Several times recently I’ve heard or read someone make a comment like, “I really need to learn business, beyond just being good at what I do.” And each time I think, “Oy! Allah…” like any good Jufi (Jewish Sufi) does when presented with the incomprehensible mysteries of life.
In this case, the incomprehensible mystery I was cross-culturally exclaiming about is business. How in the heck do you learn business? Do you need to take a course on how to manage a team? Do you need to figure out how to present a business plan to potential investors? Do you need to learn about payroll taxes?
It’s a huge topic, and so no wonder you might sigh along with me in your own cross-cultural way.
The article part of this article is mercifully short. The majority of it is a checklist, with a little bit of guidance to help you use it. I’ll be nice and give you the guidance now so when you read the checklist you won’t go insane.
This Is Not A One Month Syllabus
There’s a reason it seems to take two to three years of focus on business development to get your business truly stable and into momentum. It may take you a year or two to get competent and effective in these different areas.
There’s a trick to handling such a huge and diverse syllabus without going insane.
The Trick To Avoiding Insanity
Do not go for mastery with one exception.
The only thing you need to be a real master of is Item Number 7: How to deliver your product or service in an effective way that wows your clients.
Release your need to go for mastery with anything else. You just need to be effective, competent, sorta-okay with them. The ones that you need to hire out to experts will become obvious as you go along. And, as your business grows, you’ll be able to afford it.
But, for now, just competent. Just effective. Just “getting by.”
Plan Your Education
First, go through this checklist right now and find the areas that you have some comfort or skill in, no matter how few of them there are. Celebrate those!
Second, go through the checklist again and ask the heart of your business which ONE thing is what your business is needing you to learn next. Be willing to be surprised. Say yes to it. And dig in.
Third, give yourself time. Remember how I just wrote that it may take you two or three years to really get your business into momentum and feeling stable? Well, what I meant was that it may take you two or three years to really get your business into momentum and feeling stable.
Two or three years. You can make money and do okay, even well, before then. If you are already effective with many of the things on this checklist you may shorten that time considerable.
But to feel really stable, like you’ve got your feet under you and you won’t get knocked over, two to three years.
Here’s the checklist. Go to it.
The 23 Things You Need to Know to Be Really Successful in a Micro Business
Marketing
1. How to identify and communicate with the folks you’re trying to reach.
2. How to create ongoing content that speaks to potential clients and deepens the relationship.
3. How to network without feeling like a piranha.
4. How to create strategic alliances that don’t burn you out.
Related Marketing Systems and Tools:
- Autoresponder (we use Aweber*).
- Contact Manager (we use Solve360*).
- Website with blog (we use WordPress) and good designers.
- Social media tools (we primarily use Twitter and blogging. To a lesser extent we use Facebook).
- Multimedia tools if you want, like microphone for audio recording, and camera for video recording.
Sales
5. How to hold an effective sales conversation.
6. Copywriting–how to hold an effective sales conversation in writing.
Related Sales Systems and Tools
- Online shopping cart (we use 1shoppingcart*).
- Merchant account which processes credit cards (we use PayPal and Authorize.net).
Product/Service Delivery
7. How to deliver your product or service in an effective way that wows your clients.
8. How to craft an offer that meets client needs and expectations.
9. How to communicate effectively through upset.
Related Product/Service Systems and Tools
- Desktop design software (we use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop). Perfectly good stuff can be done with more basic packages like Pages or Word).
- Nonviolent Communication book by Marshall Rosenberg.
Project and Information Management
10. How to capture and organize tasks without dropping details.
11. How to organize and timeline projects.
12. How to capture and organize information without overwhelm or losing important bits.
Related Project and Information Management Systems and Tools
- Project/Task Manager (We use Omnifocus).
- Information manager (We use Evernote Premium).
- Calendars (We us iCal on the Mac).
- Online Collaboration Tools (we use Google Docs).
Strategic Planning
13. How to know what your heart really wants.
14. How to know what your business really needs.
15. Understanding revenue streams and choosing appropriately.
16. How to prioritize projects so your heart and business both get what they need.
Related Strategic Planning Systems and Tools
- Mastermind group: (Mark’s been in a mastermind group for years).
- Mastermind of the Heart (bonus ebook and audio class from us–comes with Unveiling the Heart of Your Business).
- Do More Great Work book by Michael Bungay Stanier with 15 maps on how to think/work with your Great Work.
- Planning tools: Whiteboards, big pieces of paper, colored pens.
Money
17. Having a comfortable relationship with money.
18. How to spot check your bookkeeper, without being a bookkeeper yourself.
19. How to price your products and services so they are profitable for you and accessible to your particular audience.
20. How to pay yourself without getting into trouble with the tax collector.
Related Money Systems and Tools
- Online access to your separate business banking account.
- Accounting software (We use Quickbooks online).
- Online money management tools like Mint can be extraordinarily helpful as well.
