Summary and My Thoughts

This book profiles several micro-business entrepreneurs, intertwining the stories of their businesses into the concepts introduced in each chapter. Some of these case studies are described below. I came across the book after listening to the author on a weekly podcast that I listen to (Afford Anything by Paula Pant) and I was interested in exploring some of the strategies that many of these business employed to capture their success. As with a lot of books that tell similar stories or provide similar advice (Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek), my initial thought is “How much does survival-ship bias play into these accounts?”, “Have the doors been closed so that the advice provided in these books are no longer useful or applicable?“. Well, there is only one way to answer this question in a satisfying manner, and that is to actually attempt to replicate the successes described in these books. Elaine does her best in the beginning of the book to introduce statistics proving that the stories examined in this book aren’t exactly uncommon and the occurrences are actually increasing in recent years.

So how does she recommend creating your own successful non-employer firm? I’ll try to compress it in a very small summary (there’s a lot of content in this book). First, you must look for a high demand product or service within an area of interest (or intersection of areas) that you have a great deal of familiarity about. There are many ways to test this market demand, you can use crowdfunding to both test demand and gain startup capital, you can use surveys to gain insight in the target market’s buying habits, you can create a small website to collect email addresses of interested buyers to anticipate the launch. Once you have an ideal product or service to launch, you scale your operations and revenue by contracting out/out-sourcing most of the labor-intensive tasks and utilize the internet/technology to automate your business processes without adding employees to your payroll. In the book, there are many avenues of contracting and outsourcing such as third-party warehouses, fulfillment centers, copackers, virtual management firms, digital marketing firms, private label manufacturers; all of which allows the owner to offload much of the heavy lifting that a traditional business would have faced in the past.

Some businesses and business owners profiled in the book.

Laszlo Nadler (36)

Creator of Tools4Wisdom which provides planners based on expected weekly outcomes. Worked as a full-time project manager for a multinational bank before starting his planner business on the side; eventually quitting his job once the business reached >= $100,000 of annual revenue. Lazzlo Nadler’s business was based on his own interest and usage of planners. He outsourced the design tasks and more to freelancers to avoid hiring employees and spending extensive time learning graphic design technologies. After attempting to manufacture his planner at home, he found an online printing company which allowed him to offload the manufacturing workload and scale his business. His initial e-commerce website was created using Shopify, however he found greater success on a major internet marketplace which also gave him access to their fulfillment service, removing the packing and shipping workload. He used Facebook Audience Insights to profile his targeted buyers for his marketing campaigns. He handles customer service himself to avoid potential negative feedback tainting his business’s ratings.

Sol Orwell (32)

Creator of Examine.com, created his business to support his travel lifestyle even going as far to contract out the management itself. He also enjoys using his income to setup charity events. Orwell hired qualified experts and freelance consultants on health-related topics to evaluate and organize the research on various supplements. He released his findings in a large eBook titled, The Supplement Goals Reference Guide, which is available for $49 through his online website. His next products included smaller and more streamlined guides that were more accessible to laypeople. Next, he released a twice-a-month newsletter subscription for professionals for $30 a month. By keeping his information products in an electronic form, he has kept his overhead lower than if he was to print his products. For customer acquisition, he uses email lists that he has built up over the years.

Martin (39) and Carlene Goh (37)

After being essentially forced out of their traditional jobs by a cancer scare, they moved to Singapore and created The Local Fella which provides customized travel guides for visitors to Singapore. They saved enough capital to begin their business by living with Martin’s parents and they handled medical bills through Singapore’s national medical insurance system.

Ben and Camille Arneberg

Created a upscale housewares business called Willow & Everett. Ben was a computer engineer and Camille started a wedding photography business. Their first attempt at a online business together involved selling compression sleeves online since Camille was also a certified personal trainer. Though they were both excited and passionate about the product, the market demand wasn’t there. They eventually settled on housewares which were high quality, looked great, but also inexpensive. Their search lead them to Alibaba.com for ideas and then they found a sourcing agent in China among-st five candidates that they had found on a freelancing platform. Next they partnered with a private label manufacturer in India to brand products that they already sold. After fund raising from friends and family for $5,000, they stocked up their inventory to launch their store. They eventually decided to sell their products through a giant e-commerce retailer restricting sales to the e-tailer and Arnebergs’ website. When introducing five new products, there would be typically one or two big wins and one or two failures that would eventually be sold at a discount. To stock up on hot sellers, they would use income from Camille’s photography business and an internal lending program at the giant retailer. They outsource photography and customer service. They use the giant retailer’s order fulfillment service to process all of the orders. The service handles fulfillment, labeling, everything. For marketing, they have hired a part-time domestic marketing manager who works remotely.

