Get Off the Treadmill With the 7 Stages of Business Ownership

OK, so you're building the business of your dreams. But do you have any reference point for how your business actually affects you personally? If you don't, you just might be building a trap for yourself, not the business of your dreams. If you don't have a handle on the Seven Stages of Business Ownership, you're likely to flame out personally, even if your business is successful.

Will You Be Owned By Your Business? Just about every business founder/owner makes the mistake of assuming that if they build a great business, they'll automatically get a life, too. Big mistake. If you're building a business, you need to be as intentional about eventually getting a life as you are about building the business. Building the business always comes first, but if you don't intend to USE your business to build your ideal lifestyle, you won't own the business; the business will own you.

There are plenty of tools to grade what stage your business is in, but none for measuring how your business is impacting you. Here's one from our book, Making Money is Killing Your Business that focuses on what the business is doing for (or to) you personally. As you read through the Seven Stages of Business Ownership, ask yourself,

1) What stage am I in personally, and

2) What stage is my goal? You can stop anywhere from Stage Five through Seven. But if you stop at Stage Four, which most business owners do, you will always be a hostage to your business. Stages One through Four are about generating money. Stages Five through Seven are about ensuring your business generates both time and money for you.

Get to at least Stage Five so you can have both.

Stage One--Start Up

Pouring time and ideas into creating the business & getting it off the ground. This is fun!

Stage Two--Survival Survival is everything; funding is drying up. Urgently driving sales. We burn a lot of fuel on takeoff. I didn't think it would be this hard."

Stage Three--Subsistence Regularly breaking even--woo hoo! But the business is totally dependent on me. Tension..."If I stop, the business stops. Must keep going...

Stage Four--Stability (& Growth)Regularly profitable, finally. The "American Dream!", followed in a few years by quiet desperation. Outwardly successful, inwardly deflated. My business owns me."

Stage Five--Success Now others can "make the chairs." The business makes money when I'm not around and I don't have to stitch it back together when I return. Only 5%-ish of business owners ever get to Stage Five. You can make millions and be stuck in Stage Four for decades because you have no time to enjoy the money. The reason only 5% make it? The Big Mindset Shift. They decide to demand that their business give them BOTH time and money, not just money. It's that simple. "I'm off the treadmill!"

Stage Six--SignificanceLeadership inplaceThe owner is about vision and guidance, not production. "I'm focused on making a difference, not making a chair."

Stage Seven--SuccessionLeadership incharge. The owner delegates guidance and focuses on vision, passing the day2day torch of leadership to others. They become "the myth"--when they walk in, people whisper, "Hey, that's the person who started it all." Leadership--"I used to solve and decide. Now I ask questions."

Beware Stages Four and Six Stage four is the most dangerous stage. The urge to escape any future risk to get to the next stage keeps us on the treadmill for years, if not decades. But stopping at this stage ensures you bought a job, not a company, and will ensure you regularly fall back into Stages Two and Three.

Stage Six is the second most dangerous stage. If you go off and "play" too quickly at this stage, you will come back to a disaster. Focus for just a little bit longer, and make sure someone else is giving day-to-day guidance, and reporting transparently to you.

Which Stage is Your Objective? Where are you? What's the one thingyou need to donowto get to the next stage? There's a hundred things you could do; just do the next one. If you can't get past Stage Four, it's head trash. Nobody is as good, competent, experienced, committed, etc. You made that come true. Stop it.

If you're in Stage Five or greater--congratulations--take the next month off with pay. They won't miss you!

Article as seen on Inc.com

One Learned Skill Contributes to Success More Than Any Other

The CEOs of the fastest-growing companies in America have a single, learned attribute that makes them more successful than anyone else. You can learn it too.

For decades while helping founders build their businesses, we have told them the number one attribute of success is Speed of Execution, which is the practical outcome of being willing to take risks. Entrepreneurs and founders who exhibit Speed of Execution are able to do so because they move on an idea without having enough information to know for certain the idea will work. While others are researching and doing case studies, they are already turning the idea into reality. They can do this because they have learned by experience that the only way to perfect an idea is with movement, not planning.

