Most want more time back in their days to focus and do the important work that will lead to growth. 

Time and not having enough of it is one of the biggest reasons I get told by business owners that they can’t focus on growth or bigger picture strategies right now.  

Or why they just need to wait 6 to 12 months for this busy period to be over & things are quieter, then they’ll have more time to focus.  

But honestly, it’s not about waiting until you have more time - because that will never come.  

If you’re doing your job right as a business owner - you will always be busy and there will always be things to sort out and fix (until you hit Stage 3 of our business stages roadmap - Lifestyle Business Owner - more on that in another post). 

So it’s not about waiting for more time - it’s about creating more time.  

Waiting for another 6 to 12 months before you focus on...

There’s a ton of consultancies out there doing incredible work, delivering amazing projects, getting great outcomes for their clients…

…but making stuff all profit.

What’s the point?

Why take all the risk running your own business, wear all the stress and have nothing to show for it after all the bills are paid?

Profit is the lifeblood of any business.

As a consulting business - you shouldn’t be settling for anything less than 30% net profit.

But how? 

Doing all the ‘things’ but can’t get your margins up?

If you want my advice (my guess is that if you’ve read this far, you probably do).

If you want to make more profit - focus on this one area of your business…

…focus on delivery.

There are only 2 ways to make more profit:

1 ) Get paid higher fees (I’ll cover this another time).

2 ) Deliver the projects well ahead of budget.

That’s it. 

But the funny thing is...

As the business owner, your role is to be always looking forward to that next phase of growth and what the company needs to do, be and look like in order to achieve this growth.  

But often you get caught out when you haven’t at all thought about the future and what the next phase looks like. 

That’s when growth stalls or stops.  

That’s when stagnation starts to creep in.  

Being purely focused on the here and now. 

Doing, delivering & putting out fires.  

Immediate action with short term results - but no focus on the bigger picture.  

That’s what often leads to you waking up one day and realising that you haven’t built your business in a way that actually serves you.  

That you haven’t actually created your business in the way that YOU want. 

But it doesn’t have to be like this. 

In fact, with some simple tweaks and a small amount of time each...

Business is one of the best personal development programs on the planet. 

You’re constantly brought face to face with your own shortcomings as things either go wrong or don’t play out as expected. 

And the question every single time is - do I rise up to meet these challenges and step outside of my comfort zone, or do I stay where I am? 

Spoiler alert - staying where you are doesn’t result in you building the business or the life that you want. 

So if you’re choosing to rise, choosing to get outside of your comfort zone, choosing for things to get hard as you grow and get better - the question then is… 

…who do I need to become? 

…what skills do I need to develop? 

…what do I need to do to get better? 

And only you can answer this based on where you are now, your shortcomings and the skills that you still need to develop in order to build the business and life that you want. 

Everything...

Staff and team shortages is still a very real roadblock for business owners.  

Most could put on 2 to 3 people tomorrow in order to deliver the workload in front of them.  

The reality is that the people and the team you need to grow your business are already there, in your current & future network - you just need to attract them into your world.  

Most business owners just put up a couple of ads on Seek or LinkedIn whenever they’re looking to hire - and wonder why they don’t get any good applicants. 

It’s because a very very small percentage of your future team, that are going to help you build your business, will just randomly apply to an ad that you post. 

They will come because they are curious and interested in your brand, your vision, your mission, your culture, your current team, your clients, your projects, your career progression opportunities etc. 

And they’ll only know about these things if...

Let’s face it - you’re addicted to your business.  

You think about it all the time.   

Nights. Weekends. During a workout. At the dinner table. While you’re with family & friends.  

While you don’t want to admit it and as much as you try and not think about it - your brain always finds a way back.  

Thinking about what’s next and what needs to be done.   

Thinking about your current problems and how you’re going to fix them.  

Thinking about the future and whether you’re as far along as you thought you would be by now.   

And you know what - this is completely normal.  

Your business is a part of you.   

You started it. You’re growing it. And you’re its captain - in charge of where you’re taking it.  

But - your business doesn’t need you as much as you think it does.  

Just because you...

I can’t stand the hustle and grind culture.   

It breaks my heart seeing so many business owners feeling like they need to sacrifice every other part of their life in order to focus on building their business.  

There’s a saying I saw recently “Sacrifice everything for a year, so that you never need to sacrifice anything ever again”.  

What an awful message.   

Because what if it takes longer than a year to build your business?  

And I can almost certainly guarantee that it will.   

To build a successful business that runs without you and your constant input, that generates great revenue and profits and sets you and your family up for financial freedom and financial success is a 6+ year journey.  

It’s a marathon - not a sprint.   

I’d much rather you slow things down and focus on consistency and doing the daily things that matter towards growth....

In order for your business to grow - you need to hire great people or develop them from within, train them to take over a part of what you’re doing right now and then elevate yourself to that next level. 

And you then repeat this process over and over. 

I tell my clients all the time - the roles and the tasks that you’re doing in the business in 6 months’ time should be very different from what you’re doing now. 

You need to be constantly focusing on upleveling your role and what you do in the business so that you, your team and your business are always growing. 

But this process of upleveling can be hard and uncomfortable.  

And humans in general don’t like hard and uncomfortable. 

So we sometimes fall into the trap of unconsciously sabotaging business growth by staying where we are.   

Not growing.  

Doing the same tasks and roles in the business month after month, year after year. ...

Too many business owners over-complicate things. 

They make business way harder than it needs to be - because they think that’s what’s required to grow a successful consultancy. 

When faced with business problems or even what to do next to grow - they make things really complex & confusing so that even the smartest person would have a hard time working out what’s going on. 

There’s a saying we use with all of our Boardroom clients - “Simple scales. Complex fails”. 

When we keep business simple - we can see the path forward to growth. 

When we make it complex and complicated - that path forward gets confusing and overgrown. 

And a confused mind says no. 

Meaning that if you can’t see the path forward or it looks complex and confusing, you get overwhelmed and your mind says ‘no’.  

If it all feels too hard and too complicated, you end up taking no action at all and as a result - you...

A large part of what I do for my clients is expand their thinking.

To show them what’s possible for their lives and their business outside of their current viewpoint or thought structure.

To push them a little to help them see and uncover what they really want in life.

Most of the time, people start their own business for one or all of these reasons - money, meaning and freedom.

They’d like to make more money than they could working for someone else and if you dig deep enough, most would like to create intergenerational wealth and really set themselves and their family up for financial freedom & success.

They’d like to have a greater impact on the lives of those around them. Deliver exceptional projects for their clients, help the community and the public who benefit from these projects, build a great team where everyone is motivated and inspired to do great work and to show their friends and family what’s possible if you pursue doing what you enjoy.

...