- Bookkeeper (Local to Portland we use Balance Your World Bookkeeping).
- Accountants (Local to Portland we use My Tax Man [Can you believe they don’t have a website? If you’re in Portland, just Google them]).
- The Soul of Money book by Lynne Twist.
- The Heart of Money Transformational Journey, a course we teach that is also available in a home study format.
Management
21. How to hire folks who help you, like web designers, virtual assistants, accountants, and bookkeepers.
22. How to clearly communicate needs, expectations and timelines to outsourced people.
23. How to have a productive meeting.
Related Management Systems and Tools
- Online collaborative communication tools (we use Google Docs).
- Sharable Project Management (we use Solve360* and Basecamp is another good one).
- Death by Meeting book by Patrick Lencioni. All of his books on management and teams are top notch.
- Nonviolent Communication book by Marshall Rosenberg–specifically sections about how to make requests.
* Links denoted with an asterisk are affiliate links.
p.s. Missed out on free call last week?
You can still get the recording on the Sacred Moment.
p.p.s. Needs some hands-on help getting your business going?
We have two practitioners available to support you one-on-one in your business. Both Judy and Jason are experienced, heart-centered official Heart of Business peeps who can work with you to get your business up and running, without losing your heart in the process.
If you’re needing that one-on-one support, check out the offer, and see if it resonates: Organic Business Development Program.
14 Responses
Mark, this is awesome. This is *wow*. This is … supremely helpful. Don’t mean to just fling compliments, but I haven’t seen anything quite like this, and it nails this perfect mix of simplicity yet comprehensiveness, realism without overwhelm. This is one to print and stick on my office wall. Am forwarding to a few friends who may benefit as well. Thank you!
.-= Shana’s lastest post: A motley collection here =-.
Mark,
Thank you for the most comprehensive list of tools and tasks. Just seeing the components broken down this way helps structure the big picture.
And thanks for — dare I say it — the permission to be sorta-OK with everything but delivery. You nailed it!
Many thanks.
Be well.
.-= Marsha Stopa’s lastest post: Winter
Good stuff all around, Mark. Wowing customers covers over a multitude of business “not great at yets”.
Thanks for this Mark.
It’s smart. And helpful. And clear.
I also love, and appreciate, that you reminded us that this isn’t a one month to-do list. So thanks for that too.
Awesome post. One of my favorites. Big thanks.
.-= Fabeku’s lastest post: Eff Cramming (a.k.a. In Defense of Playtime) =-.
Of the 23 articles I read every day, this is the one that I will save and share!
You just never know what’s going to wow people. Thanks for your kind words, all. I’m glad it was so helpful.
Now don’t go eating the apple all in one bite.
Wow, this is so very generous, helpful, useful!
I didn’t even get halfway through it and I knew I had to forward it to 3 friends who have these needs. (And accept the long-range implementation it represents for me.)
I’m kind of a lurker who cherry picks ideas off your posts. This one is so valuable doing so makes me feel like a thief!
I’ll figure out what to do with the guilt later. Right now, you deserve a big, hearty thank-you!
Woo-hoo! Glad it was so helpful. And please don’t feel like a thief… and please do forward it to anyone and everyone. 🙂
This is a piece I have been struggling with for over a year. What a relief to learn I am not alone and that there is an organic way out of the hole I feel like I am in. Thanks Mark, tweeting and reposting!
Right on, Stacy! It’s so easy to struggle with these pieces, and I’m glad that what I wrote is giving you some compassion and spaciousness in your learning. Out of the whole! Organically!
Mark. You are spot on! I need to learn business! If I heard any of my colleagues, peers or even superiors indicating that they needed to learn an single or multiple aspect of a whole of business cycle. Ooh gee did I mutter under my breadth. It often took loads of my energy to unpack what it was that they actually needed to learn. I then se about developing personal and professional development plans in order to capture the needs of the individual employees. I based this on a criteria of standard expectations of each role and a rough measure of a grade level so to speak. We then incorporated this with the pay salary and structure. I developed a data base that qualified and quantified the supervision process. All of this because a number of staff made the comment: I need to learn business!
Wow- sounds like you went on a fantastic learning streak. I trust it’s working for you?
This is more software nerd than business nerd but…
I’m curious, you use Solve360 for contacts and shared project management, and Omnifocus for personal project management. I’m slowly figuring out how to use those together myself.
What are your tips on how to make them work together most effectively?
Thanks!
Since I posted the original article, we’ve continued to evolve in how we handle things. As it turns out, we’re not really using Solve360 for project management- except some tracking with outside vendors when we need to coordinate.
We’re actually using Omnifocus- each of us individually- for project management, and Kate is using Omniplan to hold the overall strategic plan the relationships between projects.
Solve360 is ending up being less useful to us than we originally thought. Right now it’s best use is to track customer service- we have a history of everyone we’ve ever been in contact with, and it’s easy for anyone on the team to see if someone has been replied to or not.