Welcome to this week's episode of the I Hate Numbers Podcast, where we explore business success. We discuss what success means, how to achieve it, and common pitfalls to avoid. Notably, success differs for each of us; hence, defining it personally is crucial. Therefore, let's focus on crafting our unique vision of success, planning smartly, and building a resilient mindset.

Defining Business Success

Business success is subjective. Correspondingly, it is essential to clarify what success looks like for each of us. We must consider what we want to achieve within the next 1 to 3 years. Moreover, we should determine if success means balancing lifestyle, reaching revenue targets, or having a global impact. Explicitly, our idea of success should not mirror someone else's vision.

Setting SMART Objectives

Once we have our vision, setting SMART objectives is the next step. Specifically, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. For instance, if our aim is to generate £100,000 in profit, we should assess our current position, available resources, and the timeline to achieve this. Similarly, breaking down long-term goals into actionable steps helps keep us on track. Ultimately, these objectives ensure we stay focused and measure our progress meaningfully.

Cultivating the Right Mindset

Equally important is our mindset. While having a growth mindset allows us to explore new opportunities and take calculated risks, a fixed mindset can hinder our progress. Moreover, we should be ready to learn from mistakes and setbacks, which are inevitable in any business journey. Therefore, we must remain resilient, avoiding excessive self-criticism, and always move forward.

Planning and Avoiding Pitfalls

Effective planning is crucial for business success. Therefore, we need to prepare detailed plans that include end goals, required resources, and marketing strategies. Additionally, we should be aware of common pitfalls, such as inadequate market research, weak operational planning, and poor credit control. By addressing these issues, we can better navigate the challenges of running a business.

The Pros and Cons of Self-Employment

Self-employment offers flexibility, varied work, and potential for higher earnings. However, we must also consider its challenges, including transitioning from employment, aligning resources with expectations, and maintaining thorough market research. Altogether, being aware of these factors helps us prepare for the realities of working for ourselves.

Conclusion

Business success combines a clear vision, SMART objectives, a growth mindset, and robust planning. By focusing on these areas, we can navigate our path to success effectively. Finally, we invite you to listen to the I Hate Numbers Podcast for more insights on achieving business success.

Feel free to join the Numbers Know How community for additional resources and support. Tune in to our podcast for more tips and strategies!

Business success, what it is, how we achieve it, and the common pitfalls are very widely discussed topics, and those are the topics I'm going to be looking at in this week's I Hate Numbers podcast. Let's crack on.

Now in the words of Warren Buffett, you only have to do a few things right in your life, so as long as you don't do too many things wrong. Now, business success, in terms of what does it actually mean? Well, it means different things to different people. And it's really important that your idea of success is not somebody else's idea of success.

You need to define for yourself, for your business, what success looks like for you. Fast forwarding to 12 months, 2 years, 3 years’ time, what is it for you that you'd consider successful? Is it a balance of lifestyle? Is it achieving a certain revenue target? Is it achieving certain levels of profitability?

Is it having impact all over the world? What does it mean to you? But it's important you don't take on board somebody else's vision, somebody else's idea. So that's really important. Have a picture, visualise it, articulate it. Now the next thing you need to do is this idea of what's called setting smart objectives.

If you've got that picture in your mind of what your destination looks like, and I would typically advise that you look at that destination, that Northern Star, if you wish, as to what it will be in three years’ time, and then work backwards to what it looks like in two years, what it looks like in one year's time.

What does that progress going towards that end Northern Star, look like? Now it's clear you've got to set what are called SMART objectives. Now SMART has to be identified, and it's a very useful mnemonic that are measurable goals that help define your idea of success. Now, as I said earlier, this might be including generating enough profit

for a decent lifestyle and a work-life balance. Perhaps you want to achieve certain social and philanthropic goals. Your aspiration may be just to escape the day-to-day of corporate grind if you're doing a side hustle. Or you may have loftier ambitions of becoming the next Kieran Mazander Shaw, Denise Coates, or, dare I say, Richard Branson

perhaps, yeah, let's throw him in the mix as well. Now it's important to identify and differentiate between objectives, aspirations, and missions. Without SMART objectives, and I'll explain what SMART means in a second, you risk drifting into dissatisfaction and confusion. If your goal is just to make loads of money, you will struggle to assess your progress meaningful.

