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Disrupt Your Now: The Successful Entrepreneur's Guide to Reimagining Your Business & Life
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Before you can build the business of your dreams, you have to understand what you want out of it. To do that you need to understand what you like and don't like, and then you need to understand the lifestyle you want to live (location, income, hours worked, etc.).
Keeping your nose to the grindstone makes it hard to see clearly, though, so I'm going to share some of my likes and dislikes, how I came to understand them, and how I used them to create my dream business. Hopefully this will help you envision yours.
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Build your business from the ground up like you're planning to sell it and you'll make better longterm decisions, develop better processes, and be more likely to not try to do everything yourself (nobody wants to buy a job). Chances are, these same things that make your business more sellable will also help you be better positioned to work with who you want, doing what you want, at the prices you deserve, so you'll get more out of the business while you own it – not just financially, but personally as well.
Think of all the things homeowners do when they want to put their house on the market: all the repairs they've put off over the years, new paint, new carpet, upgraded landscaping. Many homeowners jokingly remark that they like their house so much after fixing it up to sell, maybe they'll keep it. Don't let your business to be like those homes! Get the most out of it while you own it.
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With all the talk of the $13.7 billion cash deal for Amazon to buy Whole Foods, most people are just talking about it in relation to the retail industry and what it will mean for its future. I think small business owners should be looking at it to see what they might be able to learn from the deal that can be applied to their own businesses, though.
Having been in the internet industry for 21+ years, I know that everyday business owners can come up with great ideas that transform their businesses and their lifestyles. I've worked with many of them, and have friends who've used the internet to build wildly successful businesses that let them live life on their own terms.
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You didn't start your business with dreams of working all the time doing stuff you hate and answering to a ton of bosses, better known as clients, who don't understand what you do but want to tell you how to do it anyway. (whew – run-on sentence!)
Unfortunately, most people who start a business end up in exactly that position, especially if it's a service business. I'll bet you have, too. It's just so easy to get stuck in a rut that it's hard to take a step back and think things through.
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Did you know that around 2/3 of small businesses never sell and are closed down when the owner retires?
And of those that do sell, the average sales price is about 1/2 of what the owner thinks it's worth?
Add to that the fact that most business owners have the vast majority of their financial assets tied up in their businesses, and the prospects for the average owner to ever retire comfortably are slim.
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Many small businesses sent out email blasts for marketing today that ended up in spam folders or buried in the sheer volume of email that people get now. Aside from the fact that email blasts are bad for business, offering Facebook Messenger as a delivery option is a sure-fire way to avoid the spam box and reach people where they are.
Chances are you're familiar with using Messenger to chat with friends, but I'll bet you had no idea you can use it to communicate with your clients and prospects, too. Well, now you do.