There are as many ways to set your business up to successfully transition, as there are ways it can go off the rails. Is it worth a few hours of your time each quarter to build and develop:
- A growth mindset: What is your ideal outcome? What data do
have to support that? How can you introduce your team to this tool and use it to approach disruption and innovation? - Is your main motive strategic, financial or personal? What do you need to succeed?
- GIVE: Many clients suffer from this, it stands for grandiose, inflated, valuation expectations, and it can send your deal off of the rails.
Recently, The National Center For The Middle Market published an article describing the best practices of efficiency experts- which included recommendations to track progress using a formal growth strategy. these companies get serious about setting goals and desired outcomes.
This type of deep dive into goals, outcomes, priorities and strategizing allows the leadership team to create the space for that 30K’ view. This is the type of prep that allows an organization to be prepared for an unsolicited call, with an unbelievable offer.
A former client, I’ll call her Lisa, recognized that she was down in the weeds of operations, and had lost momentum.
- She felt stuck.
- She was stressed, and so was her partner
. She had trouble sleeping, was distracted and her partner was not at his best either.- She and her partner had decisions to make that would affect their growth trajectory as well as the value of the business. The two came to understand that the fixed mindset they were using left them with only 2 choices- either/or “solutions”, neither of which felt right.
But, when they used a growth mindset, the two found a way to revise their strategic plan. They incorporated design thinking, and discovered other options that they hadn’t mentioned because each assumed the other wouldn’t like, so didn’t bring up. Then, Eureka! They could shift priorities and open another location more quickly while slowing another project to create bandwidth. Both Lisa and her partner felt energized by this solution. It strengthened their partnership. Both were willing to take a chance and be vulnerable to the risk that the other would respond negatively.
Commit to learning how to view your company, its people and purpose through the eyes of the market, investors, potential buyers and your shareholders. Mindset matters!