So you need to be specific about those targets. Now, SMART is something that's specific. Can it be measured? Can it be identified? Is it measurable? Is it achievable for you, not for somebody else? Is it realistic, and is it within that timeframe? So if your ambition, if your objective is to generate a hundred thousand pounds worth of profits, then ask yourself this question: What base are you starting of what timeframe are you wishing to achieve that

100,000-pound figure? Do you have the resources, the application, and the tenacity to go ahead and achieve it? Have you got an activity plan, and is it realistic from where you're standing? It's not to say you shouldn't have those lofty and those big targets here, but what's your start point, and what are you going to do to actually get there?

The second thing to consider is about what goes on between your ears, your mindset. The mindset and attitude plays a more crucial role than we give credit for. A fixed mindset is vital for things like credit control, having good digital accounting systems, managing your costs and resources. But you do need a growth mindset, which is essential for exploring those opportunities, expanding your risk horizon, launching new initiatives, and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

We all have a comfort zone. We must be careful not to stay completely within that. Every business, I hold my hands up to that, makes mistakes and faces setbacks. If people tell you they've never made a mistake in business, then I'd question whether they're actually running a proper business. Everybody will make a mistake, everybody will face setbacks.

It's what we learn from those errors that's important. If we do make mistakes, by all means, lick your wounds, mull over it, but don't dwell on it. You've got to dust yourself down. You've got to be resilient and move forward. Avoid too much self-criticism and keep moving in a direction forwards. What else can we add to the mix in terms of helping us achieve success?

Well, planning, one of my favorite things, it's not about a plan, but it's about an attitude that looks through the windscreen, as opposed to through the rearview mirror of your business. When you're focusing on potential mistakes and it seems negative, you've got to be aware of those common pitfalls that will help you prepare and respond effectively.

Just as I hope you won't go on holiday without planning, you shouldn't run your business without having some idea of a plan and planning ahead. That means end goal, that means activity plan, that means what you need by way of marketing resources, marketing actions, and it's not just about posting on social media.

What's the investment that you need to make? What's the information that you need to look at? What's the monitoring? All those ingredients go into a plan. And folks, just as a side comment, do check out the Numbers Knowhow website, by the way, where we've got resources and a community which helps businesses get closer to their numbers, embed planning, and execute the objective of plan it, do it, profit.

I want to mention a couple of more elements in this podcast before we wrap up and that's looking at the idea of self-employment and business success. Now many people do consider working for themselves. It's not always right for everybody but it's certainly something that's becoming more popular. And that can be a real life-changing experience.

Now the positives, the upsides, includes those flexibility of working hours, varied work, increased job satisfaction, new challenges, you get autonomy, a better work-life balance, in theory, and potentially higher earnings. But it also has its downsides, and that's something you've got to really consider when you actually expand your business, start a business, do a new pivot,

is about the idea about what the negative sides are as well. Some of the things to watch out that will derail your idea of success, by the way, is a mismatch between the resources and the expectations. Your mindset transition from maybe working for somebody else, leaving college, and transitioning to the world of working for yourself.

It takes time. Poor or inadequate market research. Weak operational, financial and strategic planning. Poor credit control. So doing the work for people but not getting paid on time. All these things are fixable by the way. Being product-led rather than customer-focused. Having too much risk embedded in the costs and the financing.

Lack of formalities like basic contracts. Now the list is by no means exhaustive or is it a judgment on anyone who's experienced this issue? As I said earlier in the podcast, I myself have made those mistakes and probably will continue to make mistakes, albeit that the intensity of those mistakes and the number is much less.

Well, as one would expect after being in business for quite a number of years and helping thousands of businesses do more than survive, but thrive and prosper. What's the conclusion? Well, business success relies on a mix of mindset, hard work, luck, and solid business disciplines. It's 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, folks. What does business success look like for you? I'd like you to check out please, the Numbers Knowhow business Community. Plan it, do it, profit is our underpinning philosophy, join the like-minded business people, small businesses, artists, coaches, access resources and ways to turn and develop your business. We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it

if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.