Hi folks!
On today’s episode of A Drink with the Hurricane I want to talk to you about having an “exit strategy” for your business. I’m going to help you mentally train yourself to be a fortune teller. Yes, we as business owners have to be our own fortune tellers too. We need to be active in our foresight and goal-setting. There’s no such thing as plug-and-play here folks, we need to adapt, duck, and charge. What am I getting at?
Many owners don’t take into consideration a very important component of their daily grind: “Where am I going with this?” You’ve created your business, took an idea, nurtured it, and now you finally own that piece of property where you can hang your custom sign over the doorway. Your business is your baby. You did it!
But you’re not done…
Business owners fail to ask themselves, “What is my goal once the business is up and running?” “Did I start my business in order to become a corporation?” “Do I have plans to hand it off to my children in the future?” Not having a clear model, a clear exit strategy, can blur your focus and wind up working against you until you run out of gas. At our next Home Care Marketing Boot Camp, I will be presenting a hard-hitting session, called “The 7 Steps to Exit.” It drives into many of the reasons WHY you need to plan your future, and also gives some direction how to do it.
So, what is your goal?
Arguably, you’ve already completed the most difficult task as a business owner: getting the idea/product/brick-and-mortar plans out of your head and onto a physical landscape. Definite cause for celebration, but I’m here to remind you that life doesn’t coast after you finally get your business up and running. I encourage you to adopt an exit strategy mentality, begin to generate thoughts about your end result, and think about your future. People are prone to living their business day to day, month to month, year to year with no primary goal in sight. This is the most assured way to experience burnout. Burnout equals bad. Burnout equals lack of motivation. Going to work becomes harder, and you begin to feel a lack of appreciation for those little milestones along the way because you have been operating on autopilot! You soon forget why milestones exist (Hint: They create a path toward achieving your mission and end goals). Well, I gave it away.
I recommend asking yourself to project a timeframe of achievement, and even closure, for your business. Timely outcomes are not always cut and dry; life happens, mission statements undergo edits, staff ebbs and flows, but for the sake of keeping your compass pointed north, it’s smart to actively think about where you see yourself in 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20 years. It keeps you optimistic and can help you drive a lot of important decisions on the way there.
It’s easy to get the business idea. It’s not easy to know your future. I want to help you think about what to do with your business “someday.”
Come to our Boot Camp in Denver CO, come be inspired, and start taking hold of your present and future.
I’ll leave you with these helpful questions: What is YOUR exit strategy? What do you want to DO with your business?
So suit up for the think-tank July 26-28th so you can get back to work and blow away the competition!
Yours Truly,
Steve “The Hurricane”
