Are you interested in a better future for your business
***Or*** A better future for you?
Are you assuming better business results will automatically translate to
a better future for you?
Far too often we see people striving for success in their business only to find that this does not necessarily mean a better life them.
How often have we seen some work hard to create a successful business only to find that they feel their business owns them.
The risks they took, the sweat equity they put in did not result in fulfilling the dream they had when they started. They are stuck struggling to survive – feeling the burden of their debt and the need to put bread on the table – and asking: when is this going to change?
It’s like the story of the printer that a member of the CC helped obtain a very large contract which meant he ended up working huge hours for many months to fulfil. This ended up having a huge toll on his health and family relationships.
Too often, we consider business success without consider whether this is taking the owner of the business closer to the life they’d really like to be living.
Change is relentless. New technology constantly out dates existing industries while new industries are constantly being born. Unforeseen events such as COVID can decimate the wealth invested in industries such as travel and deprive many of the livelihood they previously enjoyed.
Who wants to take the risk of going into business? Especially with income tax rates as they are?
For those lucky enough to exit a successful business with cash in hand, what kind of safe return can be expected on that cash (compare that with the case that existed 20-30 years ago)?
So what is the answer?
Start with Why
Ask yourself WHY am I doing what I am doing?
And How could I set up the future I would like?
The Bottom Line
In order for you to live the way you would really like to live you need:
- Increasing amounts of secure income
- Generated with a decreasing amount of personal time invested to produce that income
- Let’s call this “leveraged” income
- Ideally, you should also be aiming for increasing sources of this type of income
- Always remembering that the type of income (leveraged and on-going) is as important (if not more important) than the amount of income
This strategy will give you the freedom to
- Create more great memories, relationships and experiences with those we care about and
- Make a great difference in the lives of others
Begin with the End in Mind
Assuming you do want to achieve this seemingly Utopian “better future”, in most cases you will be currently stuck struggling to put bread on the table and not completely confident about what the future holds – right?
The key here is not to let the short-term urgent prevent you from devoting a small part of your day working to your longer-term important.
So, what strategy will most predictably & safely
Result in you being able to lead the live you’d really like to lead a few years from now?
It’s tempting to think that it’s going to be a killer idea that you invent.
Or that you require some incredible talent to make it happen.
Experience has shown over and over that truly great ideas fail more often than they succeed – often after considerable investment of time and money.
The predictable way to make it happen?
Build a team of team building advocates
Say what? ‘A team of team building advocates’. That’s a big mouthful. What does it mean and why will investing your time safely here inevitably lead to achieving a better life?
When you build a team of team building advocates
- An ever increasing number of influential others will advocate for you to help you succeed in whatever endeavour you discover and choose to pursue (this could even be an enhancement to what you are currently doing)
- This can help you with urgent needs such as earning immediate income
- More importantly it can help you discover and test ideas that produce leveraged income and provide exponentially growing advocacy for you and the ideas you are promoting (note idea(s) plural)
- So you can achieve your end goal – more income with less personal effort
- There are so many examples of exactly this happening in the Connect Collaborative
- The key is to start building your network first using the tools of the Connect Collaborative (it is so easy for you to build a small team of say 5 and it is exciting to see how those 5 can expand to a team of 50 advocates and beyond
- After you achieve a small milestone of building your network it is easy to broaden your advocacy by interacting with others in the CC who are doing the same thing
- Change your thinking to
- Network first, expecting to discover great ideas capable of safely producing leveraged income. Rather than starting with an idea you think ‘can’t fail’ and building a network to support that idea
- When you are looking for ideas that must tick certain personal end result boxes (such a producing leveraged income), you will be surprised what ideas you discover, discard and pursue when you proactively build your network
- Imagine having an increasing number of people advocating for you (rather than your business). These people find it east advocate for you because they have seen you build your network and in the process
- You have adopted the motto: Advocate for others first” to build trust
- You have proven you have integrity – you do what you say you are going to do
- You have the ability to put in consistent effort
- You have the ability to build relationships & advocate for others
- They can then easily advocate for you because they know that these are rare attributes which any business partner or potential employer will be most interested in (more so than your ‘technical’ ability which they can more easily assess for themselves.
Understand the difference between
Networking and Network Building
How do you see networking?
- Building an ever increasing number of “connections” on LinkedIn?
- How well does that result in Know Like and Trust relationships with people who will advocate for you?
- Attending (virtual or physical) networking events
- If so are you attending with a once-off intention – out of curiosity of hoping to meet an ideal contact?
- Are you content if the network to which you belong remains relatively stagnant – in other words you can only build relationships with the people who attend every week/month?
- Or are you hoping others will expand the network so you have more people to meet (just so long as you don’t have to do that yourself)?
- How would you see such a network as helping you to achieve a better future?
- Building long-term relationships as a natural part of what you do?
- In other words, over many years you have built many know like and trust relationships
- However, if you are honest, how many of these close relationships actually proactively advocate for you on a regular basis?
- Or do they help only when you ask them to?
- Building a team of team building advocates?
- As you gain more experience in the culture of the Connect Collaborative, the power of this approach to help you achieve a better future (for you – not just your business) will become increasingly clear