Boris (30) and Albert Vaisman (24)

Created Soxy.com, an e-commerce subscription service that ships uniquely patterned, high quality socks to customers’ mailboxes on a monthly basis. Originally, they started with an online retail store that carried items for a man’s entire wardrobe before noticing that the majority of the sales were for their fun, patterned socks. Starting out , they expanded by outsourcing and contracting but eventually hired five employees to help with scaling the business.

Allen Walton (29)

Creator of SpyGuy, an online security camera store. His experience working in an electronics store gave him insight in the buying habits of consumers for security cameras which allowed him to pick the best inventory for his online store. He used Google Adwords to acquire customers quickly. He eventually hired three employees to handle customer service (two remote). He gained enough capital to launch his e-commerce website by living incredibly frugal and choosing a business that needed very little startup costs. He uses a service called ShippingEasy to take the burden of shipping off of him for his business so that he can focus on growth.

Scott Paladini (37)

Creator of a web store where he sells mattresses that can be compressed into small boxes and shipped to customers. He hired a factory to handle the manufacturing of the mattresses. His father owned a mattress business, so he was familiar with the industry. His business started when he began researching how to do mattress business online. He worked with a factory in Georgia on developing a high quality, all-foam mattress that could be compressed into a small package and shipped inexpensively. To help with sales, he sent out samples to mattress review sites. He included a 100% refund, 100 day trial for customers hesitant to buy a mattress without actually physically trying it out first. He setup a web-based call center with Talkdesk to handle customer service. He hired a public relations firm and digital marketing team as contractors.

Rebeca Krones (38) and Luis Zevallos(54)

Creators of the Bee Well honey business based around honey produced by Krones’s father who owned a bee farm in Hawaii. They began selling it through an online retail site and physically in Hawaii. They eventually increased their supply to include honey supplied by bee farms in Brazil to meet the increased demand. They hired a copacker to package the honey in compliance with food certification standards.

Harry Ein (39)

Creator of Perfection Promo, a business that sells T-shirts silk-screened with a company’s name from his garage. His business is an example of a B2B e-commerce business. He outsources most of the work concerning filling orders, working out terms with vendors, paying deposits, and collecting money with a company called iPROMOTEu. This same company has provided him a sales assistant to help him process several hundred orders a week.

Christopher Cadigan (42)

Is a franchise-owner of Unishippers of Nassau County South in Oyster Bay, New York. By outsourcing his customer service, billing, and collections to a virtual management firm, Right Growth Shipping, in Melbourne, Florida, he simply focused on shipping. Eventually he decided to hire five sales people.

Nick Shaw (29)

Creator of Renaissance Periodization, a training and diet services company for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. Similar to Sol, he hired a team of twenty-plus experts and registered dietitians as consultants. He moved beyond one-on-one coaching by developing pre-built diets that would allow his customers to access his advice without working with him directly. The diets would be customized based on basic details about the client and could be purchased through his website for $575 (training could be added increasing the price to $750). The training would be handled via email or social media. He eventually also developed diet templates that could be purchased for a reduced price of $100 and were based around the client’s weight goals over a specified period of time. Next, he added eBooks that could be purchased for $30 each. To handle his customers, he uses the CRM software Infusionsoft to manage customers and mailing and automate everything through his website.

Daniel Faggella (29)

Creator of the subscription-based e-commerce website, Science of Skill, which sells online fitness, self-defense, and self-protection curricula and products. He started out by running a small martial arts gym in his early twenties and sold it when he was twenty-five. Since his gym wasn’t easily scalable, he pursued the e-commerce business. The website began by selling martial arts courses online but eventually he ran out of his own material so he reached out to other experts to contribute content. Faggella would pay these contributors twice the amount that they would normally make through a typical private lesson. He eventually branched out from simply martial arts to include self-defense and firearm training to the curriculum. He contracted out copywriting and web support. He eventually sold his business.

Pamela Grossman

Creator of In The Present, a boutique marketing and production studio that does logo design, brand building, marketing, and promotional programs, social media marketing, and video production. She has a pre-existing reputation as an expert in her field through her prior employment that she had to quit for health reasons. She built a network of contractors around the globe, paying very competitive rates for their services. She uses tools like WhatsApp for communication, Figma for design, GoToMeeting and Skype for video collaboration. Her competitive advantage was having freelancers located around the globe which allowed work to be done around-the-clock.

Joey Healy (29)

Runs the Healy Eyebrow Studio in New York City. He began by traveling to a client’s location to perform the service before opening up his own studio due to high demand and to decrease travel time. Next he scaled up by forming a partnership with a spa chain