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Building a Better Foundation for Your Business

June 10, 2021December 1, 2020 by Michelle Mitchell

Building your business on a strong foundation from the beginning saves so much time and energy as you grow. I help my clients start building a better foundation using several simple habits and principles. Here are a few of my favorites:

Cast your vision. As adults, we don’t spend enough time dreaming about our futures. Creating a vision for your business helps you develop the future you’re trying to create. Most business owners I work with are afraid to clearly state what they really want for their business down the line. Your vision statement should be so clear that it leaves no room for fear!

Set goals. Once you have a clear vision, you can make it tangible by breaking it down into bite-sized steps. These are your goals. Assign these to each quarter and then break those down even further for weekly action steps. Track what you’re doing to make sure you’re progressing toward your vision each week.

Schedule CFO days. As a business owner, you aren’t just the CEO of your business, you are also the Chief Financial Officer, or CFO. It’s important to set time aside regularly to stay on top of the finances of your business, even if you have someone helping you. You can use the financial data you collect during this time to make better decisions for your business.

Price your services for profit. Pricing is such a struggle for many business owners I talk to. Usually when a business owner feels they are not making enough money or they are having cash flow issues their issues actually stem from their pricing. You may be under-charging for your services if you don’t understand all the costs of actually delivering the service to your client, if you don’t understand the value your client places on the service, or if you are comparing yourself to others and undervaluing your own skills and experience.

These are just a few principles for a better business foundation. I love working with entrepreneurs to develop these and create a solid foundation that easily allows for growth.

We talk about all of these things and more in my coaching programs, but right now I’m offering a mini-course on Pricing for Profit. For just $27, you can learn better pricing strategies, how to implement them, how to up-level your pricing without affecting your current clients, and more! Sign up now before the offer expires!

What do you need to make your vision a reality?

June 24, 2021January 27, 2020 by Michelle Mitchell

This month we’ve been talking about vision and where you see yourself and your business in the future. We talked about creating your ideal day. What it looks like, what it feels like. Now we need to take the vision and start developing the action steps needed to make it a reality.

Too often, business owners or entrepreneurs skip over this step. They focus on the pricing strategy or how to get more sales. But if you don’t have an action plan of what your future looks like and the steps needed to get there, you will end up aiming in the wrong direction. Or if you do aim in the right direction, you might miss your target.

The first step in your action plan should be determining who you need to be in your business. What do you need to be doing today, right now, to become the person you need to be in the future? You need to be willing to step outside your comfort zone. You need to be willing to seek the advice of others to gain the resources you need.

Let’s face it; you don’t know everything you need to know to run a business – a profitable business. Seeking out the expertise of those who have been where you are and have become experts is important. You may be very good at what you do, at what service you provide, but no one has trained and prepared you for being a business owner. And not just a business owner, but the CEO of your business.

So think about what resources you need. Do you need help with marketing and strategy? Do you need assistance with the administrative side of your business? Maybe you need help in getting better at sales. There are a lot of soft skills business owners need to develop in order to produce the extraordinary result you desire. There are resources available to help you develop and strengthen those skills.

Ask yourself this: In order to get the extraordinary results I want in my business, what do I need? What actionable steps can I take, what resources can I tap into? Write down your plan and start taking action!

If you’d like help in coming up with your vision, drafting your 5-year vision, and developing the action steps needed to get there, let’s chat! I’d love to help you realize your vision and create extraordinary results!

How to Foolproof Your Business Before an Economic Downturn

September 16, 2019September 9, 2019 by Michelle Mitchell

I want to talk to you today about foolproofing your business before an economic downturn.

Remember 2008? During that downturn, lots of people lost money. Lots of people lost their businesses. Thankfully, we haven’t had an economic downturn since then.

But what when there is another one?

How can business owners hedge against an economic downturn?

I think the best way to hedge against it as business owners, solo entrepreneurs, service providers, consultants – whatever you are – is that you commit to being a business owner.

You commit to being in business.

Don’t just willy-nilly and go around like, “I’m a business owner, but I’m not taking it too seriously and I haven’t committed.”

Let me ask you…have you truly committed to being in business?

When you commit to this is the way I want to live my life, and this is what I want to do in my life to make a living, then there’s no other options.

What practical steps can you take to hedge against any economic downturns? The first thing to do is get a solid business going, so that when the economy takes a shift, you already have systems, processes, clients and savings in place.

Right now is the perfect time to start building that better business! It’s time to PLAN, EXECUTE & PROFIT!

So… what are you going to do?

Are you going to commit? And what does commitment look like?

Ask yourself:

Am I’m going to work on having someone help me in my business to put these systems in place?
Am I going to invest in that?
Am I going to hire the people that I need in my business to help me grow?
Or am I just gonna leave my business to chance… “Oh, no, economic downturn? How did that happen? How’s that going to affect me?”

If you have built a solid business and you know how you’re getting leads in the door, you know how you’re closing your clients, you know what services you’re providing them, then you’re hedging against the down turn right NOW!

I encourage you today to make a commitment to yourself and your business to invest in whatever it is you need so that you have that solid foundation so your business can sustain through any economic downturn, any natural disaster, or anything that you have in your life.

Because I believe that when you build the foundation for your business, it’s going to run the way you intended it to because you know you can predict the outcome. This is how you can hedge against those unexpected things.

Create the discipline to save, invest in resources, and personal development so that when the wind blows, your business doesn’t blow away.

Is something that you think about?

If something financially happens, are you ready for it?

Where is My Bookkeeper and How Do I Find Her?

April 17, 2018February 2, 2018 by Michelle Mitchell

Your bookkeeper is waiting for you. As a business owner we wear many hats and some of those hats are not in our area of expertise. That’s why I wanted to talk to you today about finding your bookkeeper.

You love the work that you do, but you are not a numbers person. It may seem counter-intuitive to spend money on a bookkeeper when you are totally capable of doing it yourself. If you exchanged the time it takes you to do your own bookkeeping and actually engage with your customers, I think you would cover the cost of hiring a bookkeeper.

Ask yourself this question, do I like doing my bookkeeping? If the answer is NO, then you should consider outsourcing that task. If the answer is YES, but you haven’t updated your financials in 3 or 4 months, then you need to consider outsourcing your bookkeeping. To help you narrow in on why this is a good idea; ask yourself these questions:

Building a Better Foundation for Your Business

What do you need to make your vision a reality?

How to Foolproof Your Business Before an Economic Downturn

But what when there is another one?

So… what are you going to do?

Is something that you think about?

If something financially happens, are you ready for it?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Where is My Bookkeeper and How Do I Find Her?

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