Controlling the controllable and reducing the effects of the uncontrollable are prudent decisions for successful business owners. But how can you know which is which, and where can you go when confronted with a situation you’ve never experienced before in your business? Here are a few ways to keep yourself updated and educated on the outside forces that may affect your business.
1. Be Curious
Leveraging curiosity can help you stay in touch with current events and perhaps find new opportunities to strengthen your business. It’s never been easier to be curious. You can go online right now, type just about anything into a search engine, and be served a flood of information about the thing you’ve just searched.
However, with so many different ways to gain information and insights, it can be exhausting to be curious. How do you know whether you’re talking to an expert or a charlatan? A professional or a someone selling snake oil?
Curiosity is a good starting point for effecting change. When you couple this with building relationships with trusted advisors, it could open up new avenues for success while helping you prepare for and take advantage of outside forces that affect your business.
2. Find Trusted Advisors
As your business grows, it’s likely to become more complex. These complexities could force you to confront things that you simply have no expertise in. Things like minimizing taxes, knowing what attracts top talent, and how forces outside of your control could affect your business may seem like overwhelming tasks to take on alone. That’s because, in most cases, they are.
The good news is that a high-quality Advisor Team could help you break big problems down into smaller, easier-to-manage solutions.
But how can you build a trusted Advisor Team? If you already work with advisors you trust, you can tap into their network to find experts that can complement their specific skills. For instance, a trusted tax advisor may have relationships with financial planners who can help you consolidate your personal and business strategies more efficiently.
If you don’t have trusted advisors, one way to begin the process is by consulting with an Exit Planning Advisor. Exit Planning Advisors typically have networks of advisors from various professions that they work with and draw on to solve the problems business owners have related to planning for a successful future—serving as a scout for advisor talent and the quarterback of the Advisor Team.
It may be tempting to tell yourself, “I built this business by myself, I can do this by myself.” Though this ambition is admirable, shouldering the burden of topics that you may not be an expert in can quickly grind you down, burn you out, and create unforced errors in your business.
There is absolutely no shame in asking for help. In fact, asking for help may allow you to uncover strategies to strengthen your business that you had never considered.
3. Ask Questions
The best way to get the answers you seek is by asking questions. And truly, when it comes to planning for a successful future both inside and outside of your business, there are no bad questions.
When talking to potential advisors, prospects, customers, employees, or next-level managers, don’t be afraid to ask the questions that you need answered to strengthen your business. In some cases, the best way to get a clear answer is to provide the wrong answer and let someone correct you.
Asking questions could help you find the answers you’re looking for and open up lines of thinking that may not have existed before you asked the question.
For example, you may work with an advisor and tell them that you want to sell your business for $5 million because that’s what you believe is enough money to live on for the rest of your life. While $5 million may seem like a lot, your advisor may ask you, “Why do you think that’s the right number?”
The above example is common when business owners begin planning for their eventual business exits. Many business owners believe that they need less money than they really do to thrive after they leave their businesses. By presenting assumptions as questions, you may find unexpected answers that help you pursue a path to success on your terms.
Conclusion
Curiosity, a trusted network of advisors, and the fearlessness to ask questions can help you stay up to date with the current market, understand the strategies required to pursue your goals, and reduce the likelihood of assumptions harming your long-term planning.
We strive to help business owners identify and prioritize their objectives with respect to their businesses, their employees, and their families. If you have questions on this topic, we can help with more information or a referral to another experienced professional.