BFY.17 (BUILDING IN FRONT OF YOU): WHAT WE RESET AND FIXED - WILLIAM EASTMAN

I took last week off and replayed the previous week on when to RESET or FIX what is not working. Last week I was working on it and today's show is a report back - what did we RESET and what did we FIX; and most importantly - why.

SUMMARY
Our business problem is not unique but is not common. Most business owner's business model is one-sided - you have supply - things to sell and need customers or you have demand - customers and need things to sell. 

IBGR's business model is two-sided, we have to build both supply and demand simultaneously. What does that mean? We have to put quality programming on the air - great hosts with indepth knowledge of what an audience needs and an audience listening. Trust me - solving both at the same time is situation to avoid if you can help it.

It is within this context I will cover what decisions were made and what is currently happening at a rapid pace.

TOPICS

1. Which of the two-sides are FIXING first?
2. What areas required a RESET?
3. What is the impact on our processes and the owner - me?

INSIGHT
Last time we had this conversation I remarked on the difficulty of doing this type of analysis because as the owner you must confront reality no matter how ugly. In my case  the root cause of the problem was me and how I am allocating time.

I was delegating, no really abdicating my role on a few critical issues like an upcoming Global Growth Forum that was critical to both supply and demand. We outsourced Marketing & Advertizing to a great agency in Australia, in fact their president joined our organization so this more of an alliance than a contractual relationship. I didn't make their work a priority in terms of my calendar. I allowed them to handle it and turned my focus on other items - important, but not critical.

This forced me to examine how I used time and it wasn't pretty. The following is what we are doing to overcome this oversight and it starts with insufficient time spent working ON the business and too much working IN it.

ACTION
Your Answers to Resetting the Business or Fixing It

1. Start with what is working. I am assuming you are doing something or many things right - so what is it?
   1. Reviewing the month of September indicated I had a balance of 90% IN and 10% ON with the wrong items in both.
   2. RESET #1 I shifted my working hours because of too many IN items which also affected sleep. I can operate on 4.5 hours for long periods of time but my effectiveness dropped off to by Friday I could barely get anything done. This was usually handled on the weekend but that was affecting me as well. We business owners might be super human (ask us, we will admit to it) but at some point this 18 month sprint takes its toll. So my RESET started with 6 hours sleep a night.
   3. RESET #2 was dropping my shows for next Season starting in October and redesigning our news function.
   4. RESET #3 was supervising the formalization of neglected business processes so delegation was possible.
2. Explain why what is working is working. Spend time on this, the answer to continuing with the present business or the seeds of a reset are here.
   1. Our team and partners were doing quality work but without my participation it was coming up short on success. I changed my schedule to make 2 hours a day available for the teams. I am not supervising - it is called staying connected and being able to help in a timely fashion - like immediately.
3. Does the elements of your good news story fit the Business Model, USP, and Competencies?
   1. If Yes - do a root cause analysis to identify the culprit and fix it
   2. If No - change your Business Model, USP, and Competencies to reflect the new reality
4. Create something new to test the decision and Soft Launch it. There is no need to run-off with hair on fire so don't go company wide until you're certain.
   1. We redesigned the Global Business Forum from the lessons learned from postponement and have something that is realistic and will provide the impact needed.
5. Update or rewrite your Business Plan to reflect this new understanding of what success looks like
   1. Here we are doing well. The plan, business model, etc., is still right and tested from the failure of the first forum - it is a matter of the owner acting like an executive.

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