Video Length: 5:34

Worksheet download: Design Your Business (click here)

Why is it that most businesses have such a tough time just getting themselves out of survival mode to having a business that can just sustain itself? Typically, there are going to be five things that they’re not doing, and I’m going to tell you what those five things are just in a second.

Hi. I’m James Lawson. I am the co-founder of Impact Business Solutions and the creator of the Scale Your Business, Scale Your Life program.

Over the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be my pleasure to share with you what we believe are the five key strategies that every business should be looking to employ if they truly want to get from survival mode to thriving, and then beyond.

It’s no secret that the vast majority of businesses actually fail. And one of the reasons we’ve put these videos together is the conversations that we’ve been having both with our one-on-one clients, but also with our clients in our group program, is it always comes back to the same thing. It’s “I’m stuck here. I know what I kind of want to be, but I’m having a really tough time figuring how I’m going to get there.” So, we decided to put together these short five videos and there’s going to be some checklists and some worksheets available for download that you can then get and start working on your business to help you kind of move past where you are if, indeed, that’s what you’re looking to do.

So, let’s talk about the first thing on the agenda. What do we really need to be doing? Right? What are the three steps that we need to do if we’re going to take our business from that survival mode and move into thriving?

1.  The first thing that we recognized every business doesn’t do — and not every business, but most businesses don’t do — is actually design their business. So, what do we mean by design your business? Designing your business, for us, is you taking that step back and really looking at your business from the top down and deciding what is it that business needs to look like in the next four years? Who are we going to be serving for instance? What is our niche going to be? Who’s our customer base? What is the organization going to look like? What am I going to do in that business? Am I always going to be doing what I’m doing right now or, indeed, am I going to move on and do something else within the organization?

So, when we talk about designing your business, it really is taking that, what we call the Merlin approach. If you’ve ever watched Merlin the wizard, Merlin had an ability to see the future just as clearly as it could see the past. So, we want you to look forward. We want you to look three years or four years ahead and begin to think about what is it that my business needs to look like in that timeframe?

2.  The second thing we want you to think about is really understanding your strengths. What is it that you’re really good at? You’re not good at everything. No one is. Right? So, you need to be able to look at yourself, and look at your organization, understand what your strengths are, and be able to really clearly articulate who you are. Like, what is it you are about, and what is it you actually want? What is it that makes your business unique? What’s going to make you stand out from the crowd? Right? Everyone thinks that they are unique. The reality is very few actually are. Okay? And uniqueness isn’t about customer service unless you’re Zappos, who have built a whole billion dollar empire around customer service. So, part of your program, part of your process, really needs to be sitting back and saying, “What is it that we can differentiate ourselves on?”

3.  The third thing I want you to think about is getting complete clarity, clarity of mind, clarity in knowing the purpose of your business. Why does a company actually even exist? Is it just to make money? Probably not. Right? There’s a bigger reason that we do what we do. And, typically, money is just the reward we get financially for doing what we do. So, if you can clearly articulate and get complete clarity on why your company exists, what you are about, why you do what you do, combine that with a vision of your company in the future and what it needs to look like, this is going to give you the ability to start making really smart decisions.

Whereas, most companies today make decisions based on what’s happening now, not decisions based on how is that going to impact me and get me moving towards my ultimate goal in the next three or four years?

So, as part of this video, guys, there is a download sheet that you can go and download. It’s got some questions on it. I beg you, work through it. Start getting yourself, your mindset, on how your business is going to be designed, what it’s going to be about, what makes you unique, clarity of purpose. And I swear, you will start to make much, much better decisions.

In our second video, we’re going to start looking at positioning. How do you then start to take what you’ve designed and position that in the marketplace so that you can really separate yourselves from your competition? It’s going to be a blast. I’m looking forward to it. Again, my name is James Lawson, and thank you for your time.

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