Mastering Small Business Growth: Confidence Amid Uncertainty

Speaker A00:00:09

Hey, friends. Well, welcome to Grit and Growth Business Live. This is our first inaugural, if you will, Tuesday night show.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And tonight we're going to dive into some real struggles of small business owners just like you. And I want to start off by thanking Abby, who's producing tonight's live show.You'll see that she's in the chat and she's going to be monitoring the chat for us. So if you've got a question or you've got a comment, feel free to put it in the chat and we'll answer those questions tonight.You know, as a small business owner, you ever have those nights when you wonder, am I really going to make it? Well, if you ever feel like that, this is the place for practical, no fluff coaching.I'm going to talk about live, real and focused ideas to help you grow your business with grit and with peace. And we're going to do that every Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern time. So this is the first one. So plan to join me every week if you can.Now listen, I'm going to be here, right here every week. I'm going to answer your questions. I'm going to be doing live coaching if you're interested in being on the show.I'll talk to you a little bit later how you can actually go and do that. I'm going to help you take that next right step in your business. And hey, if you'd like to submit a question for next week, here's how you do it.Go right to gritandgrowthbusiness.com ask. I'm going to give you that one more time and I'll have Abby put it in the, in the links and the show notes today.You can put it in the captions too if you want to, Abby, but gritandgrowthbusiness.com ask. And listen, if you want to be in the hot seat, yes, you can be a guest on the show. I'll do some live coaching one on one with you.And everybody else gets to benefit from what we talk about.You can apply for that by going to grit and growth business.com Guest Again, that's gritandgrowthbusiness.com Guest and it's totally free, no strings attached. Just come on, we'll talk about your business and I'll show you how to make your business even better for you.So as we talk tonight, feel free to share your comments and questions right there in the chat. I want to give you one quick admonition, if you will. I, I gotta, I gotta Say this. Everything tonight is for education only.This is not legal or tax advice. If you're interested in doing that, contact me, set up an appointment with me, and we can do that one on one. I don't want to do that in this forum.But tonight is about education and about bringing you knowledge to help your business grow. All right, well, let's get into it today. Now, each week with the show, I'm going to start off with something I call the pressing issue of the week.So this week's pressing issue is sort of a big pie in the sky issue. And it's this. Tonight's topic is this why uncertainty is the entrepreneur's constant companion.And if you're a small business person, you get what I'm talking about here so many times. It's so. It's so tough to be a small business owner. There's so much uncertainty in that. Because here's the truth.Running a small business means living in uncertainty. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Things like cash flow, things like your clients.I had a client say to me one time, ralph, if it wasn't for clients, I'd have a great business. You'd be in pretty bad shape if you didn't have any clients. But that's one of the things we have to deal with uncertainty.We have to deal with competition. And the truth is, as small business owners, we all know they move fast.But confidence, as you know, confidence doesn't come from eliminating uncertainty. I wish we could do that. I wish I had the tools tonight to show you, hey, here's how you can completely eliminate uncertainty.But what it does come with is mastering how you respond to that. Now, as we start tonight, I found some great quotes that lay into this idea of uncertainty. So here's some great ones.This one comes from Stephen Covey. Now, Stephen Covey is one of the people that's one of those motivational guys.He wrote the seven Habits of Effective People, and I probably butchered that. But that's about what he talked about. And I love what he said here. He said the only certainty in business is uncertainty. Well, that's the truth.If you're a small business owner, you know there's a ton of uncertainty. And I'm seeing your questions in there, Mark. We will definitely get to that. So thank you for bringing that question. Here's another quote.Now, I couldn't find who this was talked or who said this. It's widely cited in startup circles. But listen to this one. This is a great one.Entrepreneurship is living A few years of your life like most people won't. But then it continues so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't. Hey, you know what?If you're a small business owner, that's our big vision. That's our thing that we're always looking towards our, our big hairy, audacious goal, living a few years of your life like most people.Hey, being a small business owner is hard work.But when you really master it, when you get past those struggles, when you get past that uncertainty, you can truly spend the rest of your life like most people can. Here's a great quote from Dale Carnegie. And I actually took the Dale Carnegie classes.And if you ever have a chance to do that, I would highly recommend it. They are fantastic classes that you can take. But this is what Dale Carnegie said. If you wait for certainty, you'll spend your life standing still.I don't know about you, but I don't have time to stand still, especially as a small business person. So I think Dale Carnegie just nailed it. Well, here's one from. And I was told you got to call this guy Sir Richard Branson.That's what Richard Branson said. He said you don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over.Listen, if you're a small business person like me, you know, you've fallen over a few times, you know, sometimes you take your licks, but you get back up. That's the whole key to small business is get back up. And I got one more quote.I'm going to overrun you with quotes tonight, but this one comes from Tim Ferriss, and I love this one. Tim Ferriss. This is the one we can really lean into tonight. But this is what Tim said. He said great entrepreneurs aren't fearless.They act in spite of fear. Isn't that a great quote? All right, so here are