Do you own a struggling small or mid-sized business? Are you between jobs and want to start your own business, but are intimidated with the high failure rate? Join Rick and Brandon as they use a method described in Les McKeown’s Predictable Success, Getting your organization on the growth track—and keeping it there. Learn about the business’s good and bad cycles and the stages they go through. Rick and Brandon leave you with tips on how to get out of bad cycles and into a balance, which he calls Predictable Success.
- Early Struggle
Dealing with Early Struggle
- Make sure you are funded properly.
- Get out as fast as you can. I have seen businesses stay here and accumulated debt
- Focus primarily on getting your product and service to what sweet spot in your market.
- This includes
- Reviewing feedback from customers
- Changes in your industry
- Reviewing and re-reviewing your strategy.
- Build your customer base.
- Be smart about your debt: Refinance to lower interest rates that are provided like and SBA loan.
- If Accounts Receivable collection is slow, look into factoring your receivables. Read the fine print, first.
- Prioritize your debts and communicate with your debtors frequently.
- Don’t take risky shortcuts like not paying your payroll taxes. That is illegal and can subject you to serious liability personally.
- Fun
Dealing with Fun
- Design or purchase tools to monitor sales
- Design your tools to analyze sales by different attributes like region, zip code, demographics, type of work
- Keep costs under control. Stay in line with your business plan.
- Don’t suck all the working capital out of your company to cover a possibly increasing personal life-style.
- Build up working capital
- Stay true to your strategic plan and the calculated risks that are associated with it.
- Don’t ever assume success is a straight line up. Such things as market changes and the economy can take you back to early struggles.
- White-water
Dealing with white-water
- Shift from sales to profitability
- Company cannot be run by the seat of their pants anymore and needs processes and systems
- See our MVP Policies, Processes and procedures podcast.
- Have weekly employee meetings to monitor the procedures.
- Treadmill
Dealing with Treadmill
- Restart the steps in the Predictable Success steps:
- Recapture the balance of processes and creativity
- Simplify your decision-making process without compromising your checks and balances.
- Focus outwardly, not inwardly
- The big rut
Dealing with the Big Rut
- Many have to be acquired by other organizations
- If a family organization, one member must aggressively buy the business from other family members and turn it around.
- If there is a desire, go through the strategic planning process and try to rejuvenate a vision.
- Death rattle
Too late—no more resources
- Fire sale
Bankruptcy
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