First you have to start

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"No one aims for average.  No one sets out for status quo.  No one longs for ordinary.  But one day you wake up and ask yourself, How did I get here?"  These are the words on the inside flyleaf of Jon Acuff's book Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.  They are words that many of us have said and might even be saying now.  We say them when we hit those transitions times in our lives.  We say them again when we wake up one day and realize that it is going to be like every other recent day, and we're just not sure we can take it anymore.  We repeat them when something triggers thoughts of unrealized dreams, and we wonder if it's now too late to make them a reality.

Most people intend to do something significant with their lives.  I doubt that there is anyone who hasn't had big dreams and had every intention of fulfilling them sometime.  Of course, that is the key word here isn't it: sometime.  Too many of us are content to live on Someday Isle.  Someday I'll start that business I always wanted to own.  Someday I'll complete that degree.  Someday I'll spend more time with our children.  Someday I'll get serious about getting our finances right.  Someday I'll focus more on exercise and healthy eating.  Someday I'll....

The problem is someday never comes, and one day we realize that the opportunities to do those things we dreamed about are behind us.  In his book, Acuff writes that fear is one of the primary reasons we don't seek to live out our dreams.  We are afraid of the unknown.  We are afraid of failure.  We are afraid of what others might think or say.  Some may even be afraid of success.  Until we address the fears that hold us back we will never live up to our capabilities or achieve the things we've dreamed of achieving.  We have to stop listening to those voices within and without that creates fear.  Acuff provides several specific things we can do to overcome that fear and move on with our lives.

Fear is what keeps people from starting that small business they've wanted to own.  For owners of small businesses, fear is what keeps them from taking it to higher levels.  We settle for normal because normal pays the bills and provides us with a regular income.  We don't want to risk that by trying to grow our business so we settle.  But, while we're settling we're also stewing inside because we know we could be doing so much more. 

I spend a lot of time working with church leaders, and many of them have settled for the ordinary as well.  In fact, it's safe to say that some have just given up.  They have been beaten down so often by having their ideas rejected by small minded people with big pocketbooks they've stopped dreaming.  They make no effort to lead their churches any more; they're content to just manage what they've got.  They have forfeited their role as prophet and leader and settle for becoming a chaplain.  In some cases, they are hospice chaplains providing care for a dying institution.

Life is too short to do work that doesn't matter.  Life is meant to be lived with purpose, and part of that purpose is to follow your dreams and to achieve everything you were created to achieve.  To do so will require some determination on your part and a plan.  Acuff's book can help you identify a plan.  After all, if you want to accomplish something the first thing you have to do is  Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.

The leader of any organization ultimately determines the success of that organization

When John Maxwell's book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You was released he travelled the country leading workshops based on the book.  I attended one of those workshops.  The first law in the book is the Law of the Lid which teaches that everything rises and falls on leadership.  The leadership lid of the leader determines how far the organization can go.  When he finished talking on that law I never heard anything he said about the new two laws because I was trying to process what he had said about the first law.  I was also somewhat angry.

At that time I was the pastor of a small church and the owner/manager of a small business.  I was not happy with how either of those organizations were doing, and I had let both our congregation and our employees know how I felt.  I challenged each of them that if they would do more our church and our business could grow.  Maxwell was now telling me it was my fault; I was the leader and it was my leadership lid that was preventing both organizations from doing better.  The reason I was angry was that I realized he was right!

Your organization can have the best team members and the best structure available, but leadership will ultimately determine how successful your organization will be.  The decisions of the leaders will determine how productive team members will be and how well your structure will meet the needs of your team and your customers.  If your lid is a 5 you can never expect your organization to rise above a 4 because it will keep bumping up against your lid.  Also, if your lid is a 5 you will not keep team members above a 4 because people will not work for people whose leadership abilities are less than theirs.  You should also consider something else.  If your 4 leaders are hiring people they are going to hire 3s.  Can you see how this keeps pulling your organization backwards?

If you are serious about wanting your small business to grow you must be growing as a leader so you can attract other great leaders and have a more effective and productive business.  You have to stay current on what's happening in your field.  That will likely require you to read a lot more than you currently do.  It will also likely mean you'll need to attend some continuing education opportunities, and it may even mean you will need to go back to school for some specific classes.

We can blame struggling and closed businesses on many factors.  We can point our fingers at the economic situation, at laws that are oppressive to small businesses, government involvement and bureaucracy, unfair business practices by our competitors, and dozens of other problems, but the real reason our business isn't doing as well as we might like is directly related to our leadership of that business.  Raise your leadership lid and you'll raise the potential of your business.  BTW - I still think that book of Maxwell's is one of the top three leadership books of all time.

