The Owner’s Mindset

Part C: Prepare the Business to Launch

Knowing what you don’t want is halfway to getting exactly that.

I used to hear that sentence as encouragement. I now hear it as a warning, because it is literally true. Your mind quietly drops the words “don’t” and “won’t.” Say “I don’t want to be like my old boss” often enough and watch how many people become the spitting image of theirs. Tell someone not to think of a blue car and ask what they see. The business version is the owner who says “I don’t want to be a one-man shop forever” and is still one ten years later, because that was never a destination, only something to leave.

The first lesson in this track said the business becomes a reflection of the owner’s dream and mindset. This lesson is about that mindset, in plain language, because it decides more than any plan does.

Know what you want, in detail

Does a chef grab whatever ingredients are lying around and hope it turns out edible? Does a lawyer walk into court hoping the conversation goes his way? You would never get in a car without knowing where you want to end up. Yet a lot of owners walk into a sales call, a vendor negotiation or a hiring conversation with no clear picture of what they want out of it.

Decide the outcome before the conversation. What do you want from this customer meeting: the sale, the referral, the review, the second job? What do you want this business to look like in three years: how many people, what revenue at minimum, how many hours you work in it? State it in as much detail as you can and make it a minimum, not a wish. Then think about what comes with it. A childhood friend of mine wanted to be a famous musician and got exactly that, and with it came months on a bus away from his family and a lasting distrust of whether anyone wanted to know him for himself. He had not asked about what came attached. Neither do most owners.

Moving toward, or moving away

Here is a distinction that explains a great deal of what you see in other owners and in yourself. People are either moving toward something or moving away from something. Logic says moving away from one thing is automatically moving toward another, but that is not how it plays out. People who move away stop as soon as they reach comfort, and comfort is not what most of them wanted. People who move toward something do not stop until they reach it.

Fear is a fine engine for starting. Fear of the paycheck ending, of the boss, of being stuck. It gets people to open the doors. But if fear stays the driver, the business stalls the moment the fear eases, usually at a level just comfortable enough to stop. So ask yourself honestly: what did you move away from when you started, and what is the opposite of that pain? That opposite is usually what you actually want. Write fifteen things you want for this business and then look at the list. How many are truly things you are moving toward, and how many are just the opposite of something you are avoiding? Then check the math: what price, margin and lead volume does that picture need?

Change the frame before you change the furniture

Put a square object on a table and ask five people to describe what they see. You will get five descriptions. Some describe only the box. Some describe the table, the room, the light. Each is looking through a different frame, and the frame decides what they see. You have frames too, most of them chosen so long ago you have forgotten choosing them. A problem frame or a solution frame. An angry frame or a curious frame.

Owners who keep getting the same poor result usually blame the content: the employee, the customer, the market. Picture a condemned building. Does it matter what furniture you put in it? Will better furniture make the house sound? Often it is the house, not the furniture, that needs replacing. When the same complaint keeps arriving or every month ends the same way, stop changing the furniture. Take the situation out of the problem frame and put it in a solution frame. Ask “how could I make this work, and what would I need?” instead of “why does this keep happening?” Take something that has frustrated you for months and put it in a curious frame. What can you learn from it?

Who is at your table

If you want to know who you are, look at the people you call your peers, because we live by the standards of those around us. I learned this the hard way, in the week I broke one of my own core beliefs because I was hurting and surrounded by people for whom that behavior was normal. The lesson that came out of it has never left me: if you accept the behavior of others, you also accept it within yourself. If the owners you spend time with accept late invoices, sloppy work and endless talk about plans that never start, you will find yourself accepting it too, no matter how strong you think you are.

The people who hold you back usually do it because they care. They sense that if you keep going, they will lose you. Understand that, feel some empathy for it, and keep going anyway. Seek out the people who have built what you are building. The first time I worked closely with a real leader, I watched how he thought and borrowed one belief from him: that everyone can excel given the right support and the chance. That one borrowed belief changed how I hired and how people showed up for me. Who could you borrow from?

This week

Before every business conversation, take thirty seconds and decide what you want out of it. At the end of the week, write down the one situation that frustrated you most and rewrite it as a question that begins with “how could I.” Then write the names of the three people you spent the most business time with and, next to each, whether they are pulling you toward what you want for this business.

Plan on an hour a week, honestly kept, for the life of the business. It is free. It is also the one part of this track that no professional can do for you, and it decides how far all the others go.

What are you moving away from, and what would you be moving toward if you let yourself name it?