In this book we challenge you a lot and do our best to trigger your curiosity and make you think what if I tried…? And then we encourage you to follow on with action. No doubt you will have thought about some of these things before, maybe in isolation. Our aim here is to nudge you into reviewing each of these areas with a fresh pair of eyes, to first free up some resources and free up some positive energy, before embarking on growth projects that will no doubt consume energy. Your commitment to a fresh perspective followed by real immediate action is critical.
So here are two questions:
Q1: Can you identify what your greatest asset is?
Q2: What is the biggest challenge your business is experiencing (whether associated with the asset or an unrelated aspect)?
Could you answer both questions in a couple of sentences?
By asset we mean things that are a source of advantage for your business—any of your premises, your staff, your patent, your unique recipe, your customers, your reputation, your unique way of doing things, your exclusive way of attracting and retaining the best talent, your pivotal location, your special relationships with other businesses in the value chain, and so on. Only you know what’s special or unique in your business that is a source of advantage. Could it be something that your competitors don’t have? Or may not have to the same extent or do as well as you do? Maybe it’s you?
The point is, once you truthfully identify your one most valuable greatest asset, we can then work to make the most of this asset, protecting it and leveraging it further to act as a launch pad to add further value to your business. Meanwhile what are you doing to make the most of this asset? What are you doing to grow or build this asset? What are you doing to protect this asset? What are you doing to focus your own energy on this asset? Or are everyday distractions that seem to crop up demanding your time and energy instead?
It could of course be that the asset you immediately focus in on is the one that got you where you are today, but as time has moved on, its relevance has slipped. Perhaps it is time for a new #1?
As for the biggest challenge your business is facing, let’s not guess right now, but either you know it, or if not as you work through this book, we will find your biggest challenge together. If you do have a challenge that comes to mind…try to describe both aspects of it: the change you desire and what might hold you back from achieving that change. For example, you could know improving the service you offer is do-able, but you can’t afford to increase the level of service at the prices you offer. Something has to give!
If you can write those two sentences, relating to greatest assets and greatest challenge, please do so immediately. Then stop reading this book and go and deal with the identified problem right now.
Alternatively, you may prefer to make a note of them in the Action This Today notepad at the back of this book…and return to the rest of this book. If you know how to tackle these today, but you don’t actually action these today, and put it off for another day/week/month, it is only ever going to fool one person—you. And you know the expression: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
If you are still with us, then you are in the majority who either don’t know what is their greatest asset or their biggest challenge, or know them, but don’t know how to make the most of the former or how to overcome the latter. And even when you think you have identified them, it will almost certainly require a fresh pair of eyes to begin to understand how to get best utilization of an asset or how to solve the challenge. This curiosity-inducing book is designed to help you tackle these and other questions to help you bust through the glass ceiling. For example, maybe you are famous for prompt local delivery. That makes your trucks and drivers the asset, but have you contemplated letting them deliver for other noncompeting businesses in your neighborhood? Then they’re earning when otherwise idle.
We think you get the idea.