Your online presence needs to be updated regularly

I scan or read well over three dozen blogs each day.  The posts that I find helpful I put on Twitter so others can be directed to the author's site so they can read them if they want to.  One of the things I don't understand is why the people who create these blogs may go for months without ever adding a new message.  Recently, I removed several of the blogs I had been following because nothing new had been published on them in five to six months.  Many of these were business-related blogs that I assume were created to attract people to those businesses.  I don't think most people will find them very attractive.

Since starting this blog a few months ago I try to post on it at least once a week, usually Monday.  Once in awhile I don't do it simply because of my schedule.  I have another blog that is focused on ministry and church leadership.  Because that is my primary focus and the field in which my day job is located I try to post on that blog at least four times a week.  In addition, I post around 15 articles on my Twitter account each business day with a link that directs the reader to the site where they will find the article.  Half of those articles are related to ministry and the other half are focused on small business.  I do this because I want my readers to find fresh information from some of the best thinkers in these two areas of life.  Since my Twitter account links to my Facebook account, those who just follow me on FB are able to be directed to those articles as well.  I continue to struggle getting large numbers of people following my posts; I can't imagine how difficult it is for those blogs that are only updated 3-4 times a year to attract regular followers.

What makes this even sadder is that I have found the articles on these blogs to be quite good.  The authors are people who have something worthwhile to say, and usually a product or service to market, but they are turning away some of their potential clients due to the lack of blog maintenance.

Small businesses and ministries need a presence on social media.  A web site and/or blog (I think both are best.) are becoming more essential to get their messages out to persons who need to know about them.  But, if these are not going to be updated regularly these sites can become more of a detriment than an asset.  Stale messages send a negative signal to your potential clients that you don't want to send.  It tells people that you don't have a lot to say about your product or service or you just don't care to give them the information they might need to do business with you.

I have seen church websites that have not been updated in three or four years.  Their previous pastor is still listed on the church staff page.  If that information is wrong then I can't assume I can trust their service times either.  This has actually kept me from visiting some churches.  Some businesses don't do much better.  Dated information about the company or the product or service doesn't impress potential clients, and it's important to know that the first image some people will make about your company will come from you social media sites.  Create the wrong impression online and you will drive potential business to your competitors.

Businesses have two options.  Either pay someone to manage your site or do it in-house, but your sites must be maintained and updated on a regular basis.  In today's environment your online presence may be a major portion of your marketing depending on the target audience you are going for.  As such, it should be seen as an investment, not an expense.  You are investing money and time in an effort to reach new clients and to encourage your current clientele to do more business with you.  Make your online sites a priority in your planning.  Don't ignore or "forget" them.  They can be a rich source of revenue if they are properly maintained.

Going smaller with your business

Since this blog is primarily for small business owners the idea of going smaller may be the furthest thing from your mind.  Chances are you are trying to find ways to grow your business, and there is nothing wrong with that if big is how you define success.  However, there is much to be said for small as well.

What would happen if you fired half of your customers?  You know, the ones who always pay late, complain about your prices and/or service, never give you a positive recommendation, and take up large chunks of your time over the most miniscule of issues.  Right now I'm thinking of a woman who complained to me about the cost of a service call our company did for a rental house she owned.  She didn't feel she should have to pay as much for that call as someone in a community less than ten miles away because she lived in a poorer area.  I reminded her that our supplier charged us the same for the part we used regardless of where we used it.  Our serviceman had to drive that extra ten miles to do the service call, and she was the one who chose to buy rental property in that poorer community.  She was adament that I reduce the bill which I did.  Life is too short to quibble over ten or twenty dollars.  We also never accepted another service call from her.

What would happen if you fired half of your employees?  Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank fired the bottom 20 percent of her sales staff each year. Don't just dump them out on the street.  Help them find other jobs before letting them go, but keep only your top talent and give them substantial raises.  You would lose the employees who come in late, are less productive, and often infect other employees with their bad attitudes.  Your overhead would go down, you would be working with your top talent, the atmosphere in your workplace would be less toxic, and the ones you keep would be more productive because they are no longer carrying dead weight.

Doing these two things would change the way you could do business.  You could begin to pick the projects you actually enjoy doing rather than the ones you have to do to make payroll.  Your stress levels would go way down because now you are working with your very best clients and team members.  You would probably be more profitable at the end of the year.  Think about that: less work, less headaches, more on the bottom line.