three moves for this week. I'm always going to give you three moves to start off the show.Then we'll get into some listener questions and we'll dive into some questions that you have in the chat. But here are your three moves for this week. Always want to give you some takeaways right from the top. Number one thing, if you work with me.You know, I say this all the time. Track your cash. Now, I'm not talking about tracking your cash monthly or annually. I'm doing a lot of tax returns, believe it or not.The personal filing tax deadline is next Wednesday, and I've still got people that are still giving me their Stuff. But here's my encouragement for you as a small business owner. Track your cash weekly, not monthly.Because the truth is anxiety, our awareness beats anxiety. I got that kind of messed up. So it is a live show, so sometimes I'm going to step on my words, but that's the key.What I wanted to say here is awareness beats anxiety. See, if you know what's going on, that's how you can break some of that uncertainty.I know a lot of small business people, they never know exactly what's going on in their business. Maybe they look at it monthly, maybe they look at it quarterly. But guess what?I really think the key, the secret sauce, if you will, is looking at it weekly, not monthly. All right, let's move on to my second move for this week. Kind of like I talk about on my daily show, which you can check out.It's called Financially Confident Christian. I do that every day, about 10 minutes of your time.Again, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com but number two thing on the business show here tonight, build a small buffer fund. Now, if you're an individual, you know I talk all the time about building an emergency fund.As a business owner, I want to encourage you to do the same thing. Build two, three or maybe even four weeks of expenses. Give yourself some breathing room.Because one of the things I know about business, you never know what's going to happen. There's that uncertainty. Well, if you've got that buffer built, you can, you can withstand the tides of that uncertainty.You can weather the storms if they will. So that's number two is build a small buffer fund. Again, three or four weeks.Now, I don't expect you to have this when you're first starting off in business. And honestly, after you've been in business for a while, it's great if you can expand that to three, four or maybe even five or six months.But that's a goal for tonight. Build a small buffer fund.And number three, and this is one I've got to embrace myself because a lot of people say, well, Ralph, you try to control everything. But here's the key, here's the secret sauce to this one. Focus on what you can control. Because it's so easy to try to control everything.What are the things you can control? You can control your outreach, you can control your follow ups.I know so many small business people don't take the time to follow up with their customers or their prospective customers. You can control that. And here's another thing you can control as a small business person, you can control your delivery.Well, that leads me perfectly into our first listener question. I put this on Facebook and asked for questions and we got a real great, great question from Maria in Austin, Texas.Now, here's our question from Maria tonight. This is what Maria said. She said, hi, Ralph. I pour my heart into my business, but some months I barely break even.Last month, I even had to borrow just to cover rent. It feels like I'm constantly walking a tightrope. How do I stay confident when the future feels uncertain? Yeah. Wow.Maria, what a great question and thank you for checking in with the show all the way from Austin, Texas. My son, my oldest son's actually in Texas. He's going to come up and see us here pretty soon. But Austin in Texas, way to go, Texas.But Maria, thank you for being so honest. A lot of small business don't, a lot of small business owners don't put that honesty on their sleeve.But that tightrope feeling, and you know, feel free to comment in the, in the chat tonight, everybody who's listening, that tightrope feeling. Every entrepreneur has walked that. You're not alone in that.Successful entrepreneurs, in my personal opinion, I've been doing this type of thing for 30 years. I've been working with clients and customers and coaching people for 30 years.Every entrepreneur feels like they're on a tight walk at tight walk, a tightrope at times. But here's the thing I want you to understand, Maria, and I want you to really lean into this. Uncertainty isn't failure. It's just not.Uncertainty isn't failure. It's the price of freedom. Because the truth is you're building something real. And guess what? Building something real takes guts.So I've got some takeaways for you. Like I said earlier in the show, number one thing, Maria, track your cash flow. Spot those patterns before they come, before they become problems.Because that's the thing. If you're not tracking that, you don't know what's going on in your business. And here's another thing I'm going to encourage you to do.Add one small, steady revenue stream. Look at your business. Maybe there's something that's your go to thing. When things seem to get tight, you can go to that revenue stream.A lot of small business people that I've worked with have that one product or that one service that they can always rely on to really get ahead. So I'm going to encourage you to do that. Some do that simple thing.Maybe a simple subscription, maybe you get a retainer for some clients, maybe some mini offers, because those type of things can truly smooth out the dips in your business. And here's the thing I want you to want you to know, Maria, measure progress. So many small business people get stuck on perfection. Well, guess what?If you're looking for perfection as a small business owner, you're going to be disappointed most of the time because most people don't get to perfection. But those wins, they compound quietly.So now I want to ask you in the chat, while you're watching this, how do you push through when the future feels uncertain? And while we're doing that, let me take a look at some chat comments that we've got over here in the chat. So let me switch here.And it looks like Mark, let me put your comment over here. Mark made a statement here. If I can make this work, should work. Of course, now it's not going to work. Oh, here we go. Do this wrong thing.Well, Mark, I'll just read your comment out here