Ralph Waldo Emerson on the Best Day of the Year

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if the best day of the year was today? Would you get out of bed early with a smile and childlike anticipation? Would you be on the watch for miracles, big and small, or opportunities to pounce on?

What if you knew the best was yet to come? How much less worry would you feel knowing that things will get better (or even better)?

Why not adopt Emerson’s point of view just for one week? Let me know what happens!

 

Jawaharlal Nehru on the Risk of Caution

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all – Jawaharlal Nehru, former Prime Minister of India

I’m a personal finance junkie so the first example of this that comes to mind is saving in “guaranteed” rate CDs which provide a guaranteed but low return, but typically does not even grow at the rate of inflation. You don’t risk money on market fluctuations, so it seems cautious. However, you’re actually guaranteed to lose money in terms of your purchasing power due to inflation.

On the career front, I see people stay in jobs or business ventures they aren’t happy with for too long. They can’t afford the risk of losing the income. In the meantime, they also lose the possibility of a better income elsewhere, or at least sustainability and happiness.

What are you missing by not making a move, making a decision, starting or ending something?

Where in your life – career, finances, relationships or somewhere else – are you too cautious?

Is the pursuit of caution actually opening you up to greater risk?

Thomas N. Vail on Overcoming Obstacles

Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable – Thomas N. Vail 

Are you being conquered by worries that haven’t been realized yet?

Can you recall worries from the past? Did anything of them ever happen?

What if you divided your worry time in half and spent one half worrying (because habits aren’t changed overnight) and one half working on one small step?

Jane Addams on the Danger of Giving Up Too Soon

Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world – Jane Addams 

Some people are held back by fear – fear of failure, fear of success. Addams points out fear can propel us forward: we might instead fear not doing enough, not making a valuable contribution.

This Addams quote also calls on each of us to save the world. Our contribution might be the tipping point. We MUST continue sharing our gifts.

Where are you holding back?

For what dream can you expend an additional push, more inspired effort?

How would you act if you knew your efforts might save the world?

It’s a shame to be caught up in something that doesn’t make you absolutely tremble with joy – Julia Child

Now there’s a metric I can get behind – not just joy, but joy that makes you tremble. What if we made all of our decisions based on this:

  • Career
  • Money
  • Time
  • Relationships
  • …

What would you do differently if you had to measure your choices against the trembling joy they bring?

How to Be a More Nimble Entrepreneur – Purple Clover

In my business advice post for Purple Clover, I share tips for the executive-to-entrepreneur career change. There are habits, beliefs and behaviors from your corporate days that you do not want to carry over when you launch your business:

Most people recognize that traditional employment and entrepreneurship are different and therefore require different skills and temperaments. But surely, the corporate experience helps, right? You have extensive networks — you might even be able to sell into your former employers. You have skills and expertise — these could be your first offerings. You have the savvy that comes with navigating different environments — and therefore the savvy to navigate the different clients you might call on. However, there are also behaviors and beliefs that might be a holdover from your corporate days that no longer serve you when you strike out on your own.

“Sales is someone else’s job”

A former corporate colleague of mine who went into business for herself proclaimed assertively, “I don’t sell.” When I asked how she expected to get clients, she mentioned that she knew enough people from her corporate networks to keep her busy. That worked for a few months. Last I heard, she hired a copywriter for her site and was figuring out how to explain what she does.

In corporate America, you could focus on what you did best, and someone else was selling. If you were in sales, you could focus on that while someone else took care of marketing, finance, operations, etc. When you’re in business for yourself, you take on all jobs, especially sales. Even when you expand your team and can outsource functions, you still have to know enough about each area and be active enough in each to maintain oversight and quality control. Even when you can bring on a salesperson, you will still be the backstop in selling as no one will advocate for your business like you will. Whatever business you launch, you are in sales.

Read more Big Corporate behaviors and beliefs to avoid at Purple Clover: How to Be a More Nimble Entrepreneur.

Coach World TV – On Extreme Career Change, Branding and Why Every Entrepreneur Is In Sales

I was excited to guest on Coach World TV with Laurie Lawson. We talked about a wide array of topics from my journey from employment to entrepreneurship, to personal branding (does everyone need social media, a blog, a website?) to sales and the small business owner:

One of the resources I mentioned is a free audio on the 5 Strategies I used to take SixFigureStart to multiple six-figures. You can request the free audio HERE.