Again, making this type of change first requires a change in how we define success.  If you want to grow your small business into the next empire, fine.  Just know that your dream could turn into a nightmare before it's over.  If you want to enjoy the things in life that really matter: your family, your friends, your faith, your life, and enjoy a good living then you may want to consider going smaller with your business.

For other tips on small business success be sure to read my e-book Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions that Will Close Your Small Business.

What are you doing to intentionally grow?

I became a big John Maxwell fan when I first read his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You.  I had never read anything that impacted my leadership as much as that book.  Since then I have bought most of Maxwell's books, but none of them had the same impact on me as that first book until I read his latest, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.  Unless I am very surprised it will be the important book I will have read this year.

In my earlier years I was like many people who assume that we grow as we age.  That simply isn't true.  Getting older just happens.  If you stay on this side of the grass long enough you will get older.  However, growth requires intentionality.  We have to take certain steps throughout our lives if we want to grow as persons and as leaders.  We need to take those steps every single day of our lives if we want that growth to be persistant.  Maxwell would take that even further and say these are not merely steps we need to take; they are laws we must follow if we want to reach our potential.

For me, this book did two things.  It opened my eyes to some things I had not really considered before when thinking about growth.  For instance, he writes about the law of the rubber band.  A rubber band is only useful when it is stretched.  I have a pile of rubber bands in one desk drawer that are completely useless unless they are stretched over something I want to keep together.  As I read that chapter I realized that I am very similar to those rubber bands.  I am at my best when I am stretched, and the primary times that I have seen growth occur in my life is when I've been stretched by situations and challenges.  If I want growth to occur in my life I must put myself in situations where I will be stretched.

The second thing this book did was remind me of things I already knew but sometimes forget to practice.  The law of the mirror is one of those things.  The way we see ourselves has a huge impact on what we are able to accomplish and on our ability to grow.  Many years ago when I coached Little League baseball I used to tell my team to never let a mistake hurt you twice.  We would often see a player make an error on the field and in the next inning strike out because he was still thinking of that error.  Sadly, there are many times in my life when I forgot to take my own advice.  I would preach a poor sermon and beat myself up throughout the next week because of it.  I would make a poor business decision that cost my business needed profits and feel like a complete failure.  In this chapter Maxwell provides ten steps that will improve our self-image.  I know everyone of them, but I found it so helpful to be reminded of them.  Growth will occur as we implement these steps in our lives.

I just finished this book a couple of weeks ago and plan to read it at least once more before the year is out.  I can't give a book a higher recommendation than that.  I may be approaching retirement age, but that doesn't mean I want to stop growing as a person and as a leader.  I hope you feel the same way.  Too many people are counting on you for you to stop growing now.

The danger of growing too quickly

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It seems almost impossible to even think that a small business could grow too quickly.  Isn't growth one of the indicators of a successful business?  Doesn't growth mean that sales and profits are increasing, and what could be wrong with that?  When entrepreneurs begin their business are they not looking forward to the time when that business is growing?  Actually, there isn't anything wrong with growth as long as it can be properly managed.

Growth becomes a problem when the owners/managers find out they can no longer manage the business.  The business has grown faster than they have when that happens.  A growing business demands more of its owners/managers, and sometimes they are not capable of meeting those demands. 

Growth is also a problem when the business does not have the systems in place to manage the growth.  A few years ago a university set a limit for new students for the first time in its history.  They had grown so fast their personnel and computer systems could not keep up.  Their student advisers were overwhelmed by the demands of incoming students.  Much of administration was in shambles so the university president announced a limit on the number of new students the school would accept.  He also announced major changes in personnel, new computer systems, improved dorms and eating facilities, and a general upgrade in much of the admin department.

In the company I owned we had grown the business to the point that we needed to add new team members to install the equipment we were selling.  I hired new people, bought them a vehicle to use, and waited for a big increase in profits.  It never happened.  We were not structured as a company for that rapid of growth.  There were breakdowns in communication.  People were not properly supervised.  In short, we were not prepared to grow, or a more appropriate way of looking at it, I was not prepared for the changes that would be expected of me as our company grew.  My leadership was the lid that held our business captive and eventually forced us to return to our previous levels of sales and manpower.

Sustained growth should be the goal of every small business owner.  You want your business to grow, but that growth must come slowly and include everyone involved in your company.  For this to happen the owners must be committed to on-going growth in their own lives.  You must be continually growing so when the time comes for your company to take it up a notch you'll already be prepared.

Sustained growth also depends upon the systems in place in your company.  Do you have the computer hardware and software that will enable your business to grow?  Do your team members have the training they need to handle new expectations as the business grows?  Do you have the right policies and procedures in place for sustained growth?  These are important questions that must be answered before your company enters into any type of growth.

