Business growth coach will most certainly suggest and advise that before anyone commence business venture it would be beneficial and wise to formulate business expectations. Your business coach may call it performance and expectancy agreement (PEA) between you and your business. I know you’ll say there is no such thing as PEA and why on this earth you may need it but stay with me and I’ll try to explain why this may be the critical success factor, denominator. Also, we will prove that it may actually mean difference between winning and loosing in life and business. It may be actually logical extension of your thinking and the well rounded concept for you to work with.

Let’s start with your beliefs and results that you expect from the business you have just started. Let’s get closer to the main idea around your business. You’ve probably dreamed about it a lot, you devised strategies, planned and set goals, but have you put it writing

What is it that you expect from your business?

Why is that important to you? What is it that business has to provide you and your significant others in return? What is the time span that you are willing to devote to make it happen? What are the rewards?

You see there are lot of untold and unexplained stories in the background…you need to know, trust me on this, what End looks like and how does going towards your vision or “End”, look like. In other words what is the outcome and what are the means.

Start strong while formulating Business Vision and Purpose

Getting clarity around the Purpose steams from True Priorities and once they are established and confirmed you are free to make decisions based on what you are passionate about, what matters to you and what makes you feel good.

You see “I believe that my business exists to serve me and to enhance the lives of my family and myself. While its purpose is to serve others and make meaningful difference in the world we live in, we have to benefit from it as well. Business must support, nurture, take care of me & my family. We work to live, not the other way around. ”

Too many business owners fall into a trap. And it happens all too soon. They start a company and get into a routine (you might even call it a rut.) The passion that fired them up in the first place, their families and their own needs all get shoved aside “for the sake of the business.”

Don’t let this happen to you. Resolve to avoid it. If it has already happened, resolve to change it. Everything that your business may become as a result of your actions depends on this one idea.

Every business has stakeholders, people and businesses affected directly or indirectly: owners, employees, lenders, suppliers, the community… the list goes on. If business is operated responsibly, all stakeholders benefit. If the idea “your business should serve you” sends up a red flag for you, know this: Doing right by others and benefiting from your business are not mutually exclusive outcomes. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The more you benefit your stakeholders, the more successful your business will be.

Business game is not the ZERO SUM Game.

You don’t necessarily need to lose for me to win it. You can win and I can win too, with you or independently.

Now let me tell you what is expected from You

3 things you must preserve, combine and utilise to the maximum

There will be demands for your time. You will make choices and decisions based on your priorities. Paint the picture and feelings in the following statements

• “I’d like to be out meeting new prospective customers but this order has to go out.”
• “My spouse is going to be upset that I’m working late again, but I just can’t get caught up.” “Yes, business planning is important but how do I find the time?”
• “My staff just can’t do things as well as I can, so I have to do it myself.”

Then there are demands for money. Visualise these statements:

• “I pay my employees more than I make because the company can’t afford to pay me more.”
• “I wish I could put money into retirement funds or into savings for my kids’ education, but cash flow just doesn’t allow it.”
• “I sacrifice my income for now so the company can be financially healthy.”

Finally people will demand your brainpower, your opinions, thinking… The higher you go the more it will be valued, required, disturbed… Truly this is the only one that we can fully control, and more importantly one with the greatest impact.

The truth is that you need to learn to connect the dots, to assign responsibilities, determine true from fake priorities, and to do so while managing operations and personal commitments. If you can’t do it now when things are relatively small and easily controllable how can you plan to do it 3 years from now…

Let us go back to our conversation and my question to you

Are You ready to sign the agreement with your business?

Why this business in the first place?

Why NOW? Why You and others should care?

You’re not in business for the sake of being in business. You’re not in business with the single-minded goal of keeping your business afloat, to keep going till it is necessary, regardless of the impact on you and your family. There must be light at the end of the tunnel. End comes in first, then you decide to go for it.

 Your business should serve you – not the other way around. If you set the rules, play by them.

This isn’t just a slogan. You have to believe it. You have to live it. This advice is simple, self-explanatory and unbelievably easy to violate.

Your business is a tool for enhancing your life. Your business doesn’t exist for its own sake. It exists for your sake. Yes, it satisfies your passion but at the end of the day it has to pay the bills, enhance community, provide for growth, safeguard retirement, etc.

“I believe that my business exists to serve others, enhance their position and provide me with satisfaction and motivation to continue to enhance lives of my family and myself. “

Can you honestly make this statement?