Don’t Deny Better Opportunities
You have to be willing to analyze potential business improvements or you are in denial. Don’t bury your head in the sand. If there is evidence of better methods of action for your business, then you need to understand and execute those new methods.
Quite frequently, entrepreneurs who may appear to be concerned about their business and personal profits are able to overlook or ignore mounds of Best Practices that are continuously being exposed by associates, industry leaders, the scholarly press, and others. Often pride and ego lead us to believe we already know it all, which gets in the way of rational, proactive decision-making.
If you are working smarter, you can work less to get the same results (or the same amount to get better results). Unless you are being stubborn, (even subconsciously) you can realize extra profits by employing Best Practices and pushing forward.
If there is too much on your plate and you can’t proactively pursue and develop new ideas, at the very least, you should still do a cursory review of fresh business concepts when they cross your desk. With any available free time that you may have, study these ideas before dismissing or accepting them. Dismissing anything outright without even giving it a glance means you could be passing up many profitable deals or ideas.
It is all right if you do not fully pursue some good ideas or plans. In fact, you are supposed to be looking at and rejecting many ideas in your active vetting process. But there is no reason you shouldn’t give yourself at least a few minutes a day to look over any relevant, promising deals to determine whether they could enhance your arsenal of focused strategic business ideas and assets.
Keep in mind that one day down the road, you may want to be in another type of business and adopt an idea or two. If you start reviewing your options early, even in a rudimentary way, you can follow and understand the concept before some possible competitors. You could even place early strategic bets if you choose. Getting involved in good ideas sooner rather than later is more profitable.
You will always be pushing forward from status quo to profitability or backwards towards financial loss. You can’t stand still because you are being measured based on moving targets (the performance results of your competitors). You have to be proactive just to stay even with the competition, and still, that won’t get you very far.
For you to excel in business, you must understand how to turn all of your theoretical Best Practices into actual day-to-day strategic advantages. You can always create better operational tactics in a more assertive manner which will eventually wear the competition down and lead you towards the top position in your industry.
Document and replicate the successful activities of those who have come before you if they have delivered good results. You could attempt to take shortcuts, but they probably will not work, and they definitely have a lower likelihood of working compared to studying, documenting, and proactively pursuing Best Practices.
The friction, obstacles, and market conflict that you confront in your evolutionary business processes are signs of progress, not problems. Those with no friction are stagnant and ready for corporate slaughter, but a disruption of the status quo can potentially enhance the market, its presence, and its margins for everyone—with you in the lead.
Somebody out there is getting paid big money. If it’s not you, then it’s best that you imitate the leaders from your chosen industry and adopt their Best Practices to mix with your own.
Those who pay attention to and further develop the Best Practices that dominate their industries and follow through with each detail will always get the best results. Leveraging these compounded results over time can readily equate to wealth for you and your family if that is your goal.
Every time you fail to assertively take advantage of all opportunities and employ all Best Practices, you are essentially throwing cash right in the garbage (or even worse, into the hands of your competitors). This money is called Opportunity Cost.
Controlling opportunities requires a careful setting of priorities. An example would be if you spent 10 hours to make $100 when you could have chosen a better business option and spent 10 hours to make $200, then the Opportunity Cost is $100. You lost $100—the cost of making the wrong decision.
The opportunity to improve in all areas of business is always at hand if you pay attention. You should be willing to build or you are choosing to stick to a less profitable path by default.
One way to help you see your business in context is to envision the outcome you are looking for and then work your way backwards to identify and prioritize all the tasks it will take to get there (basically reverse engineering your future business). Someone has probably done something similar before and you can see what actions and characteristics led them towards success.
If you follow Best Practices, the only relative disadvantage you could have to your business peers is your original education and background. Those who were better educated or somehow raised better will always have a theoretical advantage for you to overcome. You may have to make up for lost time, but eventually, you can catch up to your competitors if you stay focused for an uninterrupted stretch.
