Are You Ready to Try To Take Over the World?

          Before you hire a business coach, you've got to be able to answer one question: 
Are you ready to make a change?
          If you want to leave a legacy, you have to be prepared to answer the tough questions.  Maybe you already own a business, maybe you are just getting one started, or maybe you have an idea for a business cradled in your thoughts.  The first thing I ask when I look at a business plan, or hear an elevator speech, or talk to an owner about their business is:  

"What are you going to do that's different from what you are doing right now?"

          You have a choice, my friend.   You can continue to run your business the same way, with the same tools, and the same people.  Do not make the mistake of expecting different results.  This can be a very comfortable business, with adequate returns and satisfaction with a job well done at the end of each day.  You may even excel at Steady Eddy, and win all sorts of Steady Eddy awards (Best Place to Work, e.g.).    

          Or, you can brace yourself for opportunity, and follow in the footsteps of the Brain, from the cartoon series Pinky and the Brain.  Given the opportunity, the Brain will take a chance, risk everything, and go for broke.  The Brain's entire business model is simple:  Try To Take Over The World.
          If finding yourself in the same place, doing the same thing year after year is not what you want, then be prepared to get hurt, be prepared to be ridiculed, be prepared to give it everything you've got and then, you guessed it, Fail.  
          If you truly want to Try To Take Over The World, you will have to change what you are doing.  You may have to change everything you are doing.  You may have to fire your best employee.  You may have to fire yourself.  You might fire your best employee, then yourself, then discover that the two of you were the only ones keeping your business afloat.  You may have to discontinue production of your favorite, best-selling product.  
          Are you ready to do that?  You might not just lose money, you might run your business right into the ground.  But you will have learned some things.  You will know what not to do next time.  Because you have to want this bad enough to give this answer after failure:  

          The first step is to find someone who is business-savvy, and willing to take the gloves off in evaluating your business.  Face it, the business world is brutal, and mean, and it doesn't care if you tried your best.  Excuses don't feed to the bottom line, results do.  When you find that person, let them in to your business, show them everything, then have them write a Management Letter.  I'm not talking about the letter the auditors give you once a year that kindly mentions "deficiencies" and suggests areas for improvement.  I'm talking about an in-your-face, brutally honest evaluation of your business strengths and weaknesses.
          After you've read the letter, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, wipe the blood off your face; and ask yourself again, are you ready to make a change?  What is your capacity for change?  Are you prepared to get beat up, knocked down, and laughed at?  Are you prepared to sacrifice the very things that you think make you successful (such as your position as leader of your business)?  If your answer is yes - emphatically "yes!"  Then you are ready to transform your business into something more than a living.

"The Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering? 

Pinky: I think so, Brain, but this time, you put the trousers on the chimp."