Building Or Growing A Business - First A Few Words

It’s Not Easy But You Can Do It

Data from the BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.

There Are Fundamental Ways To Make Money In Any Business.

1. Do The Things Customers CAN'T Do - Get Paid In $$$$
   
   
2. Do The Things Customers WON'T Do - Get Paid In $$$
   
   
3. Do The Things Customers DON'T Do - Get Paid In $$
   
   
4. Do The Things Customers ALREADY Do - Get Paid In $ ONLY

One More Way To Think About This Is:

1. Important And Urgent Things For Customers - Get Paid In $$$$
   
   
2. Urgent But NOT Important Things For Customers - Get Paid In $$$
   
   
3. Important But NOT Urgent Things For Customers - Get Paid In $$
   
   
4. NOT Important And NOT Urgent Things For Customers - Get Paid In $ ONLY

And Another Way To Think About This Is:

1. Sell Product To More Customers (Market Size)
   
   
2. Sell More Products (Cross Sell)
   
   
3. Sell Product More Frequently (Consumption)
   
   
4. Sell Products At The Premium Price (Brand)

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Feeling Lost In How To Start Or How To Get It Done?

Always Finish Something You Start

An inventory of never-completed projects, initiatives and objectives doesn’t get you to success. Learning to actually finish your mission is one of the best lessons you’ll learn as an entrepreneur.

Every day you’re juggling multiple balls to keep your business and personal life going, but sometimes you need to focus on one task at a time to see it through to completion or risk having many incomplete things. Finish what you start with these five steps.

1. Decide to finish. The first step of finishing is to make the decision that no matter what, this lingering task or project will linger no longer. Tell yourself you're going to alter your behavior and approach to actually complete what you start. Sometimes this will mean saying no to more things up front so they never make it on the to-do list to begin with, making it easier to eliminate unnecessary busy work.
   
   
2. Make a plan. You know you want to get some of your tasks completed, but what’s the plan? Break down each task into doable, daily action steps, or if it’s something you can finish in a day, into an hour-by-hour plan to completion. Knowing your plan and sticking to it will be crucial to actually getting things done. Oftentimes this will mean setting a plan to create calendar boundaries where your staff and family aren’t allowed to access you so you can work uninterrupted.
    
3. Start. You’ve made a plan and broken it down into actionable steps to help you attack and complete the project. The next most important step is to start. Don’t wait until the morning or after lunch, get started now. Start tackling the first action step in the plan and don't wait to get going.
    
4. Make your deadlines. Your plan should include deadlines. Commit to them. Most people don’t finish what they start because they find excuses. Some days you may have to stay late, skip lunch or come in early to push through to complete the steps of your action plan. Do what it takes as part of step one, your decision to finish, to keep moving forward to completion.
    
5. Don’t just finish, complete. You’ve made the decision, made the plan and carried on to see the project through. It feels great to get a huge task off your plate, but there’s one last important step to finishing: completion. When the task is done, make sure it’s complete by ensuring it’s stored, shared or saved appropriately.

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Done Is Better Than Perfect

1. You get results: When you have this expectation of perfection, it's either you don't get things done because of the fear of failure or spending too much time perfecting the little details.
   
   It doesn't matter if it's a work task or a project, perfectionism delays the results even further. Getting things done means you have results as it is.
    
2. You avoid paralysis:  With your constant fear of failure and not being enough, perfectionism makes you be in a state of paralysis where you feel stuck and can't get anything done.
   
   In return, you choose to settle for not doing anything at all. With your need for getting everything right, you don't know which direction to go.
    
3. You can still fix your mistakes: Just because a task is finished, you can still edit your errors and mistakes. Nothing is permanent and the same goes for your tasks.
   
   Rather than striving for perfection initially, remember that you can always learn from your mistakes. In a work task, you can always edit things afterward rather than break yourself trying to perfect things.
    
4. You're more stable:  Perfectionism can easily take you out of your balance, whether you like it or not. The need to have everything done a certain way impacts your mental and emotional health negatively.
   
   Simply doing your tasks should be adequate enough for you, without worrying about whether or not you've met your own expectations.
    
5. You're more realistic: Perfectionism is a double-edged sword that you don't want to integrate into your life. There's nothing realistic with achieving perfection in your tasks. What matters more is getting things done and making the effort to push through it, no matter how mediocre it may seem for you. By getting things done, you're setting a realistic and most importantly, a healthy standard for yourself and others.
    
6. You save more time:  Striving for perfection is the most time-consuming ur task hours ago but instead, you're obsessing over one detail that may or may not be significant to the overall output.
   
   Learn to be content with being done as it saves you more time in the long run. Avoiding perfectionism isn't just healthy, but it promotes saving time and energy.
    
7. You're more productive:  You will never achieve productivity if you're stuck on perfecting something, and this is a lesson perfectionists learn the hard way.
   
   No matter how hard you try, you can't have both perfection and productivity in one go. They contrast one another.
    
8. You'll avoid procrastinating: A lot of people wonder why perfectionists have it in their nature to procrastinate when they want everything to be perfect. Again, this stems from a deep fear of failure and mistakes.
   
   When you have this need for things to go exactly within your standards, you tend to do it at the last minute as you're scared of disappointing others or yourself.
    
9. You avoid overworking:  There nothing bad about spending your time at work. In fact, that attribute is seen as ambitious and persistent. The harm lies when you don't do anything else but work as this is extremely harmful to your overall health.
   
   Perfectionists tend to busy themselves with work as they feel as if something's off when they aren't working. This is nowhere near healthy and will lead to you burning yourself out completely.
    
10. You avoid burnout: Every perfectionist will tell you that it's not a path you intend to take. It may seem attractive at first, but it will break you to the point of no return.
    
    Being damaged because of the need to achieve perfection isn't what you want in your life. Perfectionism is the opposite of living your life.

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Hope For The Best But Plan For The Worst

It Will Take Longer Than You Think

• Murphy's Third Law: Everything takes longer than you think it will.

• Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

Think of a task that you’d really like to finish in the next few weeks. Now, write down these three dates:

• The date by which you will have to finish the aforementioned task.
• The date you’ll be done if everything goes right.
• The date you’ll be done if everything goes wrong.

It Will Cost More Than You Plan For

Here is the link for SBA's start-up cost estimator:

https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/calculate-your-startup-costs

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