Are You Admiring the Problem?

I was recently in a collaborative conversation with a fellow entrepreneur, and he said, “well, you can choose to sit back and continue to admire this problem or focus your sights on fixing it.”

Point taken! What an eloquent way of noting what I was doing. Do you catch yourself doing this too? Getting so focused on detailing the issue and all that’s wrong that you have switched out of problem-solving mode and into problem-admiration mode.

I dare say there is a third option when we are confronted with problems or challenges and that is ignoring them. As humans with a strong negativity bias, it makes perfect sense that we do this.

Probably the most common place I find this is in business finance. The reason is that most business owners do not start a business with a fire in their belly for finance. They start because they are good at a trade, craft or service. They can make amazing ad campaigns, move your house without scratching a thing, or write watertight contracts. So they are least adept at solving business finance problems, so they are most likely to be admired or ignored.

But the truth is that by becoming a business leader it is your duty and responsibility to also become savvy in business finance. The two are inseparable. Yes, you can outsource it, but you still must understand the basics to be an effective leader.

Here are some problems I have seen business leaders admire lately:

-        Our costs are getting so high! I don’t know if we will make money this year.

-        My accounting software is such a mess.

-        Our controller/bookkeeper/CFO just left and so we can’t generate timely or accurate financials right now.

-        We don’t have time, we are too busy working in the business.

-        It’s so frustrating, every time I speak with our CPA we get answers we don’t understand.

So how can you turn those around from admiring statements to action statements? Let’s try this:

-        Due to rising costs, we need to understand our prices and profit margins so that we can make money this year.

-        It’s time to dedicate some resources to cleaning up our accounting software so we can have timely and accurate financials.

-        Our bookkeeper left, but as a business leader I’ve been able to pull reports anyway, because I know enough to get by until we hire a new one.

-        We have limited time, so we have developed a few key metrics to look at monthly to measure the financial health of our business.

-        Our CPA seemed to always be speaking a different language, but we finally learned how to communicate with them so that we are on the same page.

Whether you’re dealing with a business finance challenge or any other type of problem, let this be your wake-up call to stop admiring or ignoring it and move into solving mode. We give you all the tools in clear and simple English in our book and online course to start today. Or check to see if a live cohort will work for you!