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ENTREPRENEUR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES

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Let's Talk R+R: Risk + Resources

March 24, 202318 min read

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Title: Let's Talk R+R: Risk + Resources

Welcome to super-exciting episode number one of the service-based business society podcast. You know, this has been something that I have wanted to do for so long, and seeing it all come together is wonderful. It's truly exciting. Thank you so much for being here. And we are starting on the journey of building out, scaling, and creating successful service-based businesses, not to lose sleep. You know, one of the pieces that really goes along with this is the concept of sleep. Now hold tight.

When I say without losing sleep, it's because most people need more sleep, myself included. There's scientific evidence; everyone always goes on about it. But ultimately, you can do whatever you want with the time—maybe you want to spend more time with your kids, maybe you want to spend more time with your spouse, maybe you want some more time at the gym, out for a walk, art, you name it. Ultimately, we are trying to build sustainable, scalable businesses that allow us to maintain life. 

So who am I, and why am I talking to you today? Well, my name is Tiffany-Ann Bottcher. And I spent over a decade scaling a service-based business to over a million dollars in revenue each month and the journey to do so. And the scaling and the growing pains were all included; I bought the T-shirt, and now I operate a business management agency called Bottcher Business Management. And we perform services for small to medium-sized businesses throughout North America in a variety of service-based industries. And we help with things like bookkeeping, social media management, and digital marketing—basically, a one-stop shop for business and business services. 

So I come to you with all of this knowledge and a drive to add value and help you grow your businesses in a way that offers you the ability to also enjoy life. As a mom of three, I understand what juggling life and business can be like; I understand it firsthand. And I also understand what it's like to juggle that with life goals and lifestyle choices. And, you know, kids' sports, kids' activities, or even the transition from maybe working outside of the home or, you know, in corporate America, to then working for yourself. You know, I experienced this journey when I left my corporate job. At the end of April 2021, I made a massive life decision. And I left a role that I had ultimately been a part of building—you know, a team that I had hired, trained, and grown up with. And I made the decision that I wanted to build a business and I wanted to be the entrepreneur after many years of saying I didn't want to be an entrepreneur.

I have always been somewhat entrepreneurial. I was, you know, a partner in the organization I worked at, so we can dive into what it's like to have business partners and how that looks as your business scales. We will be diving into that on a future episode. But ultimately, the process of growing and eating is so important. 

Business Destination

Building a business is not about the destination. Because ultimately, what is the destination? Does anyone know? Does anyone know the end destination? You know, when you're building a business, there are a few possible destinations. Number one, you could pass your business down to one of your children, if you have any. You can create that legacy business. The other option is that you can sell your business, or, if your business is purely based on you, what happens to your business when you don't want to do it anymore? 

So we're going to talk and dig into all things, you know, the business end of life, if you will. Also, on a future episode, I'm just dropping in a few topics and things that we are going to be digging into here. But when it comes to your journey, it comes back to a comment my mom has made my entire life. Growing up, it was on the bottom of every card. It was on every letter that she ever wrote, and it was "enjoy the journey." And my decision to leave my corporate job and business partnership was because I was no longer enjoying the journey. And I knew that there was something else for me. So I took the plunge.

You know, I remember my business partner asking me, as we were sitting around the table, as we were going to the negotiations of my leaving, what that was going to look like and how that was going to be structured, all of these pieces, and he said, Where are you going? What are you going to do? And I said, "I don't know." And he said, "No, really?" It's okay. Where are you going? Now? He and I had been very close for over 10 years. He knew me as the planner, the organizer, and, as you know, there was no way that I was truly answering the question with I don't know. And I said, "I really don't know; I know what I'm not going to be doing." But I don't know what I'm going to be doing yet. 

I knew I was leaving with years of experience, a great education, and so much passion and drive that I could tackle almost anything. But what I was actually going to do with all of that, I didn't know. I truly don't think that he ever believes me when I say I don't know, because it is so unlike me. But I trusted myself, and I trusted the process. and I knew there was more

The Ultimate Questions (What and Why?)

