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Surviving to Thriving: Taking Control of Your Business and Your Life

Jun 19, 2018 by David Branch 0 Comments




surviving to thriving taking control of your business and your life blogDo you wish you had more money, fewer employee issues, and the freedom to be able to go home at the end of the day without thinking about problems? 

Wow! Just the idea of that sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, many business owners are in tremendous debt and feel like their businesses are squeezing the life out of them. That’s how I used to feel, but I discovered that the business will provide excess cash, a peaceful work environment and personal freedom when a business is healthy and functioning as it should.

The BIG question is how do you do it? 

How do you eliminate the struggle of your bills exceeding your bank account and replace it with a cash surplus?  How do you eliminate employee drama and replace it with peace and loyal relationships? And how do you leave work at work, so you can be fully engaged at home?

One word: culture!  Over the past few years, it seems that culture has become overused and even cliché.  The truth is, the good and bad of a business stem from the culture of the company, and are simply a reflection of the business owner’s values blended with what he or she is willing to tolerate. 

For the first 15 years of owning my business, I created a dysfunctional culture because what I believed and what I actually did were not in alignment. This caused confusion within myself and among my team and resulted in a flawed and broken company. We were turning a lot of money, but I was still cash strapped and paid most of my bills late. I was in a constant battle to motivate my employees to show up on time, stop the drama and quit wasting time and materials.  And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't turn it off at night.  I was losing sleep and it was wearing hard on my marriage. My broken company was slowly killing me and everyone around it! 

The Great Game of Business CommunityMy business and life were out of control and I didn't even know who I was anymore.  I had to begin with asking myself a big question: How do I want to be remembered by those closest to me?  Now, that’s deep, but it’s so crucially important because we don't really know how to live until we know how we want to be remembered.

Whether your business is struggling or thriving, it can always be better.  It simply takes a small shift in mindset to make a huge difference, and that is what I love so much about The Great Game of Business® and open-book management.  It’s that mindset and heart of transparency and vulnerability that comes with “opening the books” that creates a trusting culture which is the foundation to building and maintaining a winning team! 

Like everyone, we all have our share of struggles.  The good thing is that most of the answers to our issues are already in us. Often, a few simple questions can be enough to stir us into action and get us back on the road of being intentional with our time and efforts.  Think about your business and consider these five questions: 

  • How many hours do I work at each week?
  • What is right about my business?
  • What frustrates me most about my business 
  • Why do my employees CHOOSE to work for my company? (They do have a choice!) 
  • With the current cash available, how long could my business operate without any income?

 


 

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Topics: Company Culture

David Branch
Written by David Branch

David is the President and CEO of Branch Solutions Group, a business and leadership training company. His perspective as a business coach and teacher stem from his 24 years of “in the trenches” experience as the owner of a construction company and an environmental remediation company. Being fully engaged in the daily functions of these businesses, David knows first-hand the daily struggles business owners face. David will share how he used open book leadership to become completely debt free and take his business from surviving to thriving.

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About The Great Game of Business

Our approach to running a company was developed to help close one of the biggest gaps in business: the gap between managers and employees. We call our open-book approach The Great Game of Business. What lies at the heart of The Game is a very simple proposition: The best, most efficient, most profitable way to operate a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in saying how the company is run and a stake in the outcome. Let us teach you how to develop a culture of ownership, where employees think, act and feel like owners.