because it seems like it is not popping up where I want to pop up. But Mark said it's taken a long time to learn that. Well, that's true, Mark. It's the truth, isn't it? It does take a long time.All right, David, thank you for joining the show. I see you've got a question and that is what platform would you recommend to reserve a buffer fund? You know, David, that's a great question.What my opinion is, is maybe something like a high yield money market account. It could be something as simple as a savings account, but just something that's not in your operational accounts.I did a show a few weeks ago about paying yourself first and actually creating multiple buckets for your income and for your money.So one of the things you might want to consider is whenever a dollar of revenue comes in, carve that out and put it into a particular bucket right from the start. That's one of the things that I recommend, David. It's not necessarily where you put the money and it's more of a function of that.You're doing it and you're setting it aside.Because as a small business owner, it's real easy to see that money in that operating account and say, well, I've got the money, I'll go buy that marketing piece or I'll go buy that equipment. But if you realize that's my buffer fund, that's my emergency fund, you're less likely to touch it. So, hey, here's another idea, David.Maybe even put it in another bank to where you takes you a little bit of exercise to go do it. I do this in my own personal life. There's some money that I put in a bank that I can't get to without having to put some exercise into it.So, David, I hope that answers your question. But, but that's really what I would recommend is put it into something that is more difficult for you to get to.And looks like Mark had another question. Says, as a very small business, when do we actually have to do quarterly filings? We've always just reported on our 1040.Great question, Mark, but I'm going to lead you with a little question here, Mark, from me. Mark, tell me what kind of business you are. If you're a sole proprietorship, then, yes, you would file that on your 1040.But if you are a corporation, then you're going to need to do that on a business tax return. And that could be more complicated. But Mark, generally you want to make sure you're paying quarterly if you're going to have a tax liability.And that's because the IRS wants to get paid as you go. Just like when you're working for somebody else and you get a W2 salary, you get, they, they pay your taxes as you go.Well, the IRS wants the same thing. So from a practical standpoint, Mark, you probably need to do that quarterly.But if you don't have a lot of income, you can get away with doing an annual. I hope, Mark, that answers your question. And I see David made a comment, says, always persevere through the good times and the bad times.Amen to that, David. That is so true. That is so very true, David. So many people get bogged down in those times. And that's, it's, it's funny. And I hope David don't.Doesn't mind me sharing. David's one of my coaching clients and we've been working through David's why in his business. And, and it's one of the main things.And we'll talk about that in a future show. But understand your why. Because when you're in those times, when things are tough, when you're struggling with. Why am I doing this?Because, listen, I did a show a couple of weeks ago. Why do I hate my business? But listen, if you're a small business owner, you probably felt that way sometimes.But when you know your why, when you have those goals in front of you, you can persevere and like David said, through those good times and the bad times. Because guess what? As a small business owner, you're Going to have some bad times. There are going to be some storms. And Mark, thank you.I see you're an LLC partnership with your wife, so you're actually filing a separ tax return with that. So again, I would probably need to look at your particular situation. But in general, I would say look at doing quarterlies if you're showing income.If you're not showing income, it's no big deal because then the IRS isn't going to expect you to pay if you don't owe them any money. All right, well, let's move on to our second question for tonight. And this question comes to us all the way from Seattle, Washington.And this is from Ethan. Now, Ethan wrote me this. He said, hello, Ralph. I just started my graphic design business a few months ago.I'm excited, but I feel like I'm working all the time and don't even know how to stop. Now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause here for a second. Ethan, let me just tell you something right now.I hope you realized when you went into business for yourself, this is going to be harder than you expected. The truth is, as a small business owner, and like I said, I've been doing this for. This is not my first rodeo.As they say, you're always gonna work harder.Truth is, you're gonna work harder, you're gonna work longer, and at the beginning, you're probably gonna make less money than other people who are working for somebody else. But let me continue what he said. And he says, I want to make my business work, but I don't know how to balance it with my life. How do I even start?Ethan, what a great question. And this is a question I get all the time.So first of all, I want to congratulate you for starting your business because you've taken a step, and a lot of people don't take that first step to start your own business. It's not easy, but you've got a vision. So that's another thing. Think about your vision. What do you see this looking like in a few years?Now, I'm going to be honest with you. A lot of financial gurus, these motivational people, say, well, you can find a great work life balance. I don't believe that.Honestly, I don't think you can. I think that the way you have to do that is you have to be intentional. So that's what I'm going to lean into here. It's all about being intentional.And what leads me to really is balance isn't perfection, because a lot of people think, well, you know, if I can find this work life balance. First of all, like I said, I don't really think that exists. But it's intentional. It's being intentional in your time that really matters.Here's one of the things that I recommend to do. Set a stop work alarm every day, say to yourself, okay, here's the deal. I realize I'm going to have to work 50, 60, 70.Pick a number, whatever that number is for you. I'm going to have to work a