Business transformation follows the three B’s of business: breakdown, breakthrough, and breakout. And they happen in this order. If your business hasn’t deliberately gone through all three of these stages in recent years, it may mean you are operating in a vacuum, which is a business mistake to avoid.
How to recognize the three B’s of Business
We all hit a roadblock somewhere in our operation, no matter what type of business we have or how much revenue we generate. That’s when we realize something in our business, or in our leadership, needs to change or be improved. Sometimes we can make micro adjustments, but I have found when something is not working well it’s best to break it down completely. Why make small tweaks when you can fix it entirely?
Evaluate all your options. This is when you need external influence and objective feedback. To achieve quantum leaps, this part requires you to step out of your vacuum and switch up your routine. Studies show that we like to hang out with people who agree with us or share our viewpoints. We often look for employees who are just like us, and judge an outcome or a process based on our own expectations.
Operating in a vacuum doesn’t give you much exposure to viewpoints that are contradictory to yours.
Who likes to be challenged? Meaning, most of us get back to doing it the way we always have. Solving it the way we always do. Asking the same people we always ask. We don’t alter our skill sets and we return right back to our vacuum.
Breakthroughs are challenging
A breakthrough is uncomfortable. Because our trickster brain tells us that change means we have been doing it wrong until now. Even when it is clear we have a problem, it still whispers all kinds of misinformation into our ear. We want to feel good, so we readily believe that little voice who says what we identified as needing improvement is not really so bad. It’s maybe even manageable and probably doesn’t require a massive change. Back to operating in our vacuums.
This past February when I had a major breakdown in my business, I looked hard at what wasn’t working and realized I needed to tear apart the entire business model and put it back together differently. Big sigh.
It meant paying someone a lot of money for a very short amount of time. It also meant a lot of expenses because I had to touch every word on my website, create new websites, update my design, branding, colors, copy, courses and programs to initiate that breakthrough. Six months of intense work. There is literally nothing in my business that wasn’t affected by it. It was exhausting. Here’s an article about someone else who had to start over and his 15 tips for making it happen.
Finally, the last and most fun step of change is the breakout.
After you’ve done the work, created the new everything, and chased the opportunities, it’s time to breathe and shift from doing to receiving.
Personally, I feel that’s where I am at. I’ve done the work, been networking like crazy, and now it’s time to receive the fruits of our hard labor. Perhaps you are right there with me.
Operating in a vacuum stifles business
If you are still not sure, let me use the example of how kids grow up. We know that when we stimulate them and engage them, kids respond better and learn faster. Children who are read to are able to learn to read faster and their vocabularies are more extensive.
We understand that school children’s brains are ready for more and as they progress from one grade level to the next each year and the difficulty of the subjects they study becomes progressively more complex.
If we know that mastery comes through ongoing education, then why as business owners are we not continuing learning new skills?
Be a grown up business owner
Just like we understand skill set mastery for our children is progress, we want to look at our businesses the same way. As we start planning for 2018, make a point of putting some funds into continuing education and learning.
To find out if my ideas can support you with growing, building and scaling your business please go here.
Beate Chelette is The Growth Architect and a results-oriented businesswoman with an entrepreneurial spirit and a proven track record in growing, building and scaling women’s businesses. Once $135,000 in debt and a single mother, she successfully sold her business to a global entertainment media company owned by Bill Gates in a multi-million dollar deal.
Through her online courses, one-on-one training programs and live speaking events, she mentors women entrepreneurs with her 5 Star Success Blueprint, developed with the knowledge gleaned from her growing, scaling and selling her own company. Beate has a deep commitment to supporting women.
She is the creator of The Women’s Code, the fourth step of Growth Architecture that is focused on Supporting Balanced Leadership. Her proprietary methods specifically address women’s obstacles and she leads from experience, having survived in business in a highly competitive male-dominated environment.
She is a respected speaker and mentor and is the author of the book “Happy Woman Happy World How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome”, a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.”
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