And so, you know, as we go through and grow our businesses, and as we decide on each step, there comes a balance of what is the 30,000-foot view, and you know, rising up above the day-to-day nuts and bolts, you know, the operational intricacies of the tasks, all the way up to 30,000 feet and saying, "What are we doing here?" What is my business? Why? Why am I doing my business? What is the objective? You'll hear me say this a lot. because most questions When someone asks a question, it always comes back to, "Well, what is the objective?" Can we do X? Sure. Why? Why do we want to do X? And so you know, what is this? What is the objective of our business? And then it also comes back to: what can we offer our business? What makes us unique? Who are we, and what are we doing to make ourselves different? At the end of the day, almost everything's been done. Sure, there are some modifications; there's innovation; there are upgrades. But at the end of the day, ultimately, most things have been done. 

Importance of Google my business

Google My Business is the modern-day equivalent of the phone book. It might be different. It might be more modern. But business directories that contain some information about the business and the phone number It has been done. And so, when you really take a look at each step, you think, "Okay." It's okay that there are other people doing what I want to do. Because this is why I'm different. This is what makes me better than someone else. Here on the show, we're going to be talking to business experts, experts in their specific field. Now, I am a huge advocate of the specialist, not the general practitioner. What do I mean by this? There are people on the global stage who are amazing at something truly amazing. And those are the people that we want to learn from. We want to learn from the very best, the specialists. And so here on the show, we're going to be interviewing and discussing with experts all of the pieces that, from their specialties, can help support your business.

One of the pieces we'll be dealing with and looking at with each of the people on the show is, what is it? What is a tangible tip that you can implement today and see an impact on tomorrow? A lot of times, we see things from this EEG scale, the 30,000-foot view, and we know we need to do all of these different pieces. Sometimes it's very hard to bring it down to, well, how do I do that in my business? So, the service-based business society podcast is going to be looking at both the 30,000-foot view and also bringing it back down. We also want to have those tangible tips and know how to implement them in your business. It's important as an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a visionary for your business to be able to take that 30,000-foot view and look at the big picture. What is the objective of my business? What is the objective of these services? How do these pieces fit together to be the business that I want to have? And so business comes down to two things. I know you're going to say, "Oh, my goodness, there are 5000 things that make up my business." Two things. Realistically, growing a business comes down to the ability to do two things very well.

The Purpose of Risk and Resources

The R&R of business is to manage risk and manage resources. So let's dig into those a little. Your ability to manage risks is essential to the success of your business; without the ability to manage risk, you may or may not have a successful business. And you may or may not know that a successful business is going to very quickly become an unsuccessful business because one of the risks you've taken comes to an end with all the success. Now, that might sound a little doom and gloom. But when we talk about taking a step back, looking from the 30,000-foot view, and saying, "What is my business?" we also want to be looking and saying, "Where are my risks?" Now there are a number of different kinds of risks—things like perceived risk—you know, if I post this on Facebook, someone's going to criticize me, someone's going to say something, someone's going to judge me. That's a perceived risk, and ultimately, you still have to manage it. 

There are also things like injury or damage to a client. Property. Things like this, without insurance or a large risk, But adding in insurance manages the risks. And so we need to look for all of the areas of risk in our business so that we can appropriately manage them. Now, entrepreneurs and business owners all have less risk aversion than the average employee. Now, you may say, "Well, whoa, no, I don't like risk." If you have left your job, where you have a stable paycheck that shows up every two weeks, or whatever your cycle is, and you have, you know, left stability—financial stability, day-to-day stability—I mean, you go to work, you go home, you know what it is, you know what the job is, if you have left that behind and in its place, you have started a business, where revenue comes up and down, profits go up and down, your workload goes up and down—all of these different pieces, you are less risk-averse than the average person—you are less risk-averse than the average person. 

Now that we've established that, if you're a business owner, you're less risk adverse, there's still going to be varying degrees of risk aversion. Some people truly have the mindset of "no risk, no reward," and they're jumping in there and making risky decisions. It's almost like if you think about it, like investing in the stock market, some people are willing to make those big, riskier trades in order to hopefully, you know, grow more profit and wealth. When it comes to managing the risk of your business, the biggest concern as a business is starting is that you don't know what you don't know. I have heard hundreds of business owners say, "I didn't know, I didn't know that it was a problem until it was these hidden, almost like skeletons in the closet, that you didn't know existed until they came jumping out at the most inopportune time." So managing risk becomes essential. Now, sometimes we say, "That's not a problem now." But as we grow, this will become a bigger potential risk. 

