As we move into the holiday season and the New Year is only few days away, it is a great time to reflect not only on this year, but our life & the current state of your business.
One of the key objectives when we start a business is to become independent and have the FREEDOM of choice to do things we enjoy the most. But, the sad reality is that only 1% of business owners achieve this FREEDOM of choice stage. Achieving this stage is not automatic and does not happen by accident. Every successful business goes through 5 steps before attaining the FREEDOM of choice stage. One of the first things I do when working with my clients is to asses where they are on this 5 Steps to Freedom.
Take some time to reflect on where you are on this 5 Steps to FREEDOM. Let me explain you each step and then you can take the FREE 5 Steps to Freedom Assessment to help reflect on your current state of business.
Step 1: CREATION. Your business starts as an unknown in the marketplace, researching a viable niche in your market, developing a working proto-type of your business model, and launching the model. From there, you move to
Step 2: DISORDER. This is when you begin pushing through the often bloody battle of becoming cash flow positive by investing heavily and driving growth like crazy to build brand awareness to grow and capture market share as quickly as possible. Sadly, only 5% of businesses make it past this step. Those who do move past this step, go into the phase I call
Step 3: CONTROL. This is where you convert cash flow into profit by stabilizing and organizing your operations, measuring your well chosen performance metrics and fine-tuning and adjusting the business model. This allows you to reach
Step 4: PROSPERITY. Your goal here is to solidify a position of dominance in your niche market by economizing and optimizing for efficiencies so you can continue to invest in growth and repay debt. When you’ve reached this point, you can start enjoying the fruits of your labor as you head into
Step 5: FREEDOM. Your final act is to reproduce yourself and develop a strong core of leaders who will continue to grow the business through partnerships, join ventures, and acquisitions. At this level, the business owner enjoys the fruit of his or her labor in the form of free time and free cash flow.
One thing I have noticed while working with my clients is that most people are biased when reflecting where they are on the 5 steps to FREEDOM. For example, most people assume they are in the PROSPERITY state just because they are profitable. But, in reality you could be profitable even in the DISORDER state. So, to help objectively determine where you are on the 5 Steps to Freedom, I created this powerful 5 Steps to Freedom Assessment. This helps you assess 21 key aspects of your business in three vital areas:
Money – Grow profits and cash flow with an aggressive marketing plan, build a robust sales management system and effective business planning.
Team – Build a high performance team with best-in-class processes for employee acquisition, retention and operations management.
Time – Release your time from the business with a time management plan along with effective delegation.
Click here to take this FREE 5 Steps to Freedom Assessment which will help you identify your current state of business and prioritize the areas to focus in your business as you head into the New Year.