My husband, Neil, and I are overseas on holidays for three weeks leaving my fabulous 2IC, Bernie, to hold the fort for my business and get the BAS' lodged and my billings done while I'm away. This time we are visiting the States and Mexico. It's our second trip to the States but this time staying at a magnificent Hotel in San Diego built in 1888 called the Hotel del Coronado. The rich and famous have visited here over the years and they made the iconic movie here "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe.
They have exclusive (read expensive) shops within the Hotel and it was fun "window shopping". In one of the shops, the attendant commented on how lovely my leggings were and asked where did I buy them and what brand were they? I had this feeling that she expected me to prattle off fashion names like Yves Saint Laurent or D & G and something deep inside wished I cared about fashion labels a little more so I could do that! Unfortunately, I blurted out "I have no idea" although I suspect I bought them from Target! I probably would have left a better impression if I indicated that I mix in the right circles and wear the right clothes. In this instance, it's not important but don't get me wrong. We all work hard from time to time to keep up appearances and sometimes that works, but in business keeping up appearances is a double-edged sword.
Just before our first trip to the States several years ago, I made some decisions that were nearly fatal for my business. I'm going to assume you've heard about this so I'm not going to go into detail now. If you haven't heard I invite you to come along to our next Seven Secrets of Growing Your Bookkeeping Business Webinar or our 28 Day Marketing Bootcamp. In summary, because I had the wrong model, insufficient systems and too many wasted admin hours my business nearly went under in 4-short-months!
What's that got to do with appearance? Well after I returned from holiday none of my team, my clients or my network knew there was a problem. The appearance was that my business was doing well and that all the stakeholders were fulfilled and rewarded. That gave me time to turn the business around without anyone bailing. That was vital to the rebuild. The only reason I was able to keep up appearances was because Peter Cook and I sat down and had one of the most important meetings since I started my business - the choice was to push on or resign myself to the fact that my business couldn't be salvaged. We decided that we could salvage the business and importantly went on to map out strategies to turn the business around.
Sometimes keeping up appearances does have a purpose but in business, you can't afford to deceive yourself for long. Create a spreadsheet to track every hour that you and your team spend in your business and face the facts. If you are running a business that is not profitable and you don't sit down to create strategies to turn it around you are fooling yourself and you may as well get a job and work for someone else.
How are you faring? Are you keeping up appearances while you are growing it to black belt or do you need to face the facts?
Article by Debbie Roberts
