Entrepreneur

Is Your Leadership Being Choked?

March 1, 2018 By kwmccarthy

As leaders, we’re prone to move from one task to the next with mental speed and insightful clarity.

Distractions, busyness, and just plain old bad habits have a way of gradually yet persistently working their way into our lives. Pretty soon we’re enslaved in activities and relationships that take us off-purpose.

In today’s On-Purpose Business Minute, I share a metaphor and lessons learned from a day of hard, back-breaking yard work and getting my hands dirty. As you can see, my mind was also hard at work.

As leaders, it is important that we get to the root of matters.

Paying attention to the details while still seeing the big picture isn’t always easy. Even if you’re not very good at both, at least be aware of the importance of both to avoid getting blind-sided. Surround yourself with complementary talent and trusted advisors so you grasp a greater perspective and insight into an important matter. This will free you to do more of what you do best more profitably.

No sense getting lost in the bushes and choked out of the beauty of how your business can bloom and grow.

Need some help with getting to the roots of your leadership? At On-Purpose Partners, we offer 1:1 executive and personal leadership coaching. Learn more here.

Are You Doing Business By Design?

January 25, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Most start-up businesses begin with great intentions but are at risk of being haphazardly led with little to no regard for the founder’s spirit or original intent—even when the founder is still running the business! It is a costly loss of strategic advantage, employee and customer engagement, and business profits!

Some companies get it right and thrive. The Walt Disney Company’s 2-word purpose can be stated as Creating Happiness. They do a great job of living into that purpose.

Susceptibility

Most susceptible to this drifting from the founder’s spirit and intent are large organizations and institutions where work is highly fragmented across divisions and/or countries. Specialization must be paired with a sustainable corporate culture that honors and innovates upon the strengths of its past.

For example, did you know that universities and colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other Ivy League colleges were started as seminaries to train and equip ministers in the Christian faith? Today, these academic bastions of intellectualism and secularization are so far from their founders’ intent that their roots are obscured, if not outright ridiculed.

Candidly, most large businesses have lost a measure of their soul, and so they resort to conveying and communicating corporate values as the “fix” to the deeper loss of authenticity and congruency. When values need to be more codified and communicated than caught, then ethical business problems are predictably on the horizon.

Right behavior can be reinforced, but it can’t be legislated.

Hellegation™

Least susceptible to drift are micro-businesses or one-person entrepreneurs, freelancers, and such—provided they have clarified what matters most. Otherwise, they’re susceptible to the “chasing bright shiny objects syndrome.”

Solo owners face a different challenge, however. Founders of these SOHO (small office, home office) businesses are typically wearing far too many hats and are preoccupied with personally providing production, sales, and customer care. They’re easily caught in a vicious swirl of learning, working, and selling or overwhelmingly stuck in procrastination.

Fortunately, their passion to perform typically enables them to muscle through and deliver on a small scale basis. My term for this is Hellegation™—a condition where the solo owner has no one to delegate work to in order to be freed up to focus on more important matters to the health and well-being of the business, its customers, and society.

Years ago, I had a client who was starting an IT business. He got so lost in his software development, he soon forgot why he started a business. His intent was to help clients, employees, and his family, but he lost sight of the larger picture—becoming buried in the details. His strategic confusion produced a bewildering business design supported by a confused business infrastructure.

In my client’s case, lines of code were the means for creating value and making a contribution. He, however, got caught up in the making of money (financial profit) versus creating a profit for everyone (adding value). The true value of his business wasn’t code or cash but grounded in how his software improved the lives and productivity of his client companies and their customers.

By Design, On-Purpose

It sounds so basic, but the fundamentals of business really don’t change. Ultimately business is about people serving people. As today’s On-Purpose Business Minute encourages: do business by design. Clarity of purpose is your market advantage (or disadvantage if absent!). The difference from company to company is its business style, design, model, and infrastructure in alignment with its purpose, i.e. being on-purpose.

Any kind of plan or business plan for small businesses tends to be scarce. Who has the time to plan? or so the thinking goes. Understandably so because the plans are really not all that appropriate or useful in many businesses (see: What is the Purpose of a Business Plan?). Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean strategy and planning are useless and meaningless. They have a specific and powerful place in a company of any size.

(Special plug: A couple of years ago I met Jim Horan, creator of The One Page Business Plan. Here’s a great planning device for businesses of all sizes. It is, however, especially apropos for solo owners.) I also offer The Service Model as a similar but different way to analyze, build, and design your business. You can purchase instructions and a worksheet at The On-Purpose Shop.

Having a strategic context for building your business matters.

