Your Biggest Asset & Biggest Liability In Business

I will never forget the day my entire team walked and took 85% of my clients with them. It was 3 days before Thanksgiving in 2016.

I had built a successful million dollar per year business- and I almost lost everything I had built in a matter of moments.

There was nothing I could do to change it, but I knew it was my fault.

Somewhere in my leadership I had dropped the ball, eroded trust, and had a company full of employees and clients who hated me more than I knew anyone could be hated.

It was brutal, but I lessons I learned that day and the months and years following I will carry with me my entire life.

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Your biggest asset and biggest liability in business is the people who work for you.

A great hire will help propel your company to the heights you have imagined and beyond.

A bad hire can cost you time, energy, attention and respect of other employees.

Your largest company expense will always be your payroll and subsequent payroll taxes- it’s the first place businesses owners cut from when it’s time to make make budget cuts- for better or worse it is what it is.

You as the business owner and leader have the opportunity to turn a good hire into a great hire with your leadership, or a good hire into a bad hire.

That day I realized a few things about being the boss:

1. You have more power than you will ever know or want to acknowledge.

   If you have never had a boss, or it has been a long time since you have worked for someone else- it’s easy to diminish the impact your words and actions have on the people who work for you.

   You see the people who come to work for you, are doing so of their own volition- some people only work for a paycheck sure- but most people pick jobs that they believe they are uniquely gifted for.

   People want to know that the work they do matters, that they matter, and that they are seen.

2. You can built people up and help them grow into the people they were always born to be, or you can tear them down into people who hate you, your company and sometimes the damage goes even deeper into the long term psychology and beliefs they have about themselves.

   Simply put you are the artist- they are the clay. Mold people accordingly.

   You can either speak life or speak death to the people who you spent the most time with- your employees.

3. Everything is and will always be your fault!

   The person who works for you may make a mistake- it’s your fault for not training them or communicating expectations.

   They may have done irreparable damage- it’s your fault.

   When you become the boss, you have to give up the notion that you must be liked and loved, because as the boss of a growing business- EVERYTHING FALLS ON YOUR SHOULDERS.

   You are the bad guy, even when you are the good guy.

After the fog lifted and I got through those first several months of hanging on for dear life for what was left of my business, I forced myself to become a better leader and a better business builder.

I have created an entire system to help entrepreneurs and small business owners to avoid the pitfalls of leadership that many, including myself succumb to, that can cost your your entire business.

Nobody is a natural born leader- but your inability to grow as a leader will keep you stuck in the launch stage forever- you doing most of the doing that needs done in your business.

Your inability to grow your company beyond your wildest dreams is a direct relation to your ability to lead, train and grow your team, people, and profits.

If you want to grow and grow fast you can’t do it alone- business was never meant to be done alone.

If I made a free training of how to grow a better, stronger, and more profitable business by building the people you already working for you- would that be of value to you? Let me know in the comments.

Why Lie?

I once had a mentor who would say, “The truth is best left untampered.”

Simple, but true.

There have been many times over my time in the business world, where it was easier to lie or dress up the truth, because I didn’t even want to face the truth.

The desire to lie and dress up the truth is prevelant in the world of business and making money. Probably the world as a whole if we are being honest.

Sometimes the truth is not only the hardest pill to swallow, but the hardest thing to serve up.

As a leader one of the hardest things to do, and learn how to do is to just be honest. Say it the way it is, even and especially when the way it is, is not how you want it, or idealistically see it should be.

It’s easy to run from our problems, our fears, and insecurities, but when you do it for too long, you become a dishonest ass who nobody trusts, and as a leader- YOU CAN’T AFFORD FOR PEOPLE NOT TO TRUST YOU.

Hiding, lying, cheating and stealing are common in the world of business- spend any amount of time in competition with anyone on the business battlefield and you will see the darkness of others reveal itself.

It’s interesting to watch, and a ride to experience.

When you are a leader- you will find others dishonestly shocking- but often they are meeting you on the same playing field you met them on. You can’t expect to blow smoke up peoples hind parts and not expect people to return the favor.

When faced with the challenges and realities of business you have a choice to be direct and to the point or to hide, coverup, deceive, spin or lie. It’s easier to lie to yourself and everyone else than it is to be honest.

Honesty, will build bridges, trust and loyalty with your employees, customers and most importantly yourself.

If you struggle to trust others in your world, I think it’s crucial to also look at yourself and what you don’t trust about yourself. Where you were shady, and believe others will be shady as well. It’s an eye opening practice to be sure.

Recently, I was confronted with the nature of lying with a young man, when he told me about a lie he had told his boss, when I asked him why he chose not to tell the truth he said simply, “My story sounded better than the truth.”

Stories are stories, lies are lies, and spin is spin.

When you lead with the truth, no matter how hard it is- you will breed loyalty and trust of those who work for you, and hopefully showing that honesty is a core foundation of how you do life and business, you will also foster an environment of truth tellers, and people who aren’t afraid to face and talk about the hard stuff in the work place.

When you the leader can develop trust with honesty, you will have an unstoppable business at your fingertips.

If you are looking to break free of your prison business and start getting some breathing room and momentum, it’s time for us to talk. Click here to book a call, to discover if I can help you.