Leaders are readers

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One of my fondest memories growing up was going to our county library.  I grew up on dairy farms that did not provide a lot of extra money for things like books, but every summer my mother would sign up for a summer reading program at our local library.  I was usually at or near the top of the list for the most books read that summer by people my age.  We would go to town on Saturdays to shop and nearly every Saturday that involved going to the library so I could return the books I had read the previous week and pick up new ones.  That early love for reading has served me well ever since.  Most years I will average reading one book a week, and nearly all of them will be related to ministry, business, or leadership.  I seldom read more than one or two fiction books a year, but I will read an occasional biography or history book.

I recently read a stat that claimed that 42 percent of Americans never read another book after college.  I don't know if that is accurate or not, but studies do show that a large percentage of us read very few books, if any, during a year.  According to some studies 25 percent read no books last year and another 25 percent read between 1-3 books.  People age 63 and up reported reading at least 10 books last year while younger people admitted to reading the fewest number.

This makes no sense to me.  Knowledge is increasing at a rate that no one can really keep up with, but if one isn't reading new material on a regular basis they are falling even further behind regardless of their field.  Leaders are readers, and if they don't read they won't remain a leader for long.

I'm well aware of the excuses people give for not reading, but that is all they are... excuses.  The most common one is the lack of time.  We get done what we spend time doing.  If you want to succeed in whatever business you are in you must keep up with the most current information in that field.  If your competition isn't doing that then you are you have just achieved a major competitive advantage, but if you are the one who isn't reading and your competitor is, he or she will eat you lunch and one day own your business.

Electronic devices such as NOOKs can make it easier and cheaper for you to keep up with your reading.  You can save a few dollars over a NOOK book than if you bought it at the local bookstore, and it's easier to travel with an e-reader than to lug around several books.  Right now about 2/3 of the books I read are on my NOOK.  If even those books are too expensive right now, there is the public library.  With most libraries offering lending services you now have access to just about any book you could ever want to read at zero cost to you.

Even if you get your books from the library there is still the opportunity cost for reading.  Yes, you could be doing something else during the time you are reading, but I am convinced that reading good books will help you work smarter and make your efforts more efficient.  Reading is an investment in yourself, your leadership, and your business.  At the very least you should be committed to reading one good book a month.  Even at that rate, you will be far above the average American which will greatly improve the chances of success for your business.

You need a great team

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I believe it was John Maxwell I first heard say that if your dream is too small for a team your dream is too small.  Many small businesses began as a one-person show, but eventually the owner of a one-person business will learn that he or she is still an employee...and the boss.  Soon after that recognition comes another awakening - unless you can expand the business to include more people it will never be what you first envisioned it would be.  It will never provide you and your family with the life you wanted when you became a business owner.  It is the failure to develop a team that causes many small business owners to eventually give up and return to the workforce.  It makes no sense to deal with all the headaches that go with owning your own business if you are the only employee and are not making any more money, or often even less, than you were when you were working for someone else.

But, just adding people isn't enough.  You have to be adding the right people.  Dave Anderson, in his excellent book Up Your Business!: 7 Steps to Fix, Build, or Stretch Your Organization, writes, "You can read books on strategy and attend courses on corporate vision but the fact is that without getting the right people on your team, nothing else you do will matter.  Your vision is worthless, strategy impotent, and values corrupt without the right people to execute them."  Later in the book he adds, "A great dream with the wrong team is a nightmare because bold goals pursued by mediocre people still result in mediocre results."  He spends the remainder of his book addressing good hiring procedures, the importance of ongoing training, setting high expectations for the team, and how to survive success by overcoming common temptations that successful companies face.

Adding team members is expensive.  If the owner does it right it takes an enormous amount of time.  The best people do not work for entry level salaries and benefits.  There is the cost of training new people in your culture and in whatever business you may be in.  It is very expensive to hire new people, but the cost escalates much higher when you hire the wrong people.  You have all the expenses the good people have plus you have the additional costs of lost business, a damaged reputation, and your own elevated stress levels while you try to contain the damage they cause.  Unless you begin to feel that you are taking too long to hire a new team member you probably have not taken enough time to do it right.

If you want your business to continue to grow you must be constantly developing team leaders.  You cannot wait until you need a new leader to begin searching for one.  The best companies always have people in the leadership pipeline at various stages of leadership development so when the need arises they can go to that pipeline and immediately bring someone in that is prepared to provide the leadership needed.  Without that pipeline a small business owner will often find that he or she is being held hostage by incompetent, mediocre people that the owner doesn't want to keep but can't afford to lose either.

