It was 3.00 pm on a cold and wet Wednesday afternoon when Jake walked into the bar. The place was quiet apart from the TV on the wall which was tuned to the local sports station. He sat on a stool at the far end and ordered a beer.

Dave, the barman, who was a pretty good judge of people, could sense the anxiety within Jake.

Is your environment really limiting your personal growth?

Over the years I've heard lots of animal stories that reinforce ideas about people and business. They can put both clearly in perspective - even when they're not even true.

The humble goldfish has long been used for this very purpose.

While measuring your results is critical to understanding where your business is and where’s it’s going, I want to touch on another aspect of measurement. The first and only true measure of business success is not what we get from our customers, it’s what our customers get from us. So, we’ve also got to become more professional at understanding how our customers see and measure results.

Thomas Watson, the father of IBM, was once asked how he built his company into the structure it became – because, he said, “I planned that structure from day one”.

Most small businesses, if they have a structure, build it only to suit their current needs. Consequently, a few people are designated to fill all the roles so the structure is defined by the individuals and not by the tasks they do. As this becomes ingrained over time it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to separate the two.

In building a 20/20 Business, a structure that delivers you total control and ultimate freedom, you must first build and secure your core foundations of leadership, team, finance, operations and marketing & sales. You need to drive them deep until they’re resting on solid bedrock.

Unfortunately, most people who start, buy or inherit their own business will end up as an exhausted failure rather than the successful developer of their own “freedom” machine. Most have been struck with an entrepreneurial seizure - there’s the manager who takes redundancy and starts a consultancy business, the labourer who quits to become a contractor or a cook who opens her own restaurant.

What Do You Do?  In many cases, your success will be determined by how accurately you can define what business you’re in. It has to be presented from your customer’s view – they need to know WIIFM (What’s In It For Me!)

We're being bombarded by information, and often at the wrong times!

Distractions like this have a major impact on our ability to manage and grow our businesses. So, here are a couple of ideas to keep you on track.

Have you heard of “Just in Time” manufacturing? Many big businesses (like car makers) operate on this basis – that is, they hold very little stock of anything and work with their suppliers to ensure parts are delivered direct to the production line just in time.

Two factors that dramatically impact our ability to "achieve outcomes" are stress and overwhelm.

Look at the picture above and guess how heavy the glass of water is?

Would it surprise you to know that the absolute weight doesn’t matter? It depends on how long I hold it for. If I hold it for a minute it’s not a problem. Hold it for an hour and my arm will start to ache. Hold it for a day and my arm will feel numb and paralysed.

If you have the mindset for growth, if you understand the psychology of your perfect customer and know exactly what they look like, if you’ve defined what your business does as opposed to what you do in your business, and if you have all your foundation systems in place, then it’s time to go marketing!!

Business Systems and Personal Systems create focus and, far from limiting you, allow you to be more creative!