Laser-Focused On Making Money During Uncertain Times.

But Could It Be Killing Your Business?

In our world of uncharted waters, many business owners are focused on survival. Tanking revenues. Lost employees. Limited funding options — these are the new realities of a pandemic impacted existence.  

Unfortunately, many us find ourselves caught up in a never-ending hamster wheel of trying to make more money.  This has caused us to place time, significance, and other aspects of our humanity on the back burner. 

For some perspective on all of this, I reached out to Denver area business guru Chuck Blakeman, author of the groundbreaking book Making Money is Killing Your Business: How To Build a Business You Love and Have a Life, Too.

In it, he debunks the notion that the primary reason for starting a business is to make money. Rather, he champions the view that entrepreneurship is about building a business that happens to make money. A true business, he says, is one where the revenues of an enterprise align with our freedom to create fun, meaning, and significance in the world.

Crowned the No.1 Business Book of the Year by the National Federation of Independent Business, Blakeman’s second edition skillfully builds upon the rich nectar of insights contained in the inaugural book. 

In it, he makes no qualms about the fact that his principles are informed by his own first-hand stumbles and mistakes as a business owner. This allows Blackman to deliver with deep wisdom and flair a highly accessible guide of practical insights designed to help owners achieve a state he affectionately calls “Business Maturity.” 

One of the more intriguing themes he explores that has great relevance for the times we’re presently in very appropriate is a concept he calls Dual Tracking. This, he says, involves figuring out how to effectively balance the “Urgent” demands we face as business owners (making money to pay bills) along with the “Important” (building a business to maturity). His book offers a number of practical systems to help make this a reality for today’s business owner. 

Years ago in a presentation of Blakeman’s, he said something that I immediately recorded in my journal: 

 “Intentionality means you commit to the very few actions that will get you where you want to go, and voila!—clarity and details. If you’re not actively doing those few things, you are not intentional,  and are just playing office.” 

In chatting with Blakeman recently on LinkedIn, he noted that the COVID-19 crisis has made some of the lessons he’s championed over the years even more important for business owners. 

Says Blackman: 

First, we need to understand we're all startups again. Don't put the brakes on. Economies are roller coasters, and we just went over the top and are racing down. Don't resist it. Accelerate. Figure out how to use the energy coming at you for your own benefit. Remember what it was like to be a startup? 

He encourages us to think back to when we started our business when we weren’t sure of anything – our product or service, our market, our price, our future prospects.  And yet we were excited. Expanding upon this point, he exhorts: 

Mourn where you came from, then get excited about using all this uncertainty to build something great again. Businesses that hunker down will lose to those that use the situation to accelerate as we come out the other side. 

Blakeman believes that the basics have never been more important than right now. 

“We get away with a lot of wasted energy in unhelpful directions when the economy is good. But as Warren Buffet said in 2009, “In a recession, you find out who’s swimming without a bathing suit.” 

He says this is an optimal time for businesses to get their house in order by pivoting, focusing, refining processes, and most of all, figure out how to stay in front of customers in a way that fuels their desire to want to hear from you. 

Finally, he says that as a business owner, you should be too busy with important things to have Netflix as your point of attention. 

“You should be a lot busier than you were when the economy was roaring. My advice is to ride that roller coaster down as fast as you can so you have a ton of momentum coming out the other side.” 

Asked for a concluding thought, Blakeman had this to offer: 

“Making Money is Killing Your Business is a great book for re-invigorating your steely-eyed focus on the basics. I encourage you to be ambitiously lazy and to keep your mojo going so you can continue to build a business that works for you, even when you’re not there. Keep going!”