Planning never creates movement, but movement can create a great plan.

The Data Is In--Moving Fast Works

New research confirms this is the path to success. Gallup, which built the popular StrengthsFinder assessment, recently developed an online version specifically for entrepreneurs--the Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder evaluation. They invited the founders of the 2014 Inc. 500 fastest growing companies to take the assessment, and discovered that the number one attribute, shared by a whopping 85 percent of the founders, was the willingness to take risks.

Our Beliefs Determine Our Behavior

Risk-taking is the belief system, the mindset. Speed of Execution is the practical outcome of that belief system. Risk takers believe that moving quickly with all the information will work better than trying to get it all figured out before you move. They understand that you don't get comprehensive information in an ivory tower, but from experience. Those who move on an idea quickly in the trenches, always get information not available by analysis.

The number one indicator of success in an early stage business is not how good your product is, or how smart your marketing is, or your uniqueness, or your funding, or any of those traditional ideas of what makes for success. The number one indicator of success in early stage business is simply Speed of Execution. Get an idea and get moving on it. You will find out if it's a good idea or not much more quickly and reliably by moving on it than by musing on it.

Steering Your Business

How do you steer a ship? The logical answer is with a wheel and a rudder--that's wrong. The intuitive answer is, "Get it moving." Movement steers a business in the same way. Moving the rudder on a ship dead in the water does nothing to change the direction. Only movement will affect change.

Planning is your rudder. I would never advocate putting a boat in the water without a rudder. But most people are sitting around building hand-carved, silver inlaid, 100 foot tall rudders to stick on the back of their 12 foot dinghies, and wondering why their idea sinks before its launched. Get a simple piece of metal (a basic idea), stick it on the back of your boat, and get out of the harbor.

Move Fast. Break Things.

The faster you move, the less rudder you need. Bill Hewlett famously said, "When I talk to business schools occasionally, the professor of management is devastated when I say we didn't have any plans when we started. We were just opportunistic. Here we were, with about $500 in capital, trying whatever someone thought we might be able to do. So we got into this thing not by design but because it worked out that way."

For HP, considered by most to be the founders of Silicon Valley, movement created the plan. For the first ten years of Facebook's existence, Mark Zuckerberg echoed Bill Hewlett, and led the company with the mantra, "Move Fast. Break Things. If you're not breaking things, you're not moving fast enough."

Stop thinking. Stop planning. Your plan, like Bill Hewlett's, will form as you move, not while you're reading case studies. Get a nice little rudder, stick it on the back of your business, and get moving as quickly as you can. It's counter-logical, but to the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, it's very intuitive.

Implement now. Perfect as you go.

Article as seen on Inc.com

StartUp Life Interview Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor

Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor talk about their new book: Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur.

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A Very Special Starto Holiday Special... It's Special!

It's our 1st Annual StartoTV Holiday Spectacular!  

Today, Joel Wishkovsky, co-founder and CEO of CardGnome.com joins Chris Franks & Sandy Grason in the Starto studios to talk about the latest news start-ups need to know this holiday season.

[youtube width="610" height="343" video_id="n07Kz_E97bY?rel=0"]

Special Thanks to:

Joel Wishkovsky- he is the co-founder and CEO of CardGnome.com, a startup in Boulder, Colo. that offers thousands of independently designed greeting cards for any occasion. Joel blogs about startups, (http://joelwish.com/), builds businesses, solves problems, and thinks creatively about the world around him. He loves mountaineering and traveling off the beaten track. Reach Joel via email [email protected] or on twitter via @JoelWish.