lot in my business. But here's what you can do.Set a stop work alarm and say, okay, look, I'm going to work every day from 6am to 6pm or whatever that works, like for you, whatever that looks like for you. And then at 6pm hey, I'm out the door no matter what's going on. Because listen, and I've learned this the hard way. You've got to set boundaries.And I like what Mark just said. He said set boundaries around your time. I was getting ready to say that. Mark, it's like you're reading my mind. We're on the same wavelength.But Mark had a lot. Mark and I had a long talk today. So maybe we're, we're connecting today where he's my brother.My brother from Alabama will say, but, but Mike, you're absolutely right. You have to set those boundaries. Because this is one of the things I did not do well when I was younger.When I had young kids at home, I didn't do a good job of setting those boundaries. Yes, I was physically home. I would come home at night back when my office was away from the house. I'm kind of fortunate now.My house is right here where my farm is, but the kids are moved on. My kids are 24 and 28. But I didn't do a good job of setting those boundaries.Yes, I would come home, but then I'd go squirrel myself away in my home office. That's not the right way to do it. So set that work alarm, set those boundaries. And when that rings, step away and listen.Even if it's just listen, I'm going to say, okay, look, here's what I'm going to do. At 6:00 every night, I'm going to go have dinner with my family. I'm going to give them an hour. I'm going to give them two hours.Now maybe you say, look, when the kids are in bed, I'm going back to work. You may have to do that when you're running your own Business.I don't think there's, you're ever going to find that beautiful balance because that's true, you know, it's great to start a business. The excitement of that is, is, is great. But you're going to burn out if you don't. You don't use your time intentionally.You don't balance those boundaries. So maybe another thing you can do, and a lot of people do this, take a walk.Sometimes during the day when I get really stressed out about something going on here at the farm, I get out and check out with the cows. We got some Black Angus cows out there. You want to bring some peace into your day, go watch the cows for a little bit.But you got to keep from getting into those times of just, you know, blowing yourself up and getting burned out. And again, I'm going to go back to what I said to David in our coaching call just the other day.When you're building that business in the first place, lean into your why. Because here's the thing, you're never going to get burned out when you're chasing a dream.Think about that for a second and let me ask you in the chat, do you agree with that? Who's ever been burned out when they're chasing their dream? You figure it out, right? You make it work. You set reasonable boundaries.If anybody has any comments, I'm happy to listen to them. But I just don't believe. And I think the sad part is you hear these people read all these crazy books, these management books.Oh, you can have work, life, balance. I'm sorry, but I don't see that.I think as your business develops, as your business grows, once you've been in your business 5, 10, 15 years, then maybe you can get into some boundaries. But listen, when you're at the front end of this, this is hard work. You've got to work harder than everybody else.You've got to exceed expectations, you got to over deliver. You've got to do all of those things to really build your business. And like the quote said at the beginning, you're willing to work hard.Now you'll have options later. I just recorded a show today and we had a quote from Chris Rock. Actually was yesterday, I think we were recording it.Abby can correct me if I'm wrong, but Chris Rock said something along the lines of, you know, you have options. When you work harder, when you build that diversity, when you build up those boundaries, you're going to have options.Well, let's move on to question number three and this one comes to us from Lisa, from all the way in Portland, Oregon. So, Lisa, I want to thank you for sending in your question. Let's get right to it. So Lisa said this.She said, last year I invested in equipment that didn't deliver. I lost money and confidence. Now I see another chance to grow. But I'm scared of failing again. How do I take the leap without losing peace of mind?Lisa, let me just tell you something right here. Thank you for your courage. And I want to tell you something, Lisa.Every business owner that I know, including myself, has made a move that didn't pay off. I've been in my own business for 30 years. I can probably list a dozen things that I thought at the time in these are going to be perfect.These are going to be home runs. Well, guess what? I struck out a few times. And Lisa, as a small business owner, you're going to strike out a few times as well.But here's what I've learned. Growth, true growth, always involves risks. You're always going to have a risk. But here's the thing.You can, you can do better with that risk if you're smart about it. See, smart risk is measured, not emotional. So here's one thing I'm going to recommend that you do.Lisa, and anybody else who's watching or listening to this right now, here's something I'm going to recommend you do. There's a lot of people, and I'm listen, I'm guilty of this.A lot of things that I talk about on the show are mistakes that I've made, because the truth is you learn from your own mistakes. But here's one of the things I can encourage you to do is run a pilot project first. So many people just dive in headfirst. Oh, I'm going to do this.I'm going to set this up. It's going to be great. We don't realize that there's some flaws in the system.We don't realize there's some things that we really haven't thought out. And that's why I really recommend running a pilot project. Test something small, maybe a small offer.Send it out to your customers that you know are goodwill ambassadors or your brand ambassadors for your business. Do that. See their reception, ask them for feedback.You know, one of the things that I've done in my own practice, in fact, when I started doing more coaching, I offer my coaching services to several people absolutely free. Why? Because I wanted to understand what was going to come back. I need to understand the program.I need to understand what would be effective in that program? So I started off on a small scale before I went all into it. And then the thing is at Lisa, and I'm going to direct this directly at you.If it works, well, scale up, say, okay, this worked in the small, in the macro sense. Now let's make it bigger. Let's grow this thing. But Lisa, at the same time, if it doesn't work, guess what?You've paid tuition and you haven't lost everything, because that's really the key. If it works, scale up. If it doesn't, you've paid and now you realize, okay, this isn't going to work. Maybe you can refine it a little bit.Maybe you can make a little bit of a change to it and it works. Ask for feedback. Listen, this is the thing. As small business owners, we don't think about often. Ask your customers for feedback.Now listen, that's being a little bit, you know, you're putting it out there, right? Because you're thinking, oh, man, I don't know if I want to hear the answers to this.If you really want to grow your business, ask your customers what you're doing. Well, and ask your customers what you could do better at.Because truth is, if your customers are invested in you, you know, there's a book out there called A Complaint is a Gift. And it's one of those books that I highly recommend that everybody reads.If somebody is willing to complain about your business, man, you better listen to them. Because if they've taken the time to complain, that means you haven't lost them yet. Because the truth is, think about it like this.If you're done with the business, you're not going to bother complaining because why bother? They're not going to fix it. But when you invest your time, when you take that time to actually complain, why are you doing that?Because you want a response. I'll give you a great example of this, and I'm going to call out my wife tonight. Today is a very big anniversary for my wife.20 years ago today, my wife underwent breast cancer surgery. And I am just overwhelmed today with feelings of great praise for Christ, because Today she is 20 years cancer free.So I just want to throw this out there if she's watching. Great job. The courage you showed was amazing. Great job, Jennifer.But as an example, we're going to talk about what I'm talking about here with the thing about complaints. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to order my wife some flowers. It'll be a nice gesture to show her, hey, I care about you. 20 years, man.You kick cancer's butt. Fantastic. So I got online, I went to what I thought was a local forest. Put in my picture.They show a beautiful picture of what they called the fall bouquet. This thing looked fantastic. I said, oh, great. Where do I buy? So I said, okay, I'm going to buy. Buy this for my wife.I'm going to have them delivered yesterday so that she would have it in time. It'd be great, right? And I said, listen, when you get to the house, call her ahead of time so that she'll be ready for you to pick up these flowers.Well, guess what? Next thing you know, my wife is texting me. She's like, ralph, some lady's out front, she's got flowers, and she put them in our delivery box.I'm thinking, well, that's not what we asked. And then the next thing you know, my wife says, oh, thank you so much for. For ordering the flowers.And she was grateful for him, and I appreciated that. But she says, ralph, you gotta understand something. Take a look at this. She sent me a couple pictures, and these flowers were miserable.Just terrible. Now, I didn't pay a miserable price. So what did I do? I got online and I said, hey, guys, your flowers aren't great.You didn't do what you agreed to do. And it's funny, because the first person I talked to, they're like, oh, well, you gotta escalate this. Send us pictures of the flowers.Send us your order number. Now, listen, that's terrible customer service service, because now I took the time, let down.I was let down anyway because I wanted this to be something special for my wife. So I was let down.So I reach out to this business, and of course, I didn't realize at the time this is one of those big bundled companies that uses local florists, but there's some big conglomerate that just grabs nonsense SEO, and they make it seem like you're. You're ordering from a local. Florence. But it wasn't. So lesson learned. Lesson learned. Till now.But when I called, they could have dealt with the situation, right? There could have been something as simple as, you know what, we're sorry about what happened. We're sorry we didn't follow through.We're sorry you didn't get what you want. But that's not what they said. He said, well, hold on a second. Send some pictures. Here's an email address, and then we'll escalate it to our.To our next level team. And I'm thinking, well, that's nice. Not great though, right? So of course, send them the pictures.About an hour later, I get an email back that says, we're looking into your case. This is an hour. Another hour goes by, I get an email, oh, we're going to give you a $5 credit. I'm thinking, $5? Really? $5?You totally blew the emotional situation that I was trying to create and you're going to send me $5 now? Of course, at this point, I'm annoyed. So I'm like, well, I'm going to go back to them again. I'm still bought into their business.And I went back to him. I said, that's ridiculous. I said, here's your deficiencies. Here's a picture of what I was supposed to get. Here's what I got.And then of course, in the end, they finally came through and gave me a complete refund. That's not what I was looking for.But the whole point of this story was I'm giving them a complaint because I've given them a gift, because I wanted them to be able to solve this customer dilemma. I wanted them to be able to earn my business again. But the way they handle it, I would never use them again.And I'll tell everybody I know not to use them. They're horrible. But you can do the same thing. Run that pilot project. If you find that something doesn't work, well, then don't scale it up.This is what this florist company needs to realize what they're doing isn't working. My wife went onto their website. Their reviews are terrible. And people are like, nobody likes this people. Nobody likes this florist shop.You definitely don't want your business to be like that. Well, let me ask you a question right now in the chat as we're talking about with Lisa, you know, she's scared. She's got this feeling of fear.So when you face risk in your business, which one wins for you? Fear or courage? Because listen, as a small business owner, you know as well as I do, we deal with those emotions all the time.Being a small business owner is about emotions. It's about that fear. It's a real fear. For a lot of us, there's no backup plan. We are it. If we fail, our families fail, everything falls apart.And that's when we have to have courage. Well, David, let me see what you wrote. He said. David wrote. He said business ownership is a lifestyle. Not a typical 9 to 5.It burned me down without any boundaries set in place much Better with them. That is so true, David. You're right. And that's the thing.A lot of small business people go into it with the mentality that it's a nine to five thing, guess what?If you're a small business owner and you're listening to me right now and you want a 9 to 5, this is not the show for you because you're never going to be successful running a small business. Nine to five. Now, I'm not saying you can't do that when you've been well established, when you develop a team.That's one of the things that Dave and I are talking about in his coaching program.When you build a team, when you assemble people around you to accentuate the things that you aren't very good at and help build the business, then you might be able to get to a more normal routine. But nine to five at the start. So, Lisa, if that's what you're asking about. Now, you were talking about equipment, but. But David just nails it. Now.Let's see what Mark said. Mark said no longer use that company due to them not delivering flowers. Yeah, that's a truth, Mark.And here's the thing, and I'll take a little rant right now. Think about it, Mark. They're spending a lot of money for SEO, for advertising, for putting all that information out there.And, man, I'm going to tell everybody I know not to use them. If they had done a good job, I might have told one or two people. But when you do a bad job, it's kind of like a restaurant.I say this to clients all the time. When you go to a restaurant and the service is terrible or the food's terrible, you will tell every person you know, don't go to that restaurant.Is that not true? It's true in my life, I can tell you. That's a fact for me. But when you find a really good restaurant, yeah, you might tell one or two people.Me, I don't want to tell anybody because I want to keep it good for me. Let's move on to question number four tonight. And this question comes to us from Rachel from Denver, Colorado.So, Rachel, thanks for reaching out to the show. Rachel says, good evening, Ralph. I just opened my consulting business, but I'm lost.There's so much I could do, but I don't even know where my first step should be. I want to make the right moves, but I feel stuck. How do I figure out what to do first?Okay, so Rachel, I'm going to give you a little Tough love right now. This is the thing you're going to learn about Ralph. Ralph's a transparent guy. But I call it like I see it.If you've already started in the business, you should have already laid out your steps. So I'm going to call you out on that right away.This may be a time to take a little pause because you need to understand not just what your first steps are, not what your second steps are, but probably the first 15 steps.That doesn't mean they're, they're cast in stone like some big tablets that you took a hammer and chisel to, but you better understand what you're getting into.Another thing that I've seen so many small business people do, they leap headfirst into this, but they haven't really thought about how, what their business looks like, what is their brand promise, what is their why, what helps them stand out in the competition. So, Rachel, I'm going to start there. You are a great candidate to come and join me on a coaching call.You can do that by going to gritngrowthbusiness.com coaching.Don't mean to sell my products here, but that's why I do this, right, Rachel, you're a great candidate for that because you need to really understand what you're getting into before you get into it. You know, look before you leap. And listen, Rachel, I gotta be honest with you. You're not alone in this, though.Once you get past that initial inertia, like, oh, I can do this, it's great. That stuck feeling means you're probably caring about what you're doing, and that's a good thing. It's good to carry. Like what Mark said.Mark said, ready, fire, aim method. Yeah, that's not gonna work too well, is it, Mark? The truth is, so many people jump into it like that.So I want to give you a simple framework, Rachel, to use that I use with my coaching clients. It's a couple steps. It is step number one. Anybody that's worked with me on coaching knows I talk about this.Start by clarifying, clarifying your values. You got to start there. You got to ask yourself some really deep questions. What really matters to you and what matters to your clients?Who are you trying to serve? What is your avatar? We use that term. What is your avatar? Who is it you're trying to serve? What is your 10?I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you something. This is a tough one. Come up with a 10 word brand promise for your business. Who are you trying to serve? What is that you're trying to offer them.What is the pain you're trying to relieve them from? What is the solution you're providing them? You got to know that from the front end. Rachel, this is not the time. Like.Like Mark said, ready, fire, aim. You're going to get yourself burnt doing that. You got to clarify your values. Why are you doing this?Because if you want to stay in it long term, you better know your why. That's the first step. Second step. And listen, a lot of small business owners fail on this one, too. And I use fail. It's kind of a tough word.But again, I'm a transparent guy. Step two is check feasibility. Because here's the thing. Ask yourself what's the easiest next move that actually moves the needle?Because so many people jump into things and they're like, okay, the door, the phone's not ringing. Nobody's coming to the door. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go get a big basket of spaghetti.I call that marketing, and I'm going to throw it up against the wall to see what sticks. Well, that's not feasible. Because if you don't know who your customer is, how do you know how to market to them?If you don't know why you're in business, how do you provide a service? So sometimes it feels like, oh, you know, I'll just. I'll spend some money on advertising. I go run.I recorded a show today, I come out in a couple weeks about debt. Well, so many people go into debt when they're in small business because they figure, well, nobody's calling Ralph.Well, nobody's knocking our door down. Nobody's. Nobody wants to do business with us. So we go and do more advertising. I'll use an analogy. It's like having a shovel or a ladder.When you have a ladder, that can be effective to help you grow your business. But most people, most small business people, they're using a shovel. And what do shovels do? They bury you deeper.So understand the feasibility, understand the goals. Understand why you got into the business in the first place. Number three, test and learn fast. You're going to be in business for yourself.Clarity doesn't come from thinking. It comes from doing. That's the thing I'm going to tell you about small business people. We're pretty resilient folks.We don't sit there and ponder things. Now, I'm not saying don't have a plan. You didn't hear me say that.But clarity comes from thinking about it, the start, but then doing it, testing it, doing that pilot project, but then learning to lean and change. And if you've learned something new that you can talk about, I'd love to hear you share it. And here's one quick daily habit to end every day.Here's one of the things I'm going to recommend to you. Put this in my notes today. And I thought this would be great. Simple thing that you can do. End every day writing your top three for tomorrow things.It's really that simple. Tomorrow I'm going to do this, this and this. Do that at the end, every debrief yourself.Because if you spend your whole day putting out fires, when you get to the end of the day, you're going to feel like, man, what did I accomplish? I have days like that all the time. What did I accomplish today?So as you end your day, start to think like, okay, this morning's meeting was this, and then I did this, and then I did this and start playing, okay, tomorrow, because listen, you're going to have tough days in business. You're going to have days when you're like, man, Ralph, I hate my business. I don't want to do this anymore. Know your why, number one.But have your top three. And listen, this isn't just for business people. This is for everybody. Write your top three things that you want to accomplish tomorrow.Make them simple, make them powerful, and make them repeatable. Because as I always say on my show, what gets measured gets done.Let me ask you this in the chat, if you've ever felt stuck making your first biggest, biggest decision type, me too. If you're a small business owner in the chat right now, just say, look, me too, Ralph. It's tough making decisions.I deal with this every day talking to small business clients. They'll say to me, ralph, listen, I'm working with another coaching client right now. He needs to buy some equipment.He's just getting started in his business and he's like, ralph, should I buy it or shouldn't I buy it? Those are tough questions. We all have to deal with those questions. Mark, thank you. Me too, Mark. I still deal with those things today.I decide, you know, because, listen, as small business people, most of us are entrepreneurs, we got this, this thing in cap that doesn't stop. I think it drives my wife crazy sometimes. I've always got a new. A new idea, right? Those are decisions. We got to think through those things.But think about how can you make those things happen? Well, let's move on to our fifth and final question for tonight, and this one comes to us from Chi Town from Chicago.Anna from Chicago, Illinois says this. Hi, Ralph. I'm pouring myself into growing my business. But I keep wondering, am I moving in the right direction?I don't want to grow just for the sake of growth. I want it to matter. How can I gain clarity before taking the next step? Anna, great and wise question.So many people that I've dealt with don't understand that growth without direction is just busyness. That's busyness.B U S Y N E S S Anybody raise your hand if you've ever been stuck as a small business owner just being in business because it's real easy to do that. And when you're growing for the sake of growing with no direction, that's busyness.I've dealt with so many small business clients that have said, Ralph, I want to grow my business. I want to make so much money, I want to bring so much revenue in. But the truth is, revenue isn't always the answer.What is the direction you're going? Because listen, and it's funny, Dave and I were having this very conversation yesterday. You can grow your revenue.You can say, well look, next year I want to grow my revenue by 50%. That's great. But is your bottom line growing? Is your business brand growing?Are people leaning into your business saying, ralph, this is a great business? That's the question. Is it with direction? So Anna, that's what I'm going to ask you. You're pouring all yourself into it, which is fantastic.You're doing the hard work, but what's your direction? I go back to the same thing I said earlier. Where is your why? What is your plan? What is your vision? What do you see as your one year goal?What do you see as your three year goal, your five year goal? Because listen, if you don't have them. And so business people don't have goals just like, well, you know what, Ralph, I got food to put on the table.I got payroll to meet on Friday. That's my goal. Well, guess what, you're going to be out of business soon. A lot of people don't want to tell you that. But the truth is this.If you don't plan, my oldest son Ryan says this all the time. Dad, if you don't plan, guess what you're planning. You're planning to fail. And he is 100% right there.So here's a clarity habit that I recommend once a month. You may be able to do this once a week. Set aside One quiet hour. Listen, as a small business person, find an hour. You got to invest in yourself.Reflect on three things once a month. Just sit down, take yourself away. Have you got to get in a car? Go somewhere, Go sit by a lake or whatever. It works for you.Whatever recharges your batteries. But set aside one quiet hour. Get a pad and paper. I like pen and paper.Phones are fine, but I think when you write something, you pour more of yourself into it. But reflect on three things. Ask yourself this. Number one, what worked? Think about the last month. What worked in your business? What was dynamic?What did your customers say? Hey, Ralph, this is really working. Or. Or what service was really working? Look at your numbers and say, man, this is really working. So start there.Second thing, and this is equally as