ReDesign: Simple Strategies to ReDesign Your Business for Freedom, Fun & Profit

ReDesign

Maximize freedom, fun and profits in your business

A small business owner is one of the most amazing individuals you will ever meet. Some of us desire to become this person. We want to build something incredible. We are not where we want to be, and you’re searching for something bigger. We feel like we have a greater purpose in life. We believe we have an idea that would be a huge success. We’re waiting for the right time, and we discuss this idea with those closest to us. They tell us to go for it. It is at this point that we put everything on the line to take a risk. We are willing to make great sacrifices for this one idea. You are about to experience the freedom of choosing your own future. You are about to become a business owner.

Welcome to the lifestyle of small business ownership. We, as small business owners, have the opportunity to employ people, support families, and give them a lifestyle they wouldn’t otherwise have. We are an inspiration to others. We lead our community in making a difference. It’s not easy, but we have a fire inside of us that keeps the business fueled and propels us forward.

Our children grow up in the business and learn a good work ethic. We are able to send them to private schools for a higher education. They play sports and join clubs. Your spouse is able to stay at home to help in your children’s development. We go on vacations to tropical places about which others can only dream. Our small business is more work than you ever thought it would be, but it has also provided a lifestyle that you never thought it could.

Our business is now our life. We tell the stories of success but hide the failures. We don’t tell others about the tough times. The tough times are filled with stress, headaches, financial loss, loss of friends and family members, bill collectors, bad publicity, public embarrassment, and the list goes on.

So why do we bother. Here is why:

Our business starts with an idea. It grows as you share it with others. We receive encouragement, and it really starts to catapult. We work odd hours to bring it to life, and we start losing sleep because the concept is coming together. We’re excited. We launch the company, and it creates a positive buzz in the community that makes us feel good. The company starts to grow and just takes off. We’re busy selling our services, hiring people, strategically planning what the next step will be, and it all is amazing. We’re bringing in money, reinvest in the company and live a life with fine dining, a larger home, a new car, vacations, and money in savings.

Then it hits—the economy or business takes a downward turn and you lose a large account or two, or maybe several. In a few months, another large account goes out of business. Cash flow is so slow you’re having trouble making payroll. Our accounts payable are behind, we work more hours, our kids grow up missing us, we miss school functions, our spouse becomes detached, customers start to go to other options, the market keeps shifting, and employees start leaving. It is at this point when we realize that this is not fun anymore. We’re stuck. The business needs us, our family needs us, our employees need us, the customers rely on us—is this how we thought it would be?

It’s time for a change. We started this business because we believed in the idea. These are just tough times. We have to persevere through these times and get our business back on track. We must outlast the competition, take care of our clients better than we ever have, and change our business model by focusing on doing less and making more on the bottom line. You are entering a new world that you’ve never been in before. It’s time to ReDesign you and your business.

As we listen to podcasts, read books, hear motivational speakers, watch videos, and go to school, everything is all about how to grow, grow, grow. Look at the thousands of small businesses that are in your community—how many of them actually make it big? We hear the Southwest Airlines story, the Starbucks story, but what is the actual percentage of those who really succeed? We become so focused on chasing the top line of revenue that you forget the other numbers. Forget about overhead costs, direct costs, the bottom line, or a huge balance sheet. It costs lots of money, time, and many resources to go big. Many give up their freedom of ownership to investors and are trapped into answering to others.

If we lose that freedom, haven’t we lost our purpose? We want to have a business that we can work on rather than work in day after day. Every once in a while, after many days spent in a crawlspace cleaning up sewage or tearing out walls, I’ve asked myself: Is this really what I should be doing?

As one of my favorite authors, Michael Gerber, says, Are you a technician or an owner? I spent the last thirteen years wishing that my goal of having a business that could run itself had come true. The truth is I could never leave for very long. Sales would decline because I was the only performing salesperson. Whether it involved a high-end client or a technically advanced process, I was always brought back into the production process.

As I grew my business, my problems also grew. I felt unrewarded. Change was forced upon me, and I finally realized there must be another way. Having a small business puts us forever on a path of learning about ourself, our employees, our company, the economy, and the world we live in. We will strive to push through the trials that are forced upon us by the economy, the government, and the competition. You must become a change junky who can redesign you and your business.

There are times when we must forget about how we’ve done things in the past and change our mindset. We may have to rethink who we are and what it is that we do. We may have to change out our team if they can’t adapt. Everything you do is in the best interest of your business, and no one looks out for our small business like we do. ReDesign takes you through the mindset you will need to establish. The whole idea is real life, simple strategies to redesign your business for freedom, fun and profit.

1

Hitting Rock Bottom

Everyone in life has a turning point. There is some moment that changes who we are, what we are doing, or ruins our plan of what we are trying to accomplish. Many people call this rock bottom, the point where life isn’t going the way we thought it would and we can’t really dig a deeper hole, or at least we think it can’t get any deeper.

My life has had several rock bottoms. My first experience was when my dad died when I was 15 years old. The man I had looked up to, the one I tried to emulate was gone. This created a lot of anger in our home; everyone was grieving with no one looking after the other members. Mix the many emotions of a growing teen with grief, and you have an emotional mess. I eventually moved out and at the age of 15 began living with one of my Dad’s best friends, Phil, who was a logger. I had a new father figure to teach me how to be a man.

After working as a logger through high school and a two-year college at Paul Smith’s College in upstate New York, I graduated with a forestry degree and decided to head out west from my home in Vermont. My friend, Abe, from Middlebury, and I drove to San Francisco and then up to Boise, where we ran out of money. We lived in local parks for the first week while we looked for a job and an apartment. However, we realized it was difficult to get an apartment without money or a job, and it was hard to find a job when you didn’t have a phone. Then we found Labor Ready. It’s a company where