Negocios Now

www.negociosnow.com 8 Octubre 2020 NegociosNow NegociosNow F or the business owner, succeeding, struggling, or failing in business is all part of the same journey. Everything that happens is data to be used for better execu- tion, better decisions, better- run systems, and, ultimately, a better life for everyone involved in the company. COVID, then, isn't exactly a blessing—but it does provide us with a learning opportunity. COVID has brought certain challenges to the business owner. Primarily, at least at first, the resiliency of our busi- nesses has been challenged. Our supply chains have been affected due to shut downs in various parts of the USA and across the world. Our physical infrastructure has been tested: is it safe, and effective, to have Nicholas DELGADO A MINDFUL APPROACH TO GROWING YOUR BUSINESS the bulk of our employees work from home? Do our digital sys- tems hold up, or did we need to invest in new ones? We've benefitted from the work we put in to create resilient sys- tems—or, we struggled—and that data point is forcing us to put in more resilient systems now. Either way, we learned what we did that worked, and didn't, and we grew. I'm often asked where a busi- ness owner should focus during COVID. For myself, there are two main areas. They are: 1. The Valuation Pay Line a. On any business, its valuation is ultimately driven by what I refer to as the "Pay Line" I. Profitability II. Opportunity III. Defensibility IV. Predictability V. Transferability; and 2. Meditation and Mindfulness. I'm focusing on these two things during COVID for very specific reasons. One, there are a lot of spider-webs that go into each element of the Pay Line, but if we start, and work bac- kward from, the Pay Line—we know that our efforts on any part of the ensuing tasks will be focused toward goals that are measurable and ultimately, valuable. Secondly, I focus on medita- tion and mindfulness because it's been my experience that the decisions I make with a calm mind, and the decisions I make with an active mind lead to very different ramifications in busi- ness. Calm minds are better. Calm minds, literally, use more of the brain. My recommendation, then, is to focus on the Pay Line intently, while giving those ideas time to breathe in the subconscious as well. Focusing on calming the brain before we make decisions allows us clari- ty of strategy, and the freedom of our own models. It's there, ultimately, that we make exce- llent decisions. Remember, in our own businesses, our own modeling, our own strategies, got us here—and sometimes, as businesses grow, change, par- ticularly in times of crisis like a pandemic, the very thinking that made us successful can be short-circuited by a new envi- ronment. To ensure our best, not worst, instincts, to quote the former Chicago Cubs coach Joe Maddon, seek "thinking time." Once a strategy is clear, after enough thinking time, my recommendation is to execute backwards. Where do we want to end up? Backtrack it, step by step, from the Pay Line to here. If the smaller steps aren't clear, just think in big steps at first. If it's a ten year plan with only 3 steps in it, I say, good place to start. The rest fill in with action, and more information. And once that strategy is cho- sen, we will need to invest in it. It will always cost something in time or money (or both) to exe- cute something new. New tools, likely, help. There are future oriented communication tools, CRM tools, etc that are almost necessary now to implement any given new initiative. This is a good time to have someone on your team learn these tools, they will be used over and over again in the coming years. Finally, and I leave this one for last because it's the most important, I would focus, in the middle of a pandemic, only on things we can control. There is a lot we don't. We don't, for instance, con- trol the government response to this, and we have very little control over whether our staff gets sick. It's good to be aware, but we can't execute on what we fear and don't control. So, (and meditation helps with this), just let that go. It's tempting to think we're doing something if we struggle, if we hope, if we energize our unhappiness with a situation—but the truth of the matter is, if there's nothing we can do now, there's nothing we will be able to do after stressing about the situation for months on end, either. The business goes where the energy goes. For me, and if you're asking for my advice, for you—there are two main places that it always, always, pays for energy to go: 1. The Valuation Payline 2. Your meditation/thinking practice to ensure calm, excellent decisions.

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