Edition 545 – The Decade

Tomorrow, it’s 10 years since I started this stage of my professional career. 10 years of operating solo, working with a smaller number of larger clients, diving deep into helping them build their businesses so that it enables the families that own and operate them the opportunity to live their best lives.

Four months prior, in June 2016, following an International Mentoring group meeting that I was a part of, I’d made the decision to leave the relative comfort of my former accounting practice and strike out on my own. Up until that point, I simply thought I’d be there for the remainder of my career. However, something was pulling me towards an alternate future, and truth be told, there was an ache inside me about some of the work I did, and how it didn’t fulfil me.

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with a wide range of small and family businesses. Some of them came with me, then left. Others I’ve been engaged by along the way. There’s a core that has been with me for the entire journey. Through and with all of them, I’ve learned a lot, grown enormously and seen most things you’d see in your career, and some you wouldn’t.

Let me adopt the hat of the wise old sage for a moment and pass on some of those observations and learnings.

1. The strategy for your business is never set and forget. It’s about constantly tweaking it, to find the right balance of what you want to do, how you go about doing it, and whether you can monetise it. Sometimes the tweaking is monthly and other times quarterly.
2. Too many small and family business owners accept poor performance or poor behaviour from their family employees, that leads to unnecessary bumps in the business road or bad results.
3. The knowledge of the numbers by business owners is way too low. Too often, it’s the bank account that is the key financial indicator for most owners. Remember, that’s a lag indicator, not a leading one.
4. Most business success comes from what you can control, not from those factors outside of it. If you blame the economy, or interest rates, or geopolitical changes, it’s not those factors, but how you respond to them, that will determine your success.
5. You can build a smaller business that is more lucrative, and provides more lifestyle, than a bigger one, if you stop focussing on revenue, and start focussing on profit.
6. Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right, with thanks to Henry Ford.
7. Business owners that grow have a key advisor beside them, every step of the way. Whilst that might sound like an advertorial, I’ve seen those that don’t invest in accountability underperform.
8. Never lament. What happened, happened. You can’t change it. However, you can take the learnings from it and do it differently next time.
9. Those that love what they do and do what they love will always be more successful than those that focus on money.

It’s been an incredible journey these past 10 years, and the next 10 are looking just as impactful for me.

There’s plenty of people I’d like to thank – clients, colleagues, those that have worked with and for me, too many to mention. However, my deepest thanks, and my greatest appreciation, goes to my wife Trish. 10 years and 3 month ago, as we sat in our lounge room and discussed this new future and how we would do it, she believed in me at a time when the thought of it all taking place was well outside her comfort zone, and truth be told, mine as well. Without her love, support, dedication and wisdom, none of this would have been possible. And for that, no words are enough.

This Week’s Tip

Life is short. Take the plunge.
Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do