Have you ever felt buried or paralyzed by the work you have to do on a daily basis? Or have you ever been unsure of what your next move should be in order to continue to grow your business? Mike Michalowicz is going to help us understand where to focus our attention and what move to make that will cause our businesses to grow faster.

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Fix This Next to Grow Your Business with Mike Michalowicz:

Mike Michalowicz believes most businesses are stuck in the survival trap!

The survival trap: the biggest problem entrepreneurs have is that they don’t know what their biggest problem is. – If you are spending most of your days putting out fires, you are in the survival trap.

How do you get out of the survival trap? ?

You have to go through an evaluation process, empirical data matters here. There is this thing called Maslov’s hierarchy of basic human needs it talks about the base of physiological needs: breathe air, drink water, eat food to the higher level of needs of living into life’s purpose. We are biologically wired into it. If you are eating and a piece of food gets logged in your throat you will begin to choke, this is a biological response.

The difference with our business and the hierarchy of needs that it has is that we are not biologically connected to our business. I can’t instinctually know when my business is chocking. Sometimes I think it’s choking but when it’s not it simply just needs some form of shelter.

We need to back our instincts or assumptions with empirical data. ? Mike Michalowicz does this with yes or no questions and pinpoint what the business needs. Now I have empirical data to back up what my business needs.

You should listen to this: Getting More out of Life and Business

The Business Hierarchy of Needs: ?

These 25 questions are the DNA of business. We can consolidate to 5 levels
1. Sales – The creation of cash; with no sales, your business is suffocating.
2. Profit – The creation of stability; you have a degree of income supporting the owner itself.
3. Order – The creation of organizational efficiency, where the business can run itself.
4. Impact – The creation of transformation, beyond just doing transactions but we are transforming our client’s lives in some capacity.
5. Legacy – The creation of permanence. Business owners realize they serve a purpose to bring the business or entity to life, but the business’s existence is more important than their involvement.

What is the OMEN method?

Once you pinpoint the thing you need to work on. (Using the Business Hierarchy of Needs BHN.) the OMEN is how you go about it, the framework.

O – Objective: What are you trying to achieve?
M – Measurements: What are the analytics we are going to put in place to prove this is working?
E – Evaluation: Setting up a frequency to check in on the progress. You need a rhythm and plan.
N – Nurture: As you evaluate see if you need to change the objectives, measurements, or the evaluation frequency?

How would someone get started by using your strategy? ☝

Get the business hierarchy of needs up on a wall. We need to not just react to actions; we need to contemplate. Action – contemplation – reaction. Where does this problem fall within the Business Hierarchy of Needs and is this where my current vital need is for my business. If it is not a vital need then it can wait. But if it is a vital need that is something you need to act on!

Mike Michalowicz’s final thought: ?

Your clients want you to be very profitable. They will never tell you to charge more but they will say they want your undivided attention or the best of your product. And the only way to do this and not be distracted by the next customer is if we have enough money coming in.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

▶ Read the Book: Fix This Next
▶ Listen to Mike’s Podcast: Entrepreneurship Elevated Podcast

What percentage of your time is spent on growing your business instead of being stuck in the Survival Trap?