Are you playing a grown up game of business?

In this week's Video I talk ask whether you're playing a grown up game of business and give you 4 things I think you should be doing in order to be doing just that. Take a listen and let me know if you're doing all 4.

Of course, if you need more help you can:

Check out my 90 minute Double your Business Masterclass HERE:

OR even better, join me in-person for a full-day's workshop in Sydney this month. Details are HERE:

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Transcript

Hey, and welcome to Mel's Money Musings.

Many years ago now, I went to my nephew's very first football game, and to say that it was hilarious was an understatement. First of all, it was like a giant beehive falling around after the ball. Second, no one kept score. And third, not everyone, not every kid was playing. Some were quite literally sniffing flowers. Some were doing handstands. Some were just trying to get a goal. They didn't care if it was their goal or the other side's goal, they just wanted to kick the ball into the net. And I remember standing there, I turned up late and I said to one of the women on one side of me, so do you know the score? And she went, oh, no, no, no, no. We don't keep score here. And then a gentleman on the other side leaned in and said, it's five, one.

And the reason I tell this story, and I often do when I'm talking about businesses and money, is because there is always someone keeping school. That's number one. But two, chances are you are playing kind of a childish game of business. And I say that lovingly because I've been there before. And what's cute in kids isn't as cute in adults. You know, if I was gonna watch the Matildas play this weekend or Manchester United, I don't want them to see them playing with sniffing flowers and doing handstands unless it's after they've just scored a goal. Instead, I wanna see amazing athletes doing what they do best. And in your businesses, as I said, so many of you, and I say this with love and care, are playing a childish game of business because you are focusing on what you do and you are hoping that that's gonna be enough for you to be successful in business.

And you know what? It can for a season. It also can when times are really good, it can be easy. However, when it's uncertain, when it's harder, when people are starting to tighten their belt, that's when you start to need to play a grownup game of business. And I wanna give you a few tips here as to what you might wanna consider doing.

So the first thing is to consider the difference between activity and versus results. Now, whether it's your job, whether it is your business, it is so easy to be busy, but are you busy doing the right things? Because we can all be in our inbox all day, we could all be playing on social media all day. Is that going to be the thing that will give you the results that you want? In the same way that it's easy to put out fires all day, but again, we wanna look at the urgent, but we also wanna look at the important. And the important is what results do I want? What goals have I set for myself? And if you haven't, then that's really the first step, right? So what activities should you be doing for the results that you want? If you don't know what that is, then it's about understanding, well, if I wanna grow my business, what activity should I be doing? And no, it's not just spending thousands of dollars on marketing.

The second one is to understand the numbers side of your business. You know, when I used to play state league netball I was a goal defence and I had so many stats that I had to be aware of. How many deflections would I make what was the goal attack and the goal shooter scoring percentages and so much more. And those numbers would tell me whether I had a great game or not, regardless of whether we won or lost. And it's the same for your business. You would have numbers that you should be looking at and they might be different depending on whether you're a new business, whether you have existed for 20 years, whether you wanna grow quickly and so much more.

Some of those examples of numbers might be leads, conversion rate, retention rate, average sale value, number of times someone does business with you, Net profit, gross profit cash flow cycle and more. If you don't know what some of those numbers are, then it's time to learn them because as I said, business is a skill and it's about figuring out what the numbers are in your business that you should be following, and then what activity do you need to be doing to influence those numbers.

The third thing is to understand the game you are playing, to understand what the field looks like, because some of you might be on a netball court as far as your business concerned when you're should be on a football field. So it's looking at the game that you are playing and saying, am I trying to put in strategies in place that actually aren't right for the conditions and the type of business that I wanna run? Am I trying to run an old school business when actually I'm digital and I should just be rejecting a whole lot of things that just simply aren't right for me? But if you don't understand the rules or the type of game you're playing or even the conditions, you know, the economic conditions, what's worked for you up till now might not be working for you anymore. And that's because you need to be aware of the conditions that you're playing under. These are all really important things to understand.

And finally, just like when I watch my nephew, it's important to understand someone is always keeping score and you need to as well. So it's keeping an eye on and looking at it regularly, what's my cash in the bank? Like, what's my net profit? What's my gross profit? What's my sales? Yes, I wanna look at other numbers as well that are leading into those. But it's also important to understand the big numbers. Understanding though that just like a score, they tell the story of a certain moment in time, they don't tell the story of how you got there. That's what those other numbers that I mentioned earlier are all about. They're the activity numbers, things like sales, et cetera, are your results. That's your final score.

So hopefully this has given you some inspiration to go and play a grown up game of business. If you need more help, I have a $49 business masterclass and a $49 pricing masterclass. In that business masterclass, it's all about how to double your business in 12 months. Over 90 minutes, I'm gonna unpack a lot of what I talked about here. So that's a beautiful place to start.

However, what I want to suggest is that you come and spend a whole day with me in my How to Double My Business in 12 months workshop. You are gonna be with 60 other and we are capping it at that incredible business women. And you'll walk out of that day with a strategy for how to double your business in 12 months. Plus you get to pick my brain and Lawsie's brain for that period of time. And I'm probably gonna organise a media and PR person there to come on the day as well. Just for that little bit of extra I'm always gonna throw in extra for you. The cost of that day is $495. And if you wanna bring your 2IC or business partner or other, they only will pay half price. But my exaltation to you if you like, is to choose to play a grownup game of business. It is so freaking possible. I don't care if you are creative, I don't care if you're someone who never excelled at math, failed at math, you don't need to be at math. Some of the most successful business owners I know are the most creative and they love this. Cause once they realise that they can apply their creative brain to this side of their business, that's when their business really flies.