** Aksels.com - for Chris Franks' awesome wardrobe **

Here are the links to the stories we covered on this episode:

Are You Ready for the Digital Holiday Shopping Rush? (Infographic) http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225046#

Fast Company- 20 Tech Trends that will define 2013 http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671397/20-tech-trends-that-will-define-2013-selected-by-frog#1

Google's Top Search Terms of 2012: What's in It for Business Owners http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225278

Forbes- 7 Tech Gifts from Rising Startups http://www.forbes.com/sites/caroltice/2012/12/13/the-entrepreneurs-holiday-shopping-guide-7-tech-gifts-from-rising-startups/

3 Tips for Safe Holiday Shopping Over Mobile Devices http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225229

Gift Simple http://www.dailydealmedia.com/976new-group-buying-start-ups-for-holiday-shoppers-giftsimple-presentify-me-barkbox/

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page “StartoTV” and follow us on Twitter @startotv-

Happy Holidays from the entire StartoTV Family!

Dave Bacon on Connection, Giving Back & Embracing the Uncertainty

Dave Bacon is an entrepreneur that helps entrepreneurs realize their dreams, helping them grow their companies by connecting them with the right people. I had the opportunity to sit down with Dave during Denver Start Up Week at Demo Gala and we talked about his unique approach to recruiting that goes way beyond the norm and his passion for music, education, connection and giving back to the start up community.

Dave's "Watch Analogy" pretty much rocked our world here at Starto.TV..... check it out.

My favorite quotes from Dave Bacon:

"Embrace the Uncertainty"

"I love what I don't know."

"If I adjust my watch by just one minute.... It's ON!"

Gary Vaynerchuk Headlines Denver StartUp Week

This week Gary Vaynerchuck a.k.a. "GaryVee" descends upon Denver Start Up Week.  If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Gary, he's been called an over-the-top personality (an understatement-fer sure!), he loves the hustle, the NY Jets, family, business and he loves life. Gary was a guest on my radio show a few years back, right before his book "Crush It" hit the shelves. I actually had a huge "a-ha" during my interview with Gary, you'll hear it around the 20 minute mark, when he tells me "people aren't paying attention to what they are good at".  I realized when Gary told me the defining characteristics that he looks for in his business partners, that I'm NOT a true entrepreneur at heart. (at least not in the way Gary describes it) Check it out:

Gary's theory is that if you weren't selling lollipops or crushing it at your lemonade stand before the age of twelve, you're probably not going to be the world's greatest entrepreneur, because you have to be really, really excited & passionate about selling your sh#$*.  All I really wanted to be when I was twelve years old was -- a Rockette!

I guess I have GaryVee to thank for my hosting gig at Starto TV. He put me on my true path. :-D

Here are some of the other fascinating things Gary reveals in this interview:

• Gary 'calls me out' on a line I used in my radio show opener
• Why he's so friggin' passionate about ..... everything
• Why Gary did not think he could write a good book (and how he crushed it in the book-writing department)
• The question YOU need to answer in order to work with Gary
• The exact steps you need to take in order to make money doing what you love
• What Gary says to people that claim what he does isn't "scaleable"
• How to Love the Process
• Gary reveals his not-so-secret, evil plan to buy the Jets & exactly how he's going to do it
• Why the big Zero still feels a little sexy

Here are Gary's Top 5 Tips for growing your business:

1. Care about your customer.
2. Don't spend money on anything you can get "away" with.
3. Recognize that NOW is the biggest opportunity for you to make cash (when times are tough; creativity & hustle are the differentiators).
4. Make sure what you are doing is what you LOVE. It's the only way to work as hard as you need to.
5. "Edu-micate" yourself on all technologies you don't understand. :-)

Gary's top tip for getting the most out of Twitter:  LISTEN

Gary walks you through EXACTLY what to do when you get on Twitter to build your following.

Here are my favorite quotes from Gary:

"If you don't care, you lose."

"What do you really, really want out of life.  Work backwards."

"I don't want to hear about golfing & tennis & John Madden football & the Wii, when you're crying about your financial situation. Stop watching friggin' LOST  and start hustling and building your business."

"It's about conversation, not just plugging what you want to accomplish."

"Word is bond."

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