This is part three of the Business Essentials Series.
Business Essential #3 – Mindset of a Business Owner
What do Business Owners Want? More transactions, more relationships, more free time, less costs, less taxes, better employees, better products, higher sales and higher margins.
Over the next few weeks I am going to promote a running dialogue as if you were sitting in one of our workshops. We will include certain exercises for you to accomplish to give you substance and value. We want you to be actively engaged with us and our community.
In week one we looked at how are you unique. Last week we focused on what wealth and legacy means to you. Today we are going to explore the mindset of a business owner.
After finishing law school I wanted more punishment so I went to the University of Denver Law School where I took a one year study strictly in tax law and received an advanced degree known as the Master of Laws in Taxation. From there, I came back to Los Angeles and started looking for a job. This was 1984. The country was just coming out of recession. I was hired by a national C.P.A firm where I spent the next couple of years working 14 hour days pretty much 6 sometimes 7 days a week. After that I spent the next few years working for law firms with each position advancing my career in knowledge and experience. I was involved in multi-million dollar deals, business contracts and tax planning. I was in the corporate world working 14 hour days to get 5-6 billable hours. How many of you have ever experienced something like that? Maybe for you it was 14 hour days to make the sale of a few products.
Isn’t that kind of how most of us get our start? We come out of school, get paid peanuts and have no life. Then we come to a point where we think to ourselves. Hey I can do this and I can do it better. So we hand in our resignation and we are on own. No one to tell us when to come in. No one to tell us how we should sell our products or services. Freedom. But now what. What we are we supposed to do?
How do we build a successful business and create lasting wealth that we can preserve and protect for generations. Some people in running their business are like hamsters. They run faster and faster thinking they are getting somewhere. Others are like salmon. They live. They spawn and their life is complete. The kids… They get what’s left over. And some of us are like lions. When the kids are old enough, we kick them out of the house to go forth and make their own fortune and fame.
Many business owners think they are running a business because they work for themselves. I believe many business owners are just employees of their business thinking they are running a business. Much of my career was as a sole practitioner and I thought I was building a business. I was ready. I networked. I provided my service. I received referrals. I was ready. I networked. I provided my service. I received referrals. Why wasn’t anything different?
How many of you are ready? How many of you network? How many of you sell your product or provide your service? How many of you get referrals? How many of you are ready? How many of you network? How many of you sell your product or provide your service? How many of you get referrals?. How many of you do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a … different result? The definition of insanity.
I identified ten different areas of business and when you are self-employed the common theme in all the areas are YOU!!!. YOU!! have to do everything. It’s no wonder most people are burned out, dissatisfied and have to keep working harder each day just to make ends meet.
But the business owner mindset is different. The business owner mindset thinks in terms of collaboration and the use of strategic people or resources to assist in dealing with the various business areas. Accountants, lawyers, marketing people. Some people may say well I don’t have enough money to do this. My response, knowing what I know now, is everything is negotiable and if you can spend higher value dollars working on client cases in place of lower value dollars for tasks you don’t want to do, how much more benefit will that bring you in building a successful business.
Our vision is for business and families to create lasting wealth. Our mission is to build, protect and preserve wealth and legacy for generations. To do these things we need to have business prosperity, good financial foundations, a tax fortress and personal power.
Thank you for being a part of our Straight Talk community. We educate, transform and inspire business owners and families in enhancing the way they think and talk about wealth in money, values, beliefs and traditions. Unite, Align and Nurture your common purpose and vision and protect and preserve your wealth for generations. What is your Legacy?
We welcome you to share your ideas and thoughts.