So there are many different ways to manage risk. Each situation is unique. But the ability to recognize and manage risk is key in business. Now, the other side of the R&R of the business journey is resources—managing resources. The objective of your business is to create profit, ultimately, so all of these kinds of woo-woo things are, you know, oh, no. I am just so passionate and blah, blah, blah. Yes, you know, the question, you know, often is, "Oh, if I won the lottery, I would still keep doing this. And, yes, I don't disagree with any of those things. I truly, truly love what I do, and I would do it even if I won the lottery. But what I do with the same what I make decisions, the same, probably not. Because at the end of the day there comes an element of sustainability, the business must be sustainable; it must be able to support itself. And, and so when it comes to managing resources, the business not only needs to support the passion and whatnot, but everyone who is running a business ultimately at the end of the day has some kind of financial aspect. Some financial targets are loftier than others. But at the end of the day, if you are not working towards a profitable business, you have a hobby. Sure things like not for profits or, you know, any of these pieces aside. A business doesn't have to make a profit in the first year or even the second year. 

However, the end goal, the objective of a business, even if they're not turning a profit in the first year, is to work towards turning a profit. If you are not working towards turning a profit, you have a hobby. This is entirely different, and it's okay to have hobbies. It is okay to have a hobby that even covers the expenses of the hobby. You know, maybe you like to paint; maybe you'd like to paint and sell your paintings, and it covers all of your painting supplies and maybe even a little of your time. Your goal there is to break even. On a small scale, you have an art hobby. So, as we dig in and say the objective here is to make profit, we can say our goal is to manage the resources in a way that maximizes the profit capability of those resources. Okay, what does that even mean? It means that if we break down our business into the pieces it takes to offer our service, Is it the labor, your labor time? Maybe you have employees; maybe it's their labor time. Maybe you need certain materials. If you're a drywaller or you need drywall, these are resources for your business. So the job then is to manage the resources in a way that can maximize the profit. 

So on one side, we are managing risk. Most risk most can be solved with money in the in the event, for example, your bookkeeping. If not done correctly, you can create risk. Maybe it's not done correctly; maybe you don't remit the correct amount of tax. Suddenly, you have this potential issue in the future. How could that be solved? Well, you could pay a bookkeeper and get a quality bookkeeper who understands and follows the rules and who's going to ask the right questions. And now you don't have consent. Okay. So if money was no object, if profit was no object, you could perhaps hire a bookkeeper. And I highly recommend that there be certain areas. So when you identify an area of potential risk, asking the right questions and speaking to the right people is important. But starting out, maybe it's your first year, maybe you are building and growing your brand, and you haven't generated any sales yet. Maybe you can't afford to, you know, your business can't afford to hire a bookkeeper. Okay, so how do we manage the risk without the bookkeeper? 

So when it comes down to the pieces working together, we must manage the risk with the resources we have. So, you know, we can't necessarily hire a bookkeeper; we can't hire a social media manager; we can't hire a full-time business strategist. These are pieces that, as your business grows, may or may not be areas that you want to scale it to. But it is our job as business owners to create sustainable businesses and grow them while managing their resources. So you've got money, which is a resource. Now, whether that comes from capital that you invest into your business, when you start, maybe you don't have any capital; maybe you have an idea, and you're just going all in and hoping that you can generate some revenue before you need any cash. But at the end of the day, it ultimately comes down to managing labor hours, materials, cash, or whatever these pieces are. It comes down to managing them in a way that maximizes profit, maximizes the sustainability and growth of your business, and minimizes the amount of burnout for both yourself and your team. These are key pieces. And so as much as there can be 5000 things that we could talk about when it comes to your business, we can take a 30,000-foot view and look at the big picture, or we can drive down all the way to the nuts and bolts and look at specific keywords on Google that are turning specific cost per click. That is about as big or as little as we can go. 