The On-Purpose Business Plan is a 9-minute video providing the essential steps to integrate the business design, plan, model, and infrastructure to reach and serve your customer base. This “map” of what’s needed is too often a missing perspective for those leading organizations. Admittedly, the agenda is full so connecting this many dots seems like busy work. In fact, it is vital business work to the development and growth of your team, culture, and business performance.

Regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur of a one-person show or the CEO of a billion-dollar business, as your business advisor and designer, you don’t call me until there’s a problem in the business that your team or you can’t fix yourselves. Your SWOT Analysis only takes you so far.

Stuck?

Let’s assume that you are competent at delivering your product or service, but the business isn’t growing. That means problems lie in the design of the business or the leadership or both! Conversations and conventional wisdom swirl around business infrastructure, business planning, and the business model, but it is like a fish swimming in water trying to see water—you won’t see it because you’re too close to the matter.

Times like this demand depth, not shallow manipulations of the status quo under the guise of change management. In the strategic depths of an organization, a slight adjustment in understanding, a tiny shift in strategy, or an orientation toward greater alignment ripple powerfully into positive results.

The simple articulation of a 2-word purpose statement is the tiniest of acts—but the most potent of all strategic initiatives.

Tweaking the fundamental design of the business is not for the faint of heart. Eventually, failure to do so will be manifest in every facet of the business … and that’s costly at every line item on the budget. Strategic business design can elevate the business to the next level of performance, profits, and expression of its purpose.

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The On-Purpose Business Person provides a solid framework for any person at work to learn how to be strategic and to approach their work as a business owner. Click here or on the image to the right to purchase it for $16. It is also available on Kindle for $9.97.

Get The Service Model worksheet here!

Are You Thinking of Starting a Business?

November 30, 2017 By kwmccarthy

Economic tough times, job loss, greater expression, or the chance to be your own boss are just some of the reasons people start a business. The barriers to entry are relatively low and the opportunities for success often appear high.

The hurdles to success, however, are hidden at the start but invariably emerge. Be aware of what lies ahead and you increase your odds of winning.

Looking for some help with either starting or running your business?

On-Purpose Partners provides business advisory services. Our clients and customers have spanned from Founders and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to wannabe entrepreneurs.

If your business is less than $2 million in sales, you can hire me to help you with our On-Purpose Executive Coaching.

Can’t afford much?

The On-Purpose Business Person is available in softcover or Kindle e-book.
The Service Model is an inexpensive tool to help you plan your business, anticipate what’s coming, and understand the relationships of one level of the business to the next. Order one, just one, because you can print more from the PDF.

Here’s the bottom line for your business start-up (or ongoing venture): invest the time to articulate your purpose, vision, missions, and values.

Until you know

who you are
why you are here
where you are going
and what’s important

you’re really at a major and costly strategic disadvantage.

When it comes to your small business start-up or ongoing enterprise, give yourself every advantage by being on-purpose.

Do You Want to Grow into Maturity?

November 28, 2017 By kwmccarthy

What does it mean to be a grownup, to mature, or to assume adult behavior?

Sadly, far too many adult women and men haven’t a clue what it means to act, live, and be an adult. The process of growing into maturity eludes them.

We men, in particular, seem slow to grow into the responsibilities of manhood. It has less to do with the physiology of aging and more to do with psychology and social norms. Matters like avoidance of responsibilities and lack of clarity around modern male roles complicate it and make it that much easier to put off being a man.

Perhaps the story of Peter Pan is too taken to heart and we’ve decided to “Never Grow Up.”

Women suffer from lack of maturity as well. My mother is in a retirement living situation where the women outnumber the men probably 3 to 1. When I speak with the female staff about many of the senior women, they tell tales of a new man arriving on the scene and it is like junior high girls bickering and posturing.

What a loss!

We can’t really be a very fully engaged on-purpose player when we’re living below our maturity level.

When our identity is tied to something other than our purpose, we’re subject to the whims of the world or the mercurial nature of other people’s opinions about us.

Maturity, like anything worthwhile, begins with a decision to grow up.

Yes, it takes practice, often a mentor or coach, and the desire to keep at it. And work and emotional management! Practice does pay off. The rewards of maturity are to live into the life designed for us and to make a greater contribution with our life.

Seek out a mentor, life coach, or counselor with whom you can create a structured relationship for personal leadership growth and development. This intentional approach and relationship provide the benefits of accountability, fresh perspective, and experience.

On-Purpose Partners can help with On-Purpose Peace through Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-Right (DIR) with one of our coaches.

If you want to learn something new, then invest in becoming a more mature and capable person.

Take one step toward being more responsible for yourself. Then another step, then another. Soon you’ll discover that growing up isn’t such a big deal if you take care of the small deals along the way.

