I find myself in an unusual situation. As many of you will know, because I keep telling you, I have a Lauren who takes care of all of our social media needs. I give her the content. I don’t need to format anything. She sends out our weekly newsletter and then posts components on to LinkedIn, Facebook etc. Everyone needs a Lauren. You could get in touch with Adder Business and see if they have a spare. You can’t have mine!

I am supposed to have the content to her for a Monday morning. That has not happened for a while, but last week it could have happened. However, I did not record the weekly presentation till Tuesday night. Well, if I was on time she might expect that every week, and that would never do.

So, why do we do it? Why do I spend time every week preparing material for Lauren to publish? It’s largely marketing, just one of the 5 a day that our business needs to thrive.

The 5 essential elements of any business, and I do mean any business, are:

1. A product or service that people want. If it is a service, like ours, you need to have the knowledge to perform that service. If it is a product that you have been developing, you need that MVP, a minimum viable product, that you can demonstrate to potential buyers. If you are buying in order to re-sell, you must have a supply of goods available.
2. Marketing is so that people know what you are offering so that they can raise their hands to express an interest in knowing more.
3. Sales is the process of getting a customer to put their hand in their pocket and pay you money.
4. Fulfillment is how you deliver the product or service to your customers in such a way that they want to come back again.
5. Accounting is how you obtain the answer to two important questions:

First: Having completed your sale, are you going to have the resources to make another, i.e. have you made sufficient profits that you have the cash to do it all again?

Second: Was the profit sufficient that you actually want to do it again?

So, there you have it, the essence of any business.

At the end of the day, the lifeblood of any business is profit.

“Profitability is a necessary condition for existence and a means to more important ends, but it is not the end in itself.

 Profit is like oxygen, food, water and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.”                                                          Built to Last by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

I do not believe that anyone can run a business purely driven by profit. There will virtually always be another motive. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like to see profits in our business as much as anyone, but we are building something and we get quite a kick, firstly from helping other business owners to create their own profits and then secondly from seeing what we have achieved over the years. In the last few years, we have managed some nice, but short, holidays but money has never been our driver.

I suppose the exception might be if you work on commission and are driven by the next big deal.

But, that’s not us. We have always been in it for the long haul

So, have you ever thought about what drives you to get out of bed every morning and work through all the usual trials and tribulations that are associated with running a business? After all, if you are in business, and particularly if you have a growth mindset, you never truly get away from it. I was Silverstone for the British Grand Prix again this year and in the bar at night, would end up discussing tax strategies with other members of the party.

Here’s an interesting question. I have known a few people whose businesses went belly up. They probably lost a lot of money and reputation over it. But like when you fall off your bike or your horse, you have to get back in the saddle. It’s hard but you learn so much from the experience that you will do a better job next time. But. If you have lost everything once, why would you want to risk putting yourself through that agony all over again?

What are the drivers? What is the motivation? I’ll leave you to ponder that one.

Alan E Long

The Long Partnership

07770 738770