Principles of operating businesses

Operating businesses means all of these things: the 30,000-foot view, the strategy, the vision, all the way down to specific little keywords. Ultimately, as many of those things as there are, it really comes down to risk and resources. And working with these risks and resources becomes almost like a challenging math problem. If you think back to when you were doing math, and it was, you know, Bob has X amount of basketballs. And Joe has this much of it. And they have this much time, and ultimately, your business is a long-form math problem; you have a certain amount of resources. Some businesses will have 50 resources, some will have five resources—it really depends on your business model. But you must look at your service or product. But today, we really do focus on service-based businesses here. So we look at the service and say, "What are the resources? What are the resources it takes to offer that service? And what are those resources in a very broad sense of the term? So it's labor. Now, right now, depending on the size of your business, maybe you're still working in your business, and it's all your time; maybe it's all your hours. But perhaps, as you grow, it could be an employee; sometimes it really depends on the business whether, as you grow, you will work less in the business than on the business.

So as we scale our roles as we grow and become, you know, in this more leadership role. Oftentimes, we end up working less in the business. You know, if you are currently working day to day with clients dealing with tasks, all of these pieces, as your business grows, you may find yourself doing less of those tasks and more working on the business, the people, and the team. Obviously, it truly depends on your business, your industry, and your objectives. So here at the service-based business society, we are going to be talking to experts, digging into training, getting tangible tips, and looking at how we can scale service-based businesses without losing sleep while maintaining that work-life balance, whatever that balance looks like for you. It's not a problem to want to work a lot. Entrepreneurs are truly the most passionate people I know. But what it does mean is that that time should be utilized efficiently. You should be working in an efficient, effective manner so that you are maximizing the return on your time. You are maximizing the opportunities you can realize. At the end of the day, your time is your most finite resource, and building businesses and business models that respect that and offer great returns on the time we invest are super key. 

Well, we are all out of time for today. If you guys have not joined the service-based business society Facebook community, make sure you head on over to Facebook so we can continue the conversation. Be sure to also follow the show by going to any podcast app and searching "surface space business society." Click "subscribe," click the fifth star, and leave us a written review. Have a great week and we will see you soon

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Service Based Business Society

Service Based Business Society is the source for information and opportunities needed to run a service based business. We offer free resources, training and programs on how to create your own successful service-based business. Our goal is to help you succeed in this new economy by providing tools, education and connections that will empower you as an individual or grow your company as a whole.

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Let's Talk R+R: Risk + Resources

March 24, 202318 min read

Custom HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT

Title: Let's Talk R+R: Risk + Resources

Welcome to super-exciting episode number one of the service-based business society podcast. You know, this has been something that I have wanted to do for so long, and seeing it all come together is wonderful. It's truly exciting. Thank you so much for being here. And we are starting on the journey of building out, scaling, and creating successful service-based businesses, not to lose sleep. You know, one of the pieces that really goes along with this is the concept of sleep. Now hold tight.

When I say without losing sleep, it's because most people need more sleep, myself included. There's scientific evidence; everyone always goes on about it. But ultimately, you can do whatever you want with the time—maybe you want to spend more time with your kids, maybe you want to spend more time with your spouse, maybe you want some more time at the gym, out for a walk, art, you name it. Ultimately, we are trying to build sustainable, scalable businesses that allow us to maintain life. 

So who am I, and why am I talking to you today? Well, my name is Tiffany-Ann Bottcher. And I spent over a decade scaling a service-based business to over a million dollars in revenue each month and the journey to do so. And the scaling and the growing pains were all included; I bought the T-shirt, and now I operate a business management agency called Bottcher Business Management. And we perform services for small to medium-sized businesses throughout North America in a variety of service-based industries. And we help with things like bookkeeping, social media management, and digital marketing—basically, a one-stop shop for business and business services. 

So I come to you with all of this knowledge and a drive to add value and help you grow your businesses in a way that offers you the ability to also enjoy life. As a mom of three, I understand what juggling life and business can be like; I understand it firsthand. And I also understand what it's like to juggle that with life goals and lifestyle choices. And, you know, kids' sports, kids' activities, or even the transition from maybe working outside of the home or, you know, in corporate America, to then working for yourself. You know, I experienced this journey when I left my corporate job. At the end of April 2021, I made a massive life decision. And I left a role that I had ultimately been a part of building—you know, a team that I had hired, trained, and grown up with. And I made the decision that I wanted to build a business and I wanted to be the entrepreneur after many years of saying I didn't want to be an entrepreneur.

I have always been somewhat entrepreneurial. I was, you know, a partner in the organization I worked at, so we can dive into what it's like to have business partners and how that looks as your business scales. We will be diving into that on a future episode. But ultimately, the process of growing and eating is so important. 

Business Destination

Building a business is not about the destination. Because ultimately, what is the destination? Does anyone know? Does anyone know the end destination? You know, when you're building a business, there are a few possible destinations. Number one, you could pass your business down to one of your children, if you have any. You can create that legacy business. The other option is that you can sell your business, or, if your business is purely based on you, what happens to your business when you don't want to do it anymore? 

So we're going to talk and dig into all things, you know, the business end of life, if you will. Also, on a future episode, I'm just dropping in a few topics and things that we are going to be digging into here. But when it comes to your journey, it comes back to a comment my mom has made my entire life. Growing up, it was on the bottom of every card. It was on every letter that she ever wrote, and it was "enjoy the journey." And my decision to leave my corporate job and business partnership was because I was no longer enjoying the journey. And I knew that there was something else for me. So I took the plunge.

You know, I remember my business partner asking me, as we were sitting around the table, as we were going to the negotiations of my leaving, what that was going to look like and how that was going to be structured, all of these pieces, and he said, Where are you going? What are you going to do? And I said, "I don't know." And he said, "No, really?" It's okay. Where are you going? Now? He and I had been very close for over 10 years. He knew me as the planner, the organizer, and, as you know, there was no way that I was truly answering the question with I don't know. And I said, "I really don't know; I know what I'm not going to be doing." But I don't know what I'm going to be doing yet. 

I knew I was leaving with years of experience, a great education, and so much passion and drive that I could tackle almost anything. But what I was actually going to do with all of that, I didn't know. I truly don't think that he ever believes me when I say I don't know, because it is so unlike me. But I trusted myself, and I trusted the process. and I knew there was more

The Ultimate Questions (What and Why?)

And so, you know, as we go through and grow our businesses, and as we decide on each step, there comes a balance of what is the 30,000-foot view, and you know, rising up above the day-to-day nuts and bolts, you know, the operational intricacies of the tasks, all the way up to 30,000 feet and saying, "What are we doing here?" What is my business? Why? Why am I doing my business? What is the objective? You'll hear me say this a lot. because most questions When someone asks a question, it always comes back to, "Well, what is the objective?" Can we do X? Sure. Why? Why do we want to do X? And so you know, what is this? What is the objective of our business? And then it also comes back to: what can we offer our business? What makes us unique? Who are we, and what are we doing to make ourselves different? At the end of the day, almost everything's been done. Sure, there are some modifications; there's innovation; there are upgrades. But at the end of the day, ultimately, most things have been done. 

Importance of Google my business

Google My Business is the modern-day equivalent of the phone book. It might be different. It might be more modern. But business directories that contain some information about the business and the phone number It has been done. And so, when you really take a look at each step, you think, "Okay." It's okay that there are other people doing what I want to do. Because this is why I'm different. This is what makes me better than someone else. Here on the show, we're going to be talking to business experts, experts in their specific field. Now, I am a huge advocate of the specialist, not the general practitioner. What do I mean by this? There are people on the global stage who are amazing at something truly amazing. And those are the people that we want to learn from. We want to learn from the very best, the specialists. And so here on the show, we're going to be interviewing and discussing with experts all of the pieces that, from their specialties, can help support your business.

One of the pieces we'll be dealing with and looking at with each of the people on the show is, what is it? What is a tangible tip that you can implement today and see an impact on tomorrow? A lot of times, we see things from this EEG scale, the 30,000-foot view, and we know we need to do all of these different pieces. Sometimes it's very hard to bring it down to, well, how do I do that in my business? So, the service-based business society podcast is going to be looking at both the 30,000-foot view and also bringing it back down. We also want to have those tangible tips and know how to implement them in your business. It's important as an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a visionary for your business to be able to take that 30,000-foot view and look at the big picture. What is the objective of my business? What is the objective of these services? How do these pieces fit together to be the business that I want to have? And so business comes down to two things. I know you're going to say, "Oh, my goodness, there are 5000 things that make up my business." Two things. Realistically, growing a business comes down to the ability to do two things very well.

The Purpose of Risk and Resources

The R&R of business is to manage risk and manage resources. So let's dig into those a little. Your ability to manage risks is essential to the success of your business; without the ability to manage risk, you may or may not have a successful business. And you may or may not know that a successful business is going to very quickly become an unsuccessful business because one of the risks you've taken comes to an end with all the success. Now, that might sound a little doom and gloom. But when we talk about taking a step back, looking from the 30,000-foot view, and saying, "What is my business?" we also want to be looking and saying, "Where are my risks?" Now there are a number of different kinds of risks—things like perceived risk—you know, if I post this on Facebook, someone's going to criticize me, someone's going to say something, someone's going to judge me. That's a perceived risk, and ultimately, you still have to manage it. 

There are also things like injury or damage to a client. Property. Things like this, without insurance or a large risk, But adding in insurance manages the risks. And so we need to look for all of the areas of risk in our business so that we can appropriately manage them. Now, entrepreneurs and business owners all have less risk aversion than the average employee. Now, you may say, "Well, whoa, no, I don't like risk." If you have left your job, where you have a stable paycheck that shows up every two weeks, or whatever your cycle is, and you have, you know, left stability—financial stability, day-to-day stability—I mean, you go to work, you go home, you know what it is, you know what the job is, if you have left that behind and in its place, you have started a business, where revenue comes up and down, profits go up and down, your workload goes up and down—all of these different pieces, you are less risk-averse than the average person—you are less risk-averse than the average person. 

Now that we've established that, if you're a business owner, you're less risk adverse, there's still going to be varying degrees of risk aversion. Some people truly have the mindset of "no risk, no reward," and they're jumping in there and making risky decisions. It's almost like if you think about it, like investing in the stock market, some people are willing to make those big, riskier trades in order to hopefully, you know, grow more profit and wealth. When it comes to managing the risk of your business, the biggest concern as a business is starting is that you don't know what you don't know. I have heard hundreds of business owners say, "I didn't know, I didn't know that it was a problem until it was these hidden, almost like skeletons in the closet, that you didn't know existed until they came jumping out at the most inopportune time." So managing risk becomes essential. Now, sometimes we say, "That's not a problem now." But as we grow, this will become a bigger potential risk. 

So there are many different ways to manage risk. Each situation is unique. But the ability to recognize and manage risk is key in business. Now, the other side of the R&R of the business journey is resources—managing resources. The objective of your business is to create profit, ultimately, so all of these kinds of woo-woo things are, you know, oh, no. I am just so passionate and blah, blah, blah. Yes, you know, the question, you know, often is, "Oh, if I won the lottery, I would still keep doing this. And, yes, I don't disagree with any of those things. I truly, truly love what I do, and I would do it even if I won the lottery. But what I do with the same what I make decisions, the same, probably not. Because at the end of the day there comes an element of sustainability, the business must be sustainable; it must be able to support itself. And, and so when it comes to managing resources, the business not only needs to support the passion and whatnot, but everyone who is running a business ultimately at the end of the day has some kind of financial aspect. Some financial targets are loftier than others. But at the end of the day, if you are not working towards a profitable business, you have a hobby. Sure things like not for profits or, you know, any of these pieces aside. A business doesn't have to make a profit in the first year or even the second year. 

However, the end goal, the objective of a business, even if they're not turning a profit in the first year, is to work towards turning a profit. If you are not working towards turning a profit, you have a hobby. This is entirely different, and it's okay to have hobbies. It is okay to have a hobby that even covers the expenses of the hobby. You know, maybe you like to paint; maybe you'd like to paint and sell your paintings, and it covers all of your painting supplies and maybe even a little of your time. Your goal there is to break even. On a small scale, you have an art hobby. So, as we dig in and say the objective here is to make profit, we can say our goal is to manage the resources in a way that maximizes the profit capability of those resources. Okay, what does that even mean? It means that if we break down our business into the pieces it takes to offer our service, Is it the labor, your labor time? Maybe you have employees; maybe it's their labor time. Maybe you need certain materials. If you're a drywaller or you need drywall, these are resources for your business. So the job then is to manage the resources in a way that can maximize the profit. 