On-Purpose Tip: The process within The On-Purpose Person provides a methodology to better answer some of Life’s Great Questions about our identity and place in the world. If you don’t know who you are, then you’ll likely overcompensate by living life either too small or too large. The posing can become a preoccupation instead of being about your true occupation.

Stop wasting your years! Decide to grow up.

How Do I Focus My Small Business?

July 14, 2016 By kwmccarthy

As you stare at the walls of your office, your mind swirls with a hundred different items on your mental To Do List. You haven’t got a clue what to do next because everything seems important. By default you open up your email so at least you’re keeping up with something. A couple of hours pass at the keyboard and your list is only longer and you’re further behind than when you began. A sinking feeling leaves you even more overwhelmed and disappointed with yourself. Ugh! How do I go about organizing the business? How do I get more focused and productive? I’ll deal with it … tomorrow.

Admit it, you know this scenario all too well. And it bugs you because it is sabotaging your business, your dreams, and your finances. With so much on the line, you wonder, How can I be so stuck?

Over the decades of working with business owners, this shallow pattern of performance is most often associated with an ill-defined or out of focus business. While brilliant ideas abound in your brain, there’s no blueprint to build the business. Would you hire a home builder to construct your house who didn’t have blueprints? Yet, you’ll build your business without the most basic of plans.

There’s a reason most SOHO (small office, home office) business owners don’t write their plans. It is called flexibility and responsiveness to opportunity. Unfortunately, keeping your options open typically results in a cycle of learning, but not one of earning. The secret to building your business is to create an economically efficient engine of profit. Once the engine is up and running, you can afford to invest in your other ideas. Depth, not breadth, is essential. This takes discipline and commitment … to a well designed, thoughtful, written plan.

Here are three On-Purpose^® tools to help you gain focus and sustain it:

Use The Discovery Guide to clarify which of your many options is the best. This “Want List and Tournament” tool is a free download and can be used for many situations, such as clarifying which opportunity makes the most sense for you and why.
The Service Model is a simple tool to map out why and how to design and build your business on one page starting with purpose.
My On-Purpose Folder is a self or small group guided process to develop your personal leadership capacity. When you’re in mental disarray, your business will reflect it too.

You may think you have a plan, but you may not. Candidly ask yourself, Just how is my plan working? If you’re not obtaining adequate results, speed to market, or profits, then please consider a small business advisory package. Let us help you bring order, focus, clarity, and direction to your business enterprise by guiding and documenting your business plan and model. Organizing the business is a couple of clicks and a few hours away.

Sales Growth? How Do I Improve it?

April 28, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Sales growth challenge?

What if you had a volunteer sales force spreading the word about your goods and services? Would your business grow? Of course it would. Unfortunately too many of us who are small business or solo owners aren’t clear in our minds about who we are, our ideal on-purpose customer, and our value proposition. In fact, we may not even have a workable mechanism to get paid for our goods and services.

You’re a few short questions away from having a sales force of people recommending your business and getting the sales growth you want. Write out your answer to The 3 Knows:

Know who you are — identity.
Know who you serve.
Know how you profit or add value to your clients.

Equip people to help you build your business and be willing to ask for their help.

Try this sales growth exercise to see how on-purpose your team is. Ask your sales team and sales support to respond to The 3 Knows above. Compare results and candidly assess how much alike or different the responses are. This will help you gauge just how clearly communicate the core sales growth strategy is for your business.

Another option is to ask five customers or clients to respond. You’ll learn a lot about how easy it is for people to refer or recommend you.

Participate in the economy, but don’t go to the pity party.

A sure way to kill your sales growth (and business) is to blame the economy. Here’s an easy target for slumping sales. The only problem is that it is a distracting and useless exercise. Blame is a losing strategy. You don’t control the economy. U.S. Presidents think they do, but they don’t. Instead focus on items that are under your control and that help to increase sales growth. You do have a degree of control over your economy. Answer The 3 Knows.

Tough times are even tougher especially when we allow ourselves to get distracted from what we do best. In my engagements with business owners, sales persons, entrepreneurs, and executives with P&L responsibility, their greatest challenges are almost always self-inflicted. They just don’t know what they don’t know.

That’s the value of a business advisor, especially one who isn’t an industry insider. We see your business differently. We ask questions. We don’t assume to understand. We’re curious to find out what’s working, what isn’t, and why.

A poor economy reveals what boom times hide.

Use the season of a sluggish economy to strengthen the business by focusing on what is on-purpose. Again the 3 Knows matter big time here.

Test the first of the 3 Knows. Ask someone what they do. Chances are they’ll offer up their title or role, e.g. “I’m a banker,” “I’m a salesperson,” “I’m a health coach,” “I’m a business owner.”

So what?

This lazy response reflects an underlying strategic issue of identity confusion. Don’t expect people to understand what it is you do.

