Читать книгу Find. Build. Sell. - Stephen J. Hunt - Страница 16

You may not want to own a pub, but you can learn a lot of lessons from someone like me who has. Why? Because I live in the real world of business. I live in a world where my business lives and dies by the sword of selling a service at a profit that sustains me, my staff and my investors. If I don't sell something, to someone, today and every day, I fail. It's as simple as that. Unlike those in the tech sector and start-up land (and good luck to them, by the way), I don't have the luxury of telling investors, ‘Invest in this obscure, untested, untried software that one day, somehow, will make you an absolute fortune. We don't have any sales, customers, traction, history or profit yet, but trust me, one day, we will!'

No. That's not the world I live in, and chances are, it's not the world you live in either. You're a small-business owner, working hard to chase your dream and turn your idea into a profitable enterprise. You get up early, stay back late, work like crazy in between, get home, say ‘hi' to your family, collapse and then get up and do it all again the next day. In short, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed and you want to do things differently.

You want to enjoy what you do, grow the business without going into debt, make it more profitable, do more with less and get smarter about the way you manage yourself, your team, your energy, your time and your money. You want to attract more, better customers who can afford what you offer: who love what you do and aren't afraid to tell the world about it.

You don't want to be a billionaire, or maybe even a millionaire. You just want to have a thriving business that lets you do what you want to do, that pays you for a job well done; you want a business that runs without needing you to do everything; that has systems and procedures in place that ensure you know what's going on even when you're not there; that runs like clockwork so you can get on with working on the business, instead of in the business; that lets you get back to being with your family, taking a holiday now and then and sleeping soundly at night — without waking at 3 am worrying about cash flow, deal flow or work flow.