So on one side, we are managing risk. Most risk most can be solved with money in the in the event, for example, your bookkeeping. If not done correctly, you can create risk. Maybe it's not done correctly; maybe you don't remit the correct amount of tax. Suddenly, you have this potential issue in the future. How could that be solved? Well, you could pay a bookkeeper and get a quality bookkeeper who understands and follows the rules and who's going to ask the right questions. And now you don't have consent. Okay. So if money was no object, if profit was no object, you could perhaps hire a bookkeeper. And I highly recommend that there be certain areas. So when you identify an area of potential risk, asking the right questions and speaking to the right people is important. But starting out, maybe it's your first year, maybe you are building and growing your brand, and you haven't generated any sales yet. Maybe you can't afford to, you know, your business can't afford to hire a bookkeeper. Okay, so how do we manage the risk without the bookkeeper? 

So when it comes down to the pieces working together, we must manage the risk with the resources we have. So, you know, we can't necessarily hire a bookkeeper; we can't hire a social media manager; we can't hire a full-time business strategist. These are pieces that, as your business grows, may or may not be areas that you want to scale it to. But it is our job as business owners to create sustainable businesses and grow them while managing their resources. So you've got money, which is a resource. Now, whether that comes from capital that you invest into your business, when you start, maybe you don't have any capital; maybe you have an idea, and you're just going all in and hoping that you can generate some revenue before you need any cash. But at the end of the day, it ultimately comes down to managing labor hours, materials, cash, or whatever these pieces are. It comes down to managing them in a way that maximizes profit, maximizes the sustainability and growth of your business, and minimizes the amount of burnout for both yourself and your team. These are key pieces. And so as much as there can be 5000 things that we could talk about when it comes to your business, we can take a 30,000-foot view and look at the big picture, or we can drive down all the way to the nuts and bolts and look at specific keywords on Google that are turning specific cost per click. That is about as big or as little as we can go. 

Principles of operating businesses

Operating businesses means all of these things: the 30,000-foot view, the strategy, the vision, all the way down to specific little keywords. Ultimately, as many of those things as there are, it really comes down to risk and resources. And working with these risks and resources becomes almost like a challenging math problem. If you think back to when you were doing math, and it was, you know, Bob has X amount of basketballs. And Joe has this much of it. And they have this much time, and ultimately, your business is a long-form math problem; you have a certain amount of resources. Some businesses will have 50 resources, some will have five resources—it really depends on your business model. But you must look at your service or product. But today, we really do focus on service-based businesses here. So we look at the service and say, "What are the resources? What are the resources it takes to offer that service? And what are those resources in a very broad sense of the term? So it's labor. Now, right now, depending on the size of your business, maybe you're still working in your business, and it's all your time; maybe it's all your hours. But perhaps, as you grow, it could be an employee; sometimes it really depends on the business whether, as you grow, you will work less in the business than on the business.

So as we scale our roles as we grow and become, you know, in this more leadership role. Oftentimes, we end up working less in the business. You know, if you are currently working day to day with clients dealing with tasks, all of these pieces, as your business grows, you may find yourself doing less of those tasks and more working on the business, the people, and the team. Obviously, it truly depends on your business, your industry, and your objectives. So here at the service-based business society, we are going to be talking to experts, digging into training, getting tangible tips, and looking at how we can scale service-based businesses without losing sleep while maintaining that work-life balance, whatever that balance looks like for you. It's not a problem to want to work a lot. Entrepreneurs are truly the most passionate people I know. But what it does mean is that that time should be utilized efficiently. You should be working in an efficient, effective manner so that you are maximizing the return on your time. You are maximizing the opportunities you can realize. At the end of the day, your time is your most finite resource, and building businesses and business models that respect that and offer great returns on the time we invest are super key. 

Well, we are all out of time for today. If you guys have not joined the service-based business society Facebook community, make sure you head on over to Facebook so we can continue the conversation. Be sure to also follow the show by going to any podcast app and searching "surface space business society." Click "subscribe," click the fifth star, and leave us a written review. Have a great week and we will see you soon

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Service Based Business Society

Service Based Business Society is the source for information and opportunities needed to run a service based business. We offer free resources, training and programs on how to create your own successful service-based business. Our goal is to help you succeed in this new economy by providing tools, education and connections that will empower you as an individual or grow your company as a whole.

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8661 201st Street, 2nd Floor, Langley, BC, V2Y 0G9, Canada


COPYRIGHT © 2022 BOTTCHER BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AGENCY

8661 201st Street, 2nd Floor, Langley, BC, V2Y 0G9, Canada