Posts Tagged ‘Inspiration’

This is a real thing that is overlooked with new to the game entrepreneurs. It seems in my experience many fall into this rhythm of neglecting their own salary. When you launch a company, there is this period in which you are giving all you’ve got to the business and taking nothing because it is more important to grow and develop the business and be sure it is fruitful before you begin to pick your piece. But that is that… a period, a moment… if you get your business up and running and thriving, then it is a brief time… You grow and develop and then you get paid.

When you neglect to set these things right in a reasonable time period, it gets to the point where it can get away from you. You can end up working for your business, never having your business work for you.

I ran a business years ago with a partner and we just couldn’t quite get to the level we wanted to be at; we had this idea that if we just kept pouring all the money back into the business, we would get it to grow… Truth was that the business was doing well but not nearly reaching it’s potential. Because we weren’t paying ourselves a wage or salary, we had to continue to keep jobs and work contract labor and have other side hustles to keep money in our pockets. We would get big payouts and pay some bills and then put the rest back into the business. Then we kept our feet moving trying to keep up with other hustles and contract labor here and there. Looking back, we learned that the fact was that we should have left some money in our pockets and not put everything back into the business. We should’ve had a little left in our pockets for us to live…then we would not have needed to hustle for extra cash elsewhere; this would have given us much more time and opportunity to capitalize on the business we had growing and help it to be much more productive. It is an incredibly delicate balance.

I’ve learned a lot from my experiences. This is something that is hard to understand completely by most until you are actually in it. So many have the right idea by focusing on the investment into their business opposed to allowing pride or greed get in the way. Again, there is a balance to this… Although their heart is in the right place, all things in business need be driven with mindful calculations. I say calculations with firm emphasis because although there isn’t an algorithm that you can plug it into, it is very mindful calculations. You must be sure that there is money being put into your business so it can be fueled and grow… but you must be sure to keep something in your pocket to live on. When you keep just enough to live on, then you can invest the rest back into the business. In doing this, you create a freedom in your life and schedule to be able to focus your time and energy on promoting, advertising, and even research to continue growing your business. By putting it all back into your business, you must continue spreading yourself thin by earning living expenses elsewhere which cases the business to suffer.

Hopefully you have found this helpful, so you can get your cash flowing in the necessary directions to keep your business growing and the cash flow moving. This will help you get to the level you desire where you will one day no longer being taking living expenses but a significant salary and one day even invest into new areas. You will then get the financial stability and even more beautiful the financial freedom you deserve to have in your life.

Stay focused… you’ll get there. Get Cocky.

Failure is truly a part of success… With success, comes failure.

Do not allow failure to be a deterrent nor a discouragement. You need not feel any type of way about a failure other than motivated.

Motivation should be significantly boosted by failure. Sometimes these failures can be traced back to things you should have seen and done differently; other times, things can be out of your control. At the end of the day, learn. That’s it… learn. You must learn from failure. Embrace it. Accept it. Learn from it. I have literally owned five businesses that have failed before I began Bayless Enterprises and Bayless Bookkeeping with my wife. We are presently running two successful businesses which is awesome, but again I watched five fail… and that doesn’t even include the multiple that I had friends and colleagues trying to launch. I had multiple people approach me with good ideas and wanted to get some things going. Ultimately things fizzled, and we went our separate ways for one reason or another.

Let’s tackle the concept of ‘Owning Your Failures’. What do I mean by that?

You must take responsibility for your failures. You are responsible… you own them. People tend to want to absolve themselves of the responsibility of shortcomings or failures… This happens in both life and business, and in both it is problematic.

When it comes to your business, you must be in more control… This is your business, your company… You are responsible for all that happens. Too many try to run from this because they don’t want to be responsible for the failures; this is not the path for them… You can’t handle responsibility, you are not meant to be an entrepreneur. You can’t face the potential and sometimes inevitable failure; you aren’t an entrepreneur. Get it together and find a new path.

For those still with me, step up already and take responsibility. All of it falls on you regardless…

View this from the proper perspective; this empowers you to be in control. When you are responsible, you have the power and ability to make changes. With the power to change, you can take the company in new directions. You learn, grow, and make changes.

Do not fear failure; it happens. Own your failures, so you stay in control of your business.

This is your business… your company… be in control… own it… Get Cocky.

Are you truly in this?… or does it just sound like a good idea to be your own boss?

Truth is, of course it sounds good to be your own boss, but sounding good isn’t enough. Being an entrepreneur is not easy; it is a huge undertaking. You must be prepared to give all you’ve got into this. Are you ready for that?

If you’re not absolutely 100 and ready to give it your all, then it is only going to cause you more problems.

Same thing applies when it is a new idea that has been brought to you or one you’ve discovered. No matter how good it may sound, do not get involved unless it is something you truly have a desire to be involved with. You will lack the drive that is needed, and the business or project will ultimately suffer and in turn so will you.