Create your DoDo Dialogue. Here’s a fast, easy way to more rapidly and meaningfully engage a volunteer word-of-mouth sales force to send you referrals and recommendations. All because you “bothered” to make their understanding of what you do easily memorable, relatable, and frankly, more exciting. Don’t network for business. Instead, go to equip your volunteer sales force. By the way, be sure to ask them about their 3 Knows first. You’ll have your turn to share.

Watch your sales grow as you equip and inform rather than network and hand out business cards.

How to Make Money?

January 14, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Regardless of whether you have a job or own a business, today’s On-Purpose Business Minute invites you to explore three aspects of what it takes to make money and make even more money.

Do you have the mindset, the multiplier and the mechanism in place to make money?

For most people, how much money they want to make isn’t the challenge … it is making that amount of money that presents the real issue. So let’s revisit this classic On-Purpose Business Minute and explore some simple elements to making money.

Study the people who made or make big money — Sam Walton, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Stephen Jobs, or whomever comes to mind — and you’ll find the three essential M’s are present and to the creation of their wealth in a socially responsible manner and in a way that is meaningful to each person.

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Do you have a favorite quote about money and wealth? Share it in the comments section. Here are some that I found valuable.

Abundance consists not alone in material possessions, but in an uncovetous spirit.

Charles M. Sheldon

Those who condemn wealth are those who have none and see no chance of getting any.

William Penn Patrick

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich; and is hence just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

Abraham Lincoln

Click here to receive an email when I post new On-Purpose Business Minutes.

What Will Be Your Best Business Decision for 2013?

December 13, 2012 By kwmccarthy

Make 2013 your best business year yet! Purchase a $1000 Small Business Advisory Package with Kevin W. McCarthy and get 50% more one-on-one time by phone, email, or in person. (Use coupon code: 50%More) That's 6 hours instead of 4 hours of insights, ideas, and advice to grow you and your business. You set the agenda and time frame. Break up your package into hour long segments, one long stretch, or something in between. Get Kevin to review a business plan, presentation, or help you write your on-purpose statements of purpose, vision, mission, and values.

This is a double bonus value worth $1,130 in savings compared to Kevin's normal hourly rate of $350. It must be purchased before Christmas and used in full by March 2013. Your investment is guaranteed. If after the first hour you're not satisfied, we'll end it there and give you your money back. Limited to only 5 clients on a first come, first served basis. Act now!

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Entrepreneurs start businesses, but they tend not to grow them. There's a variety of reasons but mostly it is their mindset and aloneness. Reach out for help!

You want to mature out of your start-up stage as soon as possible and move into a growth stage. There aren't but about 10,000 ways to get tripped up. You don't have sufficient knowledge and experience to go it so alone, yet chances are that you are too isolated for your or your business's benefit.

OK, so here we are in mid-December. The Christmas season is upon us, but if you're a small business owner the chances are you're reflecting on 2012 and thinking about 2013.

What will you do differently in 2013 from 2012 to improve your business performance? What will work and what won't work? Do you feel like your wheels are turning but you risk spinning versus gaining traction for the New Year? Are you feeling "tripped up" or stuck?

As a business advisor over the decades, my clients are primarily CEOs and Presidents of mid-sized companies, say businesses with $5 million in sales or larger. At one time, I used to do work with the CEOs and Founders of some Fortune 1000 companies. In time, however, I found that the mid-market and small businesses were more to my liking. Give me companies with revenues less than $100 million and I'm in my sweet spot.

That said, I have this deep love for the start-up person, the entrepreneur, the freelancer, the 100% commissioned sales person, the solo owner, or as some call them "The Little Guy." Perhaps the proper term in 2012 is "The Little Person."

Truth is, if you're one of them, there's nothing little about you. You are the people who are standing tall, being bold, starting and building a business, pursuing a dream, aiming to change the world, seeking to provide for the family, serving your community, and deciding to kick Corporate America aside and give it go. You are the dreamers and the doers.

Here at On-Purpose Partners, we've developed options for you solo owners to grow your business:

ONPURPOSE@WORK is a six-week online program that rocks. Anyone in the world can participate if you have an internet connection and understand English.
Are you a Christian small business owner living in the Orlando, FL area? (Or do you know someone who is?) Check out www.myceogroup.com. Groups are forming now north, south, and east of Orlando.
Small Business Advisory Package (see above for Christmas special): 4 hours of one-on-one advisory services for the small business owner. You'll be blown away by what you learn and how you can improve your life and business.
The On-Purpose Business Person: See insert below for the Kindle edition. A print version in paperback will be forthcoming soon.

Make your best business decision for 2013 in 2012. You'll be glad you went into with a plan, even a simple plan and some people to help you can make all the difference.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin