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It's the Hallowe'en Spooktacular!
Not really--but it's a fitting time to do a Business PreMortem. With the end of the year coming, I'm sure you're booking calls with your mentor to set up your 2019 strategic plan. In the TwoBrain family, we start this process in November. If you're not in the TwoBrain family yet, you can use this exercise to kickstart the process (a little fun before the spreadsheets!)
In this episode, I walk through a simple exercise to help you identify and prioritize your opportunities and threats. We're going to pretend to look back on your "dead" business, because hindsight might be 20/20...but insight allows us to see into the future.
Question 1: What WAS your business?
If you've ever had to describe a loved one in three column inches or less, you know what it's like to distill someone down to their essence. How would you want your business to be remembered? What WAS it, really, at its core--without branding or labels? What did it look like with its clothes off? What will it be remembered FOR?
Question 2: What killed it?
Let's be really, really clear about your biggest problem. If you don't KNOW what's stunting your growth or slowly bleeding you dry, we can help. There are no leeches or bloodletting: just a careful, compassionate examination of your health. I shared a few myths that I still hear every single week.
This exercise should reveal your Achilles heel, and therefore your greatest priority for action.
Was it exhaustion? Complacency? Cash Flow? Coaches becoming competitors?
Maybe take a strong dose of medicine NOW to prevent the fatality later.
Question 3: What survived?
You're training to be an entrepreneur. If your business goes bankrupt, you'll have learned something really valuable...and you'll continue to be an entrepreneur! No one can fire you from this job. You'll keep many hard lessons learned, many transferable experiences, and maybe even some money.
I hang around with some very successful people. We're a tight group. And many of us have the "clean slate" fantasy: the wish to start from scratch with what we know now.
What survived that shouldn't? Did the plague continue to haunt your family after the body was gone? Maybe take steps to quarantine poisons now, too.
If you're in the TwoBrain family, there's a worksheet coming to help you. Fill it out and send it to your mentor ahead of your November call. Because on October 31, death ends, and gestation for 2019 begins!
Episode 139 – The 30-Day Conversation Challenge, with Rob Connors
At Two Brain we teach three different types of marketing. We typically start with affinity marketing, or the people closest to your best clients and to you. Then we move on to organic digital which is performing the free function on social media platforms. Finally, we move on to paid digital which is paying for ads on various platforms. All of these are important, and we teach them in the Incubator. But above all, selling is what is required to grow your business.
One of the most important things we teach entrepreneurs to do is to go out and talk to other business owners around them to create connections and grow your business. Who knows, you may even be saving their life by getting them into the gym!
Today we are joined by Rob Connors. Rob and his wife Emily own Signum CrossFit and are fantastic Two Brainers. Rob and his wife Emily are great fitness coaches and they are great at connecting with people. Recently he was challenged by his mentor to get outside of his comfort zone and start connecting with others in his community. Join us as he talks about his experiences and how he has made so many important connections for his business.
Timeline:
2:23 – Introduction to Rob Connors
5:46 – The idea behind community outreach and making connections
12:50 – Who is the first person Rob picked to reach out to and what was the response?
13:54 – How to approach someone new regarding their business
15:30 – What is the worst response Rob has had when reaching out to other businesses
19:31 – What happens next after connecting with a business owner
23:30 – How to get started!
26:04 – How to be comfortable with asking friends and family to become a customer
29:02 – Two Brain Stories with Scott McAlee
Last weekend in San Francisco, Two-Brain held its first Tinker Meet-up.
Entrepreneurs who have complete financial and time freedom and are seeking their next project are called "Tinkers." You can take the test to find out where you are in your entrepreneurial journey here.
One of our speakers was Will Hawthorne, an investor at Code Advisors.
Will is a partner in CodeAdvisors, an investment bank focusing on mergers and acquisitions. He's negotiated deals for some of the biggest tech companies in the world ... but he has a LOT to teach us about building a business worth selling. And that means a business worth owning longterm.
Jay Williams is the interviewer on this episode. But anyone who pays attention to the Two-Brain message knows that we don't believe in building businesses to sell. We want businesses that run themselves AND pay the owner long-term. We believe in building cash-flow assets.
Having a business that runs itself means you get the ultimate freedom: choice. You want to coach two hours every day? Perfect. Love it. Continue to serve.
Want to coach five hours every day? Wow. Plan for a time when that isn't true, because that passion won't carry you forever.
Want to coach zero hours every day? No problem - after 22 years of coaching, I'm happy and comfortable in retirement—I enjoy going to my gym, being coached, and signing checks for ten minutes every second week.
But to get to the point of choice, you need to build a valuable platform. And Will is an expert on building extremely valuable platforms.
Whether you are starting a brand new business or you are having to go back and make difficult changes, either way, you are going to have to embrace stress and lean into challenging events. Today I want to talk about my experiences working through struggles and some tips for how to handle difficult situations. First, your body doesn’t know the difference between fear and excitement. The bodies default response when it comes to surging adrenaline is to be scared. A lot of times all that is needed is to recognize that you are just excited and take control. Second, I want you to know that anticipation is often worse than the actual event. Many times your mind will go to the worst case scenario and then when a tough situation actually happens, it’s not so bad. If you can choose when to do the hard thing, choose to do it right now. The hard part is the anticipation. Third, put the event into perspective. Will you remember this event in a year? There was a time when I was extremely susceptible to online feedback and it would absolutely tear me up. In reality this was extremely ridiculous and the fact that if got under my skin is just silly. Keeping things in perspective in all aspects of your life is extremely important. It is important to ask yourself, am I going to remember this in a year? Timeline: 0:30 – Changing up the Two Brain Incubator Program 2:43 – How to handle struggles in your business 4:50 – Lean into the scary stuff and embracing stress 6:41 – The anticipation of a tough situation is often times much worse than the event itself 7:38 – Putting important life and business events into perspective 11:38 – The secret to why Two Brain has become so successful 13:09 – Two Brain Stories with Kalle Solberg
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