I am an experienced entrepreneur that knows a few things about getting a business off the ground and running a successful business… and I will be the first to tell you that there are so many other experienced business coaches and entrepreneurs out there. Many of them teach similar principles to the ones I teach and many of them would teach you differently. Ultimately it doesn’t matter… what none of them can teach is passion and desire. No one can teach you to be passionate about your work or teach you to have a desire for something… Desire is something that is engrained in who you are… If this isn’t for you, it doesn’t matter how many blogs you read, books you acquire on your shelf or seminars you attend… We can’t teach you to desire your business. Either you do or you don’t.

You got to figure that one out for yourself and be sure you are on the right path. Do not waste time and money chasing the wrong unicorn.

We are all capable of learning so much but not desire… I can’t stress that enough… Know yourself, know your limits, know where you are going and where you should be… Don’t get in over your head in something you don’t want to be doing. There are many people who claim to be entrepreneurs who have yet to accomplish anything and many who call themselves entrepreneurs but don’t really have any passion for it. If it isn’t for you, find what is.

If you are going to be an entrepreneur… I mean a real entrepreneur than you have to commit fully. You’ve got to go all in with all you’ve got.

Again I leave you with two words… Get Cocky.

The great influencer and business teacher, Dan Lok, once said you cannot manage time; you can only manage your priorities. This could not be any truer, yet we don’t often think of it in this manner. We tend to rush around trying to get things done as if somehow it will make a difference that we are moving faster, that somehow there will be enough time…let me tell you, there won’t. Your time is limited. You only have sixty minutes in an hour and only twenty-four hours in the day… you’ve got deadlines and only so many days before you hit them…
The key is not to try to manage the time but to better manage your tasks… You must get a handle on the many things you have to get done. Trust me, it is so easy to lose track of what you are doing when you are trying to get done so much. Or even just get lost in one task for too long. You must manage your tasks and get control of what you need to accomplish.
If you were working for someone and paid an hourly wage, you would have tasks that need to be accomplished at certain times. It would be important to your supervisor that you met these goals on time; if not, there would be consequences.
You need to remember that although you are going to be putting so much more into your business because it is yours, and it needs you, you must keep things in perspective. You need to set goals and deadlines for yourself. You must prioritize the things that you need to get done.
This can seem overwhelming at first because you are growing a business, and everything seems to be important… start by making a list of all the things you feel need to get done this week and then begin labeling them based on the day they should be done. You have to consider their priority level in addition to the other things you want to accomplish in a given day to be most efficient in organizing them by day. Then map out your day; set an allotted amount of time for each given task… and be reasonable. Don’t give yourself too much time as you want to be productive and optimize your time… remember you are managing your tasks not your time. But you don’t want to be stingy with your time when mapping out your schedule because then when you do not accomplish a task in the allotted time, you will not only be discouraged and frustrated but in addition, you are now behind schedule. Getting behind because of your own scheduling error is a bad thing… Things are going to come up and life happens, so inevitably at some point (more than once to be honest) you will fall behind schedule. You don’t want to cause yourself more problems because you are not accurate in your scheduling from the jump.
Get it together and manage your business before it manages you.
And all in all, … two words… Get Cocky.

It is completely reasonable that there are people that would prefer to have a career working for someone opposed to being an entrepreneur… It isn’t the career path for everyone.

Whether working for someone else or not, you should still get your worth. Unfortunately, most people do not. The reality is that most people are paid for their time. This is not an unreasonable thing; it is actually the most commonly accepted form of employment. But it is most definitely not the ideal…especially if you are seeking financial freedom and monetary wealth. You need to not be paid for time but better yet be paid for services… or even better, paid for results.

This is the idea…When you are paid for time, there is only so much time you can put in, and you can do nothing to really change that. You can work hard and get raises and potentially promotions… at the end of the day, you are still limited by the amount of time you actually have… there is still only 24 hours in a day and only 168 hours in a week. How many of those hours can you spare? At some point you must sleep, eat, shower… live your life… Hourly wages is something that limits your potential.

Now, when it comes to being paid for skill, there is a market for said skill… there is a ‘going rate’ for that skill… There somewhat of a standard for what is a reasonable price for this skill which limits you being able to make more that that rate… It may be a great amount of money and you may be more than pleased with it, but you are still being limited by what is accepted to be the norm as well as by the amount of times you can perform this skill in a given week.

So, what you are really looking for is to be paid based on results… of course first you need that high-valued skill… if you have one, you need to market it. If you have yet to really pinpoint yours, get on it… that is your first task is to get that skill down and get it marketed. The principle here is you are aiming to get paid based on your results which means you are only as good as your reputation for said skill. This skill may be turning out a product or a service, but you need to build a reputation for yourself and market yourself in a way as to be paid for your results. When you can produce results that others can not, then you have the power and authority to set the price for said results. This is the sweet spot… That is the place you want to get to.

The reason that so many are not seeking this themselves is that there is a lot of risk involved. In order to develop your skill to that level, market it to the right people in the right way, and acquire the reputation you need to succeed, there is no limit to the amount of work you may have to put in. You may be pulling twelve- or fourteen-hour days or even longer sometimes… you may lose sleep and accept having no free time and no outside life to speak of… This is key to getting there… but once you are there, you will be setting your own hours, time lines, and price points. It will take a lot of work.
Remember, you are trying to offer results that no one else can… and then get paid for those results.

