2012 July

Mark Sanborn Interview

A couple of weeks ago, I asked you, the ChrisLoCurto.com reader, to leave comments with your questions for Mark Sanborn to answer during the EntreLeadership Podcast. Well, he did.

If you can’t see the graphic, click here.

I was blown away with how many incredible questions you guys left. We weren’t able to get to them all. However, next Tuesday will be the extended interview just for you the ChrisLoCurto.com reader. In that episode, we continued answering your questions. Be sure to listen to both to see if I mentioned YOU.

When Should You Buy Property?

Here is a great question that came in to me from the blog:

I am a small business owner and currently employ 1 full time worker and my wife. We opened in 2008 with 4k and lots of prayer, we’ve had several bumps in the road but nothing that would be considered a “stupid” mistake, praise the Lord. We currently rent a portion of the building, the business is growing every year.

I feel like we are starting to outgrow our current location, at what point should/could we start to look at investing in commercial property?

Thanks again for all you do! God Bless.

It’s a fantastic question, with not a lot of details to go on. So I can’t really answer you specifically, but I can generally. Buying commercial property is a BIG decision. And I dare say, way to many businesses jump at the idea because it seems so cool to be able to own your own place.

And yes, there are a billion people who would argue that it’s a smart investment. I’m gonna tell you that it’s just like buying a house. I prefer that if you’re going to buy a place, that you do it for cash. Hold on opposing view commenters, keep reading first.

I think you should run your business debt free. That meeeeeeans completely! Business is tough. Leveraging yourself just makes it that much tougher. And for all of the people who just said, “psshhh…you can’t run a business debt free!” You are incorrect. Read Can You Run A Business Debt Free?

When you decide to purchase a building with debt, you’ve now added that “fixed” expense to your P & L, that will still be there even if you have to close the doors. Now you have a payment that you HAVE to make no matter what. Instead, rent as long as you possibly can, and save the money for the purchase.

If you don’t have the money, and you’re outgrowing your current space, then start by budgeting out the next five years. How big do you project to be five years from now? How much in sales? How many team members? How much storage space will you need?

When you know what that looks like, now you can start looking for a place that will fit you now, and allow for growth. This will also allow you to put a ton of cash away for a potential purchase five years from now. Now you have a plan for growth and ownership.

So many people tell me that they can grow so much faster if they just go into debt. Sometimes you can. But what ends up happening, is you shackle yourself as you grow because you’re still heavily in debt. And I know we’ve never had a downturn in our economy here, so we really don’t need to worry about business suffering…right?

Question: What are your thoughts on the right time to buy commercial property?

Pitfalls Every Leader Must Avoid

Here’s a great post by Scott Kerzner. You can follow Scott’s blog, In Due Season, or on Twitter. You can guest post as well! Read how to here.

Lord knows that we all make plenty of mistakes. I know I have. The trick is to learn from them, move forward and avoid repeating the same goof-ups! Additionally, learning from the missteps of others can save us a great deal of time and pain, too. So in that spirit, here is the list of some of the mistakes I made as a leader, so you can learn the lessons without feeling the burn.

• Worrying About What Others Think - A decision should always be made after discussing what everyone on the team thinks, but never made based on what the team thinks of you. Getting input from the entire team is crucial.  A team isn’t working successfully if it isn’t working towards a common goal. However, people will occasionally disagree or be unhappy with an outcome. Don’t be influenced by fear of disapproval!

• Ignoring Disputes Among Team Members - When two people on your team have a disagreement, it needs to be addressed right away. If not, it leaves the rest of the team in an uncomfortable position. They’ll then try to avoid situations where they are around both parties at the same time. Unresolved conflict promotes division. It’s awkward for team members and customers, and reduces productivity.

• Sanctioned Incompetence - Sanctioned incompetence is when  a leader allows a team member to operate at a lower standard than everyone else. If the problem is not corrected, it creates animosity and failure to thrive.

Can you change your personality? No. But you must work hard to fix weaknesses that will impair your leadership  or stifle the team’s success. Strong leaders improve themselves. Otherwise, they can’t improve those they lead.

As a leader, what weaknesses do you need to work on?

What Would You Like?

Today’s post is simple. I would like to know the top three people you would like me to interview on the EntreLeadership Podcast.

Please answer in the comment section.

Should You Give Your Product Away?

Recently, I asked you, my readers, to send me questions for the upcoming EntreLeadership Podcast with author Mark Sanborn. And let me say, you blew me away.

I was totally amazed with the quality of the questions asked. I was equally impressed with the amount of questions received. There were too many for both the podcast interview and the extended interview for ChrisLoCurto.com readers.

So I wanted to include one of them here today:

The answer to that question Bret is absolutely yes! But it must be done intentionally. Here are a few things to think about.

• Plan it- If you’re going to go to the effort of giving away your hard work, you have to be sure that you know exactly what you’re going to do with your shiny new customers. When we launched  Andres Gutierrez with the Hispanic version of Financial Peace University, we:
  • Promoted on a local radio station that we were holding a free six-week version of the class for anyone who wanted to attend.
  • Held the program in its entirety, with a discussion group at the end of each lesson to see exactly how each attendee felt about the class.
  • Compiled all of the data and then shot video testimonies of each attendee, including planned-out questions specific to their individual situations.
• Prepare it - Once you have all of this info, don’t let it sit around waiting to be used. Do whatever edits and preparation necessary to get it ready. Otherwise, it will become useless.

• Promote it - Use every possible channel you can think of to get the word out. This doesn’t need to be expensive, just thought through. Use all of the social media platforms! (Except Google+ because nobody really knows what that’s for.) Check out Michael Hyatt’s Platform for the best plan of attack. Make sure that word-of-mouth is happening with your new found tribe.

Too many times I watch companies give away their product for promotion, and they don’t have a plan. The more intentional you are, the more productive you will be in the long run. Click to Tweet

Question: What are your thoughts on giving away product?