The Art of Progression — Day 8 of 365 Leadership Blogging

We started our business with a blank piece of paper and way too many ideas. Sitting together with our advisor working through the detail was a struggle because our differing ideas of strategy given, our exposure to different experiences. We learnt how to appreciate and find a balance in our views, which was crucial as we needed to align our priorities with our plan.

Admittedly our plans veered off course, several times in fact, and the realities of growing a business and raising a young family hit us like a snowball to the face. I don’t remember this being covered in my business degree lectures!

Basically, life happens, lessons are learnt and we make progress. Even if it’s not a statistical lesson we’ve learnt to flow and adjust.

The art of progression doesn’t have to about be about making a seven figure income. It’s where you are now, where you want to get to; and how you going to get there. Yes, we trade our skills for a financial return but the progress we make is more important than what’s in our bank balance. Whether it’s securing investments, growing a team or scaling your business model, we prefer to be genuinely interested in your well-being first.

One of the most common trends we identified when working with business owners is they make plans. Lots of plans to grow and create new paths to success however, they tend to overlook commercial awareness. This key ingredient helps drive sensible decisions that won’t come back to bite you on the butt later on. Clients who we work with that are stepping out of the corporate mould for the first time, habitually aim to replicate an environment they are familiar with already.

So what exactly does that mean?

If you are the person responsible for progression in your team or business, the chances are you know your market well but don’t know all the facts to make a sensible business decision. So go ahead and do your research, people will thank you for it later.

Be logical

Often we are starting to write a plan or improving what we have and we are way too close to the subject. Finding an independent view to be accountable too can be a huge benefit. The reasoning helps to progress and stay accountable.

Examine all perspectives

You are skilled in the technical ability to perform. We are skilled to engineer your commercial objectives from a leadership and investment perspective. Combined together, we often have the ability to shape a clients business model to build progression as well as profit.

Interpret and understand a business plan

So you have your business plan and are ready to go pitch to an investor. Its exciting but this is only the beginning to understanding what investors really want to know. An investor wants to know top-level numbers, your sales angle, systems and tools that create efficiencies. Think Dragons Den or Shark Tank.

Develop a personal action plan

To us, progression looks like a tracker that keeps progress of mapping your business journey. Journals, action plans, resources and tapping into the mindset is where we help ourselves and others in achieving their goals in life

We are hosting a 5 day business challenge on Facebook Live where we go through some of these aspects in detail. We want you to be part of a winning team. As it’s no fun building business alone. Look out for the details.