Any business workshop, book, or motivational speaker will tell you a ‘fast-forward’ story. The most popular stories are, usually in this order: Apple, Google and Facebook. Here is how they typically go: a couple of boys in a garage. Some details about the start-up phase, some hints at the lack of money and some personal tensions. Then it cuts it short to: ‘fast-forward to year xxxx and XYZ is now a multi-billion dollar business.’
Wait a minute. We cannot fast-forward in our businesses. Nor did Apple. Nor should we want to, because that happens to be our life. The in-between is where we live every day. Let’s slow-forward through every step and land in the middle. Between the garage and the multi-billion offices there were years and years of low revenue, some losses, some small gains. That is the reality that all the entrepreneurs we work with face today. There is no fast-forward.
And not all of us will make it to our own skyscraper and that is ok. We know that because 99% of businesses, at least in the UK, are small and medium sized businesses.
If you are out of the garage but not yet in your own skyscraper, how should you manage your limited resources? What if every step you make feels sometimes like you go forward and too many times like you go backward? We are missing the slow-forward stories. Chances are they are full of painful and inhumane effort, making it through dry cash spells and surviving recessions. But also they are about the joys of winning that unlikely big deal and ending up with a happy team, who is proud to have kept the boat afloat against the odds.
If you have made anywhere between half a million and one million in revenue in professional services by whatever age you may be at, and you provide employment to quite a few people, be very proud. Join the club of 79,145 other similar businesses in London alone. Collectively, you are making the economy stronger and provide so much needed employment.
If you fit the above description, we would like to hear your story and invite you to complete our survey. Please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/86P57FX. If you want to know more about the survey, please go to http://profitableinsights.co.uk/where-to-start/