important. Ask yourself, what drained you? Because listen, as a small business owner, raise your hand if you ever feel drained.I mean, I feel like that all the time. Especially during tax season. Tax season is draining for me. But lean into that. Ask yourself, what drained you?And you might be saying, okay, Ralph, why am I writing these things down? Because you can learn from them.If you learn what drains you, that's the things that maybe you look to outsource, and that's maybe the things that you can find a better way of doing. So they say, build a better mousetrap. But understand what drained you.And mostly important is the biggest thing that I'm going to encourage you to do. Ask yourself, what moved your mission forward? Did you write that mission statement when you started? Do you have that brand promise?Do you have that vision of what you want your business to look like once a month? Just lean into that and say, you know what? What moved my mission forward? What are the things that worked?What are the things that made a mission, made me be able to move forward? And then once you've done that, align your next step with purpose, because it's so easy to stay stuck in that pressure.My grandmother used to love to cook with a pressure cooker. And pressure cookers work by sealing in that energy. And I remember as a kid, she used to do string beans. That was her thing in a pressure cooker.And I remember that pot would get super hot and I'd hear this thing on the top going. And I remember it was so cool.When she would be done with this thing, she'd take it off the heat and then she'd pull that top of the all that pressure would go out.But you got to align your business, because, listen, in a small business, you're going to Feel pressure around you all the time, but is it getting you to your purpose? Because here's the thing. Clarity isn't a lightning bolt. A lot of people think, well, I'm going to have this. It's kind of like a Buddhist, right?I'm going to have this time where all of a sudden everything's going to be clear to me. I don't know about you, but I've never felt that way.It's not some lightning bolt that strikes me down, says, here's the answer, Ralph, but clarity is a rhythm. And if you can build that rhythm over time, you are going to get somewhere with your business. So now I want your turn.I want you to ask yourself this question. What's one thing that you want crystal clear about your business this month? Put it in the chat if you have it.What's one thing that you want to have crystal clear in your business this month? What would really make your business successful? What would help relieve that pressure?What would help you get to that dynamic feeling of your business is doing what you want to do. And I hope it's leaning into your why. But ask yourself, what's that one thing you want crystal clear about your business this month?Type it in the chat or feel free to send me an email, go to our website and tell me what that looks like for you. All right, well, let's recap what we've learned tonight. If you've got any questions, feel free to answer those in the chat.I got a few more minutes tonight, let's recap what we learned tonight. We talked about Maria. Maria showed us that confidence is built through uncertainty.Listen, one, certainty in life, if you're a small business person, you're going to be in uncertainty.But when you learn to get through that, those day in and those day out decisions, that persistence, that consistency, that's what really builds confidence. So, Maria, I hope you feel that. And then Ethan reminded us that hustle without rest leads to burnout.Dave gave us some great ideas about there, and Mark too, about keeping those boundaries in place. Hustle without rest leads to burnout. You want to burn out of your business, don't give yourself any rest. Don't invest in your family.That's a good way to burn yourself out. Then we talked to Lisa and Lisa reminded us that courage means trying again, but trying again smarter.So, Lisa, I hope you lean into what we talked about tonight. And Rachel taught us that clarity comes from taking action. And finally, Anna reminded us this, that growth must align with our purpose.So you're ready for a challenge this week. I want you to do this. I want you to pick one of these lessons. Just one of those. One of that. You can say Ralph oh, that would work in my business.Just pick one of those lessons and apply it and tell me how it went next Tuesday. Invite your friends, come back next Tuesday and tell me how it went this week. I would love to hear from you.And if tonight helped you in your quest to grow your business, I want to encourage it. Share this replay with a friend. We're going to post it on our website.You can get to all of our shows by going to grit and growthbusiness.com it'll be released on YouTube, it'll be released on Rumble, it'll be released on audio. And don't forget I really want to hear your questions.If you've got a question for this show, you can submit your question@gritngrowthbusiness.com ask or again, you want to be in the hot seat? Absolutely free. Free business advice. Listen, there are nobody else that I know offers this. You can be having a free hot seat with me.I'll talk about your business. I'll help you grow your business.If you want to do that, go to gritandgrowthbusiness.com guest and let's keep building your business the hard way because that's how it grows strong. I want to thank you for joining me tonight. I want to thank everybody who joined me in the chat. I really appreciated it.God bless you and you all have a great night tonight.

Speaker B00:42:53

Thanks for joining us today on Grit and Growth Business, the show where real business owners find the clarity, courage and confidence to build something that lasts. If this episode spoke to you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss what's next.Remember, success isn't easy and there are no shortcuts. But with grit, growth is possible. And when in doubt, just Ask Ralph. This show is a production of Ask Ralph Media supported by Saggio Accounting Plus.The content in this episode is based on information available as of the date of its release. Saggio Accounting plus and Ask Ralph Media, Inc. Are under no obligation to update it should circumstances change.Please understand this episode is not intended to be financial, tax or legal advice. Your unique situation deserves tailored guidance. So before making any decisions, consult with your trusted tax professional or attorney.