometimes it's low hanging fruit in the form of a sale you just can't pass up. On other days adminstrative trivia can waste a whole afternoon. Pretty soon you find yourself wondering what happened to the love and passion you had on day one.

Here are a few tips that might help you get back on track when you find yourself asking "Why am I doing this?"

1. Write down what you do best. If you are like me you can get distracted when you forget what you do best. There is no substitute like pen on paper for clarifying what is going on in your head. Take a minute and in one sentence write down what you do best on a post it note. Tape it to the edge of your monitor, your dashboard, your bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, the dog food bag, the coffee pot...you get the idea. Some people have a hard time articulating their passion but when you ask what they do best the answer is pretty easy. I am best at helping business owners understand, dissect and solve problems. When I find myself straying into areas like making journal entries and reconciling bank statements I start to get discouraged. Hire people to do all the things that are still required of your business but that don't fit your passion. And if you can't afford to hire people you really need this next one.



2. Get organized. Read David Allen's book and put it into practice. I watched a video where David was speaking to a group at Google and he used the analogy of a rock being thrown into a pond and the resulting appropriate response of the water. If a pebble is thrown into a pond the water gives a pebble response. If a rock is thrown into the pond the water gives a rock response. If a boulder is thrown into the pond the water gives a boulder response. The water doesn't freak out when it sees the boulder coming. It just responds appropriately. Having a system like David's to get organized is what allows you to have an appropriate response to the barrage of situations and issues that come at you as a business owner every day. If you are cash strapped and can't hire people to take care of the areas outside your passion it is imperative that you get organized. This is the only way that you will have time to do the things that must get done. You might need to work your butt off for a while, but if you have system you CAN do it.



3. Listen to yourself. Every so often I sit down with a business owner and we start talking about all the opportunities that are out there specific to that particular business. These opportunities are met with statements like "But whose going to do that?", "Do you realize how much work that is?", "But I can't do that." Here's the deal. If you sound like this GET OUT! You don't enjoy what you're doing, you don't have any passion and you won't be successful. It takes work to turn opportunity into results and if you just aren't ready to work there is nothing I or anyone else can do for you. When I started my business I worked 60, 70, 80 hours a week doing stuff that was nowhere near my passion, but it had to be done if I was going to take advantage of opportunity. Don't kid yourself. Anything worth having is worth working for. If you don't enjoy busting your butt every once in a while you are in the wrong business. If you need a little kick in the pants become a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. This guy believes in hustle and he doesn't mince words. There are no shortcuts.

Staying on track is hard sometimes. You will have good days and bad days, and there will be some days when you fall off the wagon. Just remember what you do best, stay organized and listen to yourself. It's really pretty simple (touch of sarcasm in case you missed it).

Clients are saying “Billable hours don’t measure value”

Listen to this video by Amy Schulman, general counsel of Pfizer. She's talking about Pfizer pushing all of their outside law firms into fixed fee agreements and why this is valuable for BOTH Pfizer and the law firms themselves.

Below is Schulman's quote that encapsulates the entire billable hour debate in professional services firms.

"The way that a law firm works right now is that it's built on a pyramid. So that even if you assume that lawyers have their client's best interests at heart their entire economic model is predicated on numbers of billable hours billed. And so that doesn't teach or train or even necessarily reward the type of kind of solutions oriented, proactive thinking that is actually at the heart of what a corporation values and what I value. You're going to have to get used to making less money. But I can offer you rewards as a client that are non-economic but that will definitely add to value."

Within the legal community this is a raging debate and it has started to spill over into accounting firms, primarily through groups like the Verasage Institute. What is unique about this video is that it's one of the first times I have heard the debate articulated so succinctly from a client's perspective.

Knowledge workers need to prove out their value

If you can't you won't be around for very long. This is especially true of businesses that consider themselves "knowledge worker" based firms. I have to preach this to startups all the time but this post from Communispace got me thinking as did this one a while back from the New York Times.

Here's my two cents worth.

Taxation schemes for LLC entities

LLC's are a popular topic among startup companies. Unfortunately choosing to setup an LLC tells us nothing about your tax situation. LLC's are very flexible for tax purposes. This video outlines the various taxation schemes available to LLC's.