Are you a servant to your business?

Is it time to have your business serve you? 

Did you know that a large percentage of businesses fail in the first 5 years?

Did you also know that very few survive beyond 10 years?

So what makes a business survive and/or fail or thrive and become profitable? 

For me, it starts with these four main targets:

1.Clarity with your numbers.

2.Presence with planning for the future 

3.Prioritizing profit

4. Setting yourself up for those unforeseen event that might or most likely will happen.

1. Clarity with your numbers: This might be a no brainer but you’d be surprised how many people do not track their income & expenses not just for their business but also their personal life. If you don’t know how much your life and business is costing you, then how can you receive more? If you are not yet tracking what you have coming in and out every month in your business & personal life, it might be time to start. The key here, is not just have general figures, but to really know what you are spending on each item & thing in your life and business everyday! (This is actually really fun and empowering when you start!)
2. Presence with planning for the future: Your business will have busy times and slower times, your income will fluctuate. You do not want to choose based on your bank account. Are you living day to day with your money or are you creating for the future? Would you be willing to have your money work for you? This starts with having lots of different accounts that cover the cost of running your business, paying your taxes, paying you and more.
3. Prioritizing Profit: This is a crucial element to your business. If you would like to get out of being a servant to your business, make profit a priority not just wishful thinking that some big sale happens or you come up big someday and make profit!  Mike Michalowicz in his book “Profit First” writes in length about prioritizing profit. Set up a profit account. When income comes in, start with 1% into that profit account and you can start growing that percentage over time. Profit is a habit that you have to build into your business. 
4. Do you have your back financially if a crisis hits? With what has happened in our world lately, now more than ever is time to look at: Do I have my back financially? Ideally, you’d want at least 3-6 months of being able to keep your business & life going without making any sales in your business, if for some reason you can’t work. This starts with creating a Profit account and once you start building sustainable profit, your business then starts to serve you.

The purpose of tracking your income & expenses meticulously and setting up these different accounts is so you can start to see clearly, can you afford your business? If you can’t afford to pay your bills, staff, tax, to pay yourself and have profit (even if it’s only 1%) then now is the time to start looking at what else you can add to create more revenue. If you can cut some expenses that you don’t need, great. Yet you don’t have to aggressively cut back and go into lack. Now is the time to start looking at “What can you do and be to create greater?”

Questions to start asking:

~What can I add to my life and business today to create more revenue right away?

~How can I create greater results with less effort with this?

~From this one revenue stream; What are another 5 revenue streams I could create from this? 

What one action could you take today to start creating profit right away?