At that point… You have arrived. You’re running the show. There are no limits to your success. You’re in the butter zone now… You’re developing monetary wealth and building something like no one else.

People always want to find a reason… People are also quick to point a finger as to absolve themselves of the blame.

Bottom line… Your business, your fault, your problem. You must take responsibility for your station in life and business. Take action if you’d like it to be different. You can’t lay the blame elsewhere if your business is not the success you’d like it to be or if your bankroll isn’t fat as you wish. Get it there and get yours.

This falls upon you; you’ve got to take the necessary action and get it done. This idea that someone can take your success or ‘take your bag’ (your pay day). There are so many ways to get paid… If you’re not getting paid, you aren’t doing it right. Either you aren’t doing it good enough or you aren’t marketing yourself in the proper manner. Whatever it is, you’ve got to learn, adjust, and make it happen.

Again, it is your business… Your bankroll… This is your success that is in your hands… It falls on you.

This is intimidating to so many. Those who are easily intimidated aren’t meant to be entrepreneurs. They just aren’t built for it. You don’t get intimidated; you rise up, take charge, and get what’s yours.

It truly is that simple. If you feel you can’t handle this kind of pressure, this isn’t for you…time to walk away. You might be more comfortable working a 9-5 for someone else, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to work for yourself, it all rests on you and at the end of the day, there is no one to blame… It is all you, and that is a good thing… That is how it should be.

Let’s keep it real, nobody can take your bag…

Get Cocky

Know where you’re going. Know…

When you venture into a new business journey, you need to know where you are going and what it is you are doing. Every good business has a mission statement… A direction in which it is going… a goal in mind… a purpose.

You have got to have these things locked down.

You know it is vital to have your ducks in a row and know where it’s all going, but what can be overlooked is the confidence level. You have got to be confident in your mission. It can’t just seem like a good idea… or be an idea based on something you’ve seen but you think you can do better… It has to be something you believe in. You’ve got to have that confidence level…you’ve got to KNOW that this is a solid path.

Of course, you can never predict the future and unforeseen circumstances that may come in the way of your flow… but ultimately, you’ve got to believe in what you’re diving into from the jump and go all in without hesitation. You’ve got to give all you’ve got to make it a success or what are you bothering with it for? Fully commit or walk away because there are other ideas and plans out there for you to invest your time, efforts, and money into… Don’t settle into something for the wrong reasons…

Get yours… Get Cocky

It should be obvious if you’ve followed my writing or if you know me at all; I am a fan of hip hop… It truly is a part of who I am… It has been for as long as I can remember. I respect and understand that it may not be for everybody as nothing ever is, but for me, I find it empowering… There is truly something special about it… My Mom raised me with an incredibly wide range of musical influences. I listened to everything from AC/DC to Air Supply, REO Speedwagon to Earth, Wind, & Fire, Michael Jackson & the Jackson 5, Prince, Tone Loc, the Bee Gees, Lauren Hill, Boston, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley, & Chicago… and on top of that, we were raised in a good old fashion Southern Baptist church so we were brought singing right out of old school hymnals. I can tell you honestly that all the music touched me in special ways… Music has always been such a powerful thing in my life. Hip hop has always just had this powerful impact on me… but just like any other genre of music, it’s not all good… sometimes, a song isn’t good… sometimes, an artist isn’t quite the artist people build them up to be… and sometimes even a great artist or lyricist can just put down some bad lyrics… It happens.

In hip hop, there is a lot of ego that gets thrown around all the time… many have this idea of a lifestyle they must live up to in order to fit or compete… There are so many who break that mold and don’t fit in this idea of what the lifestyle is… The reality is it about the music or at least it should be. It should all be driven by something meaningful and then it is what is sustainable, and the money will come.

“I get money,” “I get paid,” and “got stacks on deck” are all phrases that have been spouted again and again… You may be able to drop bars, but are those bars paying in dividends? Are you really getting paid? Do you got stacks on stacks? Are you fronting? Are you playing like your bankin’?

It is one thing to drop bars and spout rhymes about getting cash all day long; it is an entirely different thing to actually get paid.

Jay Z has said it time and again, he ain’t about livin’ rich and dyin’ broke. He is all about financial freedom… That is what we are preachin’ here today. You’ve got to make better choices. You are here reading now because you have ambitions of running your own business and growing something great; be sure you’re doing it wisely. You have your entire life to live the life of luxury when you have made it. When you’re trying to make it, don’t burn through the money coming in on appearing rich and wealthy.

Make wise choices and make it happen. Make it happen and get there and then live that luxury lifestyle.

Ain’t no sense in appearing rich if you ain’t never gonna make it there because of your reckless irresponsible choices today.

Whatever your passion is, make it happen and get there be sure you are properly motivated and going where you want to be going…

At the end of the day… You can sing it… Can you bring it…

Get Cocky