Why you need to design your exit strategy
An entrepreneur usually starts his business with the desire to be independent. People who worked in the corporate environment tend to leave at a certain point in their career. They take with them the corporate style of business.
After a time they notice that this knowledge is not sufficient to scale their business to the next level. They become stuck and build up a frustration that can even lead to a negative mindset. That is where coaching helps entrepreneurs get unstuck and remove the negative energy that makes them eventually sick.
The ideal way to redesign a business is to focus on the benefits for clients and at the same time on the exit strategy for the entrepreneur. The exit is not necessarily a sale of the business but the ability to delegate the management of the business to a manager and then focus on developing the next business idea.
If you have no exit strategy in mind when you are designing a job for yourself. Then you will not be able to become a serial entrepreneur. High-ranking coaches keep highlighting the importance of this concept, as the CEO entrepreneur needs time to be transformational. That is only possible if you dedicate a given time of every weekday to focus on mind feeding and transformational thinking.
How does negativity get into an entrepreneurs mind?
When people start a business they keep crossing different bands of client sections. Unfortunately, some of these bands as filled with unhappy customers and suppliers. These customers complain about competitors, other people’s work, and their life. They are full of excuses. What is worse is that an entrepreneur is often the front face of the business. This leader has to pick up leads and then gets negativity poured over him or her. If this happens day after day for several months or years, the person has to battle every day with regaining a positive thinking. This starts eating up all the entrepreneur’s joy and drive.
When an entrepreneur decides to stop letting negative people pour such negative thinking then it is time to redefine the client audience that the entrepreneur wants to attract. The way a business is promoting its services has a considerable impact on the type of buyers it attracts.
Turning a hater into a brand advocate
The reality of a business is that however good it is, there will always be unhappy clients, unhappy competitors or even haters attacking the entrepreneurs business. Unhappy clients tend to become haters if a company is unable to fully satisfy their unreasonable demands. Turning a hater into a brand advocate is very difficult or even impossible. That is why it is important to wow the correct audience and actively decide to whom one wants to sell once services or products. A business has a limit amount of supply and staff energy. Its resources should be applied for the better of the business and it’s core mission that is based on the vision of the entrepreneur.
Nevertheless, even if a business is stuck, it does not necessarily mean that the ship cannot be rescued. A leader is like a captain. He/she will leave the ship as the last one. If the ship is no full of water there is no point in continuing and one has to devote one’s energy to building a new boat.
Profitable and sustainable
Hence, turning around a business is definitely possible. This has been done multiple times. It takes effort, energy, and commitment. This is not a 9 to 5 job. It is the task to do whatever it takes to make this business work in a profitable and sustainable manner.
Where it is possible one has to automate parts of the business. This does not necessarily result in reducing jobs but increasing the quality of service and empowering employees to deliver a better experience to clients. This at the same time makes staff happier and reduces existing frustration levels in the workforce. Clients will also experience a faster delivery.
That reduces costs and increases revenue in the long term. Therefore, it helps scale the business so that it goes beyond the critical level that determines the long-term sustainability of the enterprise.
Hence, coaching is the key to success. Every great coach needs a coach. So why shouldn’t every entrepreneur have a great coach to bounce ideas and challenges? This is the best way to avoid stupid mistakes and helps learn from the experience of the coach.
Author
Christian Bartsch
Serial entrepreneur
Business automation and online marketing coach