One important practice that many of the masters of success are highly proficient with is being clearly focused on doing the right thing at the right time. This same skill really applies as it relates to profit.

You must make a choice of which mode you’re in regarding your business growth.

If you are in growth mode, you are investing money into the business and working on expanding your capacity and earning potential. As a result of this expansion you’re likely going to have less profit coming from the business.

If you are in profit mode, you will be focusing less on investing into the business and more on tightening up the people and processes therefore reducing expenses, improving performance, and creating an increase in profits.

Click here to read more.(or scroll down)

COACH'S CHALLENGE

What mode are you in? Growth or profit? Be bold. Declare it. Then share the message appropriately with your team.

Click here to read more.(or scroll down)

Another Perspective:

The Art of the Pivot

Hi - It's Jill here!

Are you enjoying our blog posts? Do you have any feedback for us? We'd always love to hear from you.

June 4th was Hug Your Cat Day! (AKA every day in my house.) If anyone e-mails me with blog or newsletter feedback, I will share awesome photos of my perfect cat next month. : )

Animals always need our help, so I am again focusing my Give Back Corner on them. You can give to your local shelter, or look up animal havens or rescues in your area to help.

Or check out Red Rover which is an organization that provides financial assistance, resources and support for our pets. They come to the rescue when there are natural disasters, domestic violence, hoarding situations, or lack of funds for proper care.

With an increase in devastating natural disasters, I ask you to donate.

HAPPY JUNE!

As always, please feel free to reach out to me at any time with questions or needs.
jill@evocexcellence.com
310 902 4163

Troy Henson President of EVŌC

has been helping small business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals create game changing breakthroughs for over 17 years.

EVŌC | www.evocexcellence.com | (602) 300-9301

Scottsdale - Arizona

"Masters of Success Initiate Change" - Troy Henson

ARTICLE

You must make a choice of which mode you’re in regarding your business growth.

So, is your business expanding or narrowing?

Growth Mode

The objective of growth mode is to expand your capacity. For example, adding staff, upgrading your office space, optimizing processes and procedures, opening up a new market, or launching a new product.

You might never feel ready to expand, until you do it.

The thinking is often to stay small and manageable to offer better service and be profitable. However, if you don’t expand, you will inevitably shrink by default and eventually cease to exist.

Another thing to consider is if you want to expand vertically (narrow) or horizontally (wide). You can keep your same product offerings and grow vertically if the market allows for it or you are highly specialized. If you can increase your offerings and grow horizontally however, you might be more protected from downturns in the economy or market conditions.

Profit Mode

Once you go through a period of growth and financial outlay, the time will come to tighten back up to see more profit.

In a small business, you may need to stay lean for maximum value (profit) in order to stay afloat. In this scenario, you should take a close look at your operations to cut waste and look for new, better ways to do something. During this time, understand your customers/clients too. When you are ready to change your tack, you don’t want to expand into something that won’t fly with them.

A related thought is “Shrink to Grow” which would involve cutting the fat: bad employees, selling off assets to buy better ones, letting go of old, non-productive partnerships for more effective ones.

Whether you are in growth mode or profit mode, everyone must be clear on your goals and objectives. You need your team on board, informed and set up with a definitive structure to follow.

How do you know when it’s time to expand or narrow focus? Proper research and planning is required for either. Read our Coach Approach and Coach’s Challenge and the articles we picked for you this month to see more clearly which path you should be on.

COACH APPROACH

Should I focus on investing to grow or tightening to profit?

The trick is to not get caught in an either/or scenario. The question really isn’t about should I do one or the other. It is about when. Both need to be done.

So we need to look at the short and the long term strategy. Start first with the long term strategy. What is your long term development plan? Where do you want to end up in 3-5 years? This is crucial because the moves you make today need to be aimed at where you want and need to be 3 to 5 years from now. Next look at the short term and immediate need. Do you have the cash on hand to invest in the necessary growth moves you want to make? If not…then you’re going to need to focus in on profit mode for a while until you can build up the cash to invest in your growth mode. When you have the cash reserved then you can execute on the growth moves you laid out in your plans.

This all sounds fairly simple if you think it through just a little bit…but, don’t be fooled. I talk to waaay too many people who are trying to operate in growth mode without the proper resources and finances in place and should be focusing on profit generation. And I also talk to waaay too many people who are stressed out and complaining about lack of profit while they are smack dab in the middle of growth mode. Not clearly identifying, accepting, and acting according to the mode you are in can cause an undue amount of stress and pressure on everyone.

Here's an example of how a lack of clarity around which mode you’re operating in can impact not only your stress and decision making but also the performance of your team. I was working with a business that was in the perfect storm of growth mode. A lot was being invested…hiring technicians, managers, new equipment, office changes, and taking on bigger and more intensive projects. As a result of all of the investments that were being made the leaders were feeling the financial pinch big time. Sure they were making money, but they were spending it just as fast as it was coming in. By the way, this is completely normal. It is exactly how growth mode tends to go.

However, in their mind, that’s not how it is supposed to go. To them, if we increase revenue by 3x we should have more money in the bank not less. Yet, that was not the experience they were having. Because of that, they went into undue crisis mode. “We’re bleeding money” became their daily battle cry. They began putting extreme pressure on every team member to tighten up expenses, protect the money, increase output but decrease expenses. (**This sound familiar to any of you?**) This is more of the strategy we would have when focusing on profit mode.

At the same time, they were screaming at the team “we’re bleeding money, you have to protect our finances, cut budgets, work harder for less” they would also go out and buy a new piece of equipment. In fact the owner showed up one day with a brand new truck. It actually made sense as a part of the growth mode they were in. They hired a new field manager. He needed a truck. No sense buying him a brand new vehicle to beat up. The owner gave him his used work truck and the company bought a new one for the owner to drive. Actually a fairly wise move…except the staff didn’t see it that way. All they saw was an owner who demanded they pinch pennies so he could go buy a new truck. This mixed message led to a dramatic drop in morale.

There was a double message going on. To put it simply, they were behaving out of the necessity of growth mode, “We need to invest in people and equipment” And at the same they were leading the team from profit mode, “We need to save, cut, tighten, reduce.” We have to be clear about the mode we are operating in and convey the appropriate messages...to ourselves and others on the team. We can’t do both at the same time. It confuses everyone.

What was happening was a failure to embrace the mode they were in and strategically act accordingly. Growth mode requires investment. Profit mode requires tightening up and saving. Make sure you know which mode you are in and set expectations accordingly. As simple of a concept as it seems It can be a little tricky at times. So use your coach to help you to correctly identify which mode you’re in and how to effectively set and communicate the expectations to your team so you don’t lose commitment and morale.

COACH'S CHALLENGE

What mode are you in? Growth or profit? Be bold. Declare it. Then share the message appropriately with your team.
When will this mode shift? There has to be an end point. You may not know exactly but pick a target point. Shoot for that target. Then when the date comes us that as your evaluation point. Review progress, results, set the next focus, and choose the mode you'll move forward with.

Avoid the two pitfalls of not declaring the mode you're operating from and of not setting a target end date. This will help you make better decisions, stay focused, and actually manage your profits appropriately. It should also help you reduce a great deal of stress as you'll be doing more of the right things at the right time.

~Coach Troy