How To Stop Attracting Deadbeat Clients – Purple Clover

In this business advice post for Purple Clover, I share three strategies for consultants, freelancers, and entrepreneurs to get clients who pay:

A Bureau of Labor statistic shows that by 2020, 40% of the workforce will be temporary. You probably already know someone who is a consultant or freelancer, and you may be one yourself. When you earn your salary project-by-project, it is critical that you get paid what you are owed in a timely manner. If you’re finding it difficult to collect, here are three strategies to follow:

Make collection a part of the process from the beginning.

Ask for a deposit. Charge a registration fee. The easiest way to avoid late payments is to make payment the first step in working with you. If you need to get started before money changes hands, ask early and ask often about getting paid. If you work onsite at the client’s office, ask to meet with accounts payable when you’re introduced to everyone else. Don’t wait till the end of a project before collecting on your fee.

Read two more strategies at Purple Clover: How To Stop Attracting Deadbeat Clients.

You Already Know How to Grow Your Business: 7 Key Insights From Your Own Data

This business coaching post originally appears as a guest blog for Practice Pay Solutions eUniversity:

As an entrepreneur, you face many decisions that do not have clear-cut answers.

Should you discount your prices and under what circumstances? Should you say Yes to a client that is less-than-ideal? Should you pursue the big client with a long sales cycle or the small client with a lower purchase point?

Many decisions ideally depend on your particular business situation.  It might make sense to discount to test a lower price point but not if your business brands itself as a premium service. It might make sense to say Yes to less-than-ideal clients if it means that you sustain your business long enough to build your ideal client base (but you will have less time and energy for ideal clients that do come along). It might make sense to prioritize the big clients with long sales cycles but you might run out of cash (yet, if you prioritize the small clients you might have cash and then be hard-pressed to grow your revenues).

If the best answer for YOU is that it depends on your business, then key answers are revealed when you get to know your business. Here are 7 insights you can get by looking at your business data:

1. Burn rate
Your burn rate is your average monthly costs. Unless you have a day job or spouse to cover your living expenses, you should include living expenses in your burn rate. Along with your cash position, knowing your burn rate allows you to calculate how long you can wait for your first sale. You might not be able to wait for the big clients initially until you build a larger cash position.

2. Time to sell by client
If you are already in business, look at past sales and how long it takes for you to land clients. Maybe that big client isn’t that slow to close relative to your average sale, and it’s worth waiting.

3. Time to collect
Calculate the time from when you make a sale to when you collect the revenue. Compare this to your current cash needs. This tells you how long it takes for sales to convert to cash. If it’s longer than you’d like, you might offer an early-pay discount

4. Cumulative revenues by date
If you order your sales by date and see how your revenues accumulate over time, you can see what months, quarters or seasons are better for sales. Plan your sales and marketing according to the rhythms of your own business. Save your operations, finance and back office projects for the slow season. Save your discounts for the slow season.

5. Revenues by client
Know what each client contributes to your total sales. If a single client accounts for the majority of revenues, you are exposed to that client and may want to prioritize diversifying your client base. If that client is less-than-ideal, you might want to let them go, but only when you can absorb the loss with new business.

6. Cumulative revenues by client
If you order your clients by how much they purchase, from largest to smallest, you can calculate what percentage of cumulative revenues each subsequent client contributes. Many businesses find that their top-grossing clients account for a disproportionately high share of the overall revenue (Pareto’s Principle says that 80% of income is generated by just 20% of a population, and this 80/20 phenomenon has been noticed in other population measures). If 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your clients, then you might want to rethink how you manage these relationships – how you define who is ideal, how you dole out discounts or other incentives, how you spend your time.

7. Year over year calculations
How do the above measures look year-over-year? Are your key clients getting more dominant or are you diversifying? Is there really a seasonal pattern to your business or were the fluctuations more ad hoc? Are you improving your collections, shrinking your sales cycle, and otherwise improving how you run your business in a way that benefits your bottom line?

Getting to know your own business data is one way you can make better decisions about pricing, time management, client service and overall business strategy. I cover two more ways you can make better business decisions in my upcoming webinar for Practice Pay Solutions on July 30:  Revenue Now Or Later: What Opportunities to Pursue and When

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