If you want to build a sustainable business that can run without you and means you’re not chained to a desk - then you need a reliable and high performing team.  

But team can be both a blessing and a source of frustration. 

They’re great because you have people to help you, to run projects, to look after clients and to delegate to.  

But they can also be frustrating when they’re not performing, they miss things or their output drops. 

If I’m being honest, most technician, turned business owners aren’t great at leading, motivating or inspiring their team.  

It just wasn’t in the manual.  

But it’s an essential skill if you’re going to build a thriving business.  

Now what typically happens when a team member isn’t performing is that you go into helicopter parent or babysitter mode.  

Hovering around them like you don’t trust them (because you don’t) in order to make sure they get their work done and don’t make any more mistakes.  

This is the worst t...

I bet you’re running your business for a bunch of reasons. 

More money - you want a bigger slice of the pie and to set yourself up for financial success. 

More freedom - you want to design your work around the life you want to live, and not the other way around… 

More meaning - you want to make more of an impact doing the work you’re passionate about. 

But here’s the deal, there are 5 things they didn’t tell you about running your business. 

1) It’s hard. Like really hard.  

Things will go wrong. Clients will leave. Staff will leave. Team won’t follow processes. Rework will be required. You’ll need to do big hours. The things you thought you would be able to get someone else to do, often boomerang back to you, etc.  

2) You’ll second guess yourself. 

If you think of yourself as self confident - business will quickly put that to the test. You’ll be tested in more ways than one and you’ll find yourself overthinking simple problems because you don’t want to get it wrong. 

3...

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 bigger picture strategy - just means you’re 6 to 12 months behind where you could be if you created the t...

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 that refining project delivery, getting systems down pat & streamlining your processes seems to be ...

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 week focused on the right areas - your business could look (and feel) very different. 

But you have to be willing to do thing...

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 you have ever wanted in life is on the other side of growing, getting outside of your comfor...

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 you’re talking about them and posting about them regularly and consistently. 

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.  

Team and staff leave because they’re not growing and getting the progression in their career...

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 stay right where you are and your business doesn’t grow. 

I want the opposite for you - I want yo...

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.

They’d like greater freedom. ...