One of the mistakes I made as a small business owner was not hiring quality people when I had the opportunity.  It seemed like those people always presented themselves during our slow times, and by the time we needed them they had already found positions with other companies.  If I had it to do over again I would hire them and create a position if I needed to so that I could keep them.  I really believe they would have easily paid for themselves and would have put us in a much stronger position for long-term growth.

If you want to read a very helpful book on the importance of having a quality team working for you I encourage you to read Anderson's book.  It is one of the best on the topic I've read.

Working in vs working on your business

Many small businesses begin as one person operations.  Someone is led to leave their job to begin their own company, and often that company consists of the entrepreneur.  Much of that person's time is spent working in the business.  That is understandable, but as long as the owner is simply working in his or her business that business is not likely to grow.  It is very important that the owner of a small business spends as much time as possible working on the business.  What does working on one's business consist of?

• It involves developing a vision for the future of the company.  Such a vision will give you a preferred picture of what your company will look like 5-10 years from now.
• It involves doing strategic planning that will take your business from where it is today to where you envision it will be in the future.
• It involves keeping a close eye on your financials and responding quickly to any negative changes you find happening.
• It involves developing and improving your relationships with vendors, customers, and the stakeholders in your company.
• It includes you becoming involved in community activities that will provide your company with good exposure and provide you with an opportunity to give back to the community that is supporting your business.
• It involves you getting to know your competitors better than they know themselves so you can differentiate yourself from them.
• It involves you providing leadership to your team.
• It involves just about anything that will help your business go to the next level.

Obviously, if you are the person who stocks the shelves, cleans the restrooms, answers the phone every time it rings, runs the service calls, writes out the checks for the bills, files the invoices, installs the new equipment you are working in your business and unable to spend much time doing the above activities.  You may have to do all these things when you are starting out, and as a small business owner you will still do these things occasionally, but you must move from working in your business to working on your business as quickly as possible or your company will never become what you dreamed it would when you started it.  For more information on how to work on your business I encourage you to read my latest book on your NOOK or NOOK app.

When a company is resistant to change

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I have met very few people who enjoy change.  I know I don't.  I like things that are familiar and comfortable.  In such circumstances I know my role, what's expected of me, and what success looks like.  Changing things means all of these are up in the air.  I no longer know what my role is (or if I'll even still have a role), I don't know what others expect of me, and I no longer know how to measure success.  If this is true of the owner-manager of a small business, think how much more true it is for employees.

Unfortunately, change is no longer an option and hasn't been for a long time.  It doesn't matter if you and I enjoy change, it is going to happen.  The marketplace has changed dramatically over the past few years.  Customers, and employees, expectations have changed.  Everyone now demands more value in every item or service they buy.  With the rapid increase in social media, marketing has changed.  Unless your target audience is baby boomers and older I would be very reluctant to advertise in the local newspaper or on the local radio station today.  Younger generations no longer read the newspaper or listen to the radio.  Small businesses that do not move a substantial portion of their marketing dollars to social media may soon find their customer base shrinking rapidly, and with it their profits.

I recently started watching Bar Rescue on television.  I don't know how much of that is reality and how much is staged for the cameras, but the premise is a valid one.  Bars that have been losing money for extended periods of time call in an expert to turn them around.  Immediately, he identifies a number of issues that will require significant change for the owner, the employees, and how the bar operates.  Everyone is opposed to the changes, but once the expert yells at them long enough they agree to make the changes he recommends.  Of course, at the end of the hour-long program the bar is now making money.  What's interesting is when the producers return to the bar a few months later to see how they are doing.  Some continue with the changes and are making a nice profit, but occasionally the bar owners revert back to their old ways of doing things even though they know those ways will not be successful.  The change is just too much for them.

What is limiting the growth of your business?  What do you know needs to be changed, but the thoughts of making that change scares you to death?  What will be the short-term effect if you don't make those changes?  What are the possible long-term effects?  These are questions you need to honestly answer if you want your small business to remain successful and profitable in the future.

Pyschology tells us that we can't resolve problems simply by thinking about them.  We need someone to talk to about them if we want to be able to find the answers we need.  Do you have someone you trust that you can talk to as you try to answer these questions?  If not, I have coached a number of people and would be glad to come alongside you as a coach to help you identify and begin to make the changes your small business needs to make.  Send me a note telling me you would like to discuss having me coach you through some changes in your company, and we'll discuss how I can help your company begin to move forward.  In the meantime you will find a lot of help in my latest book available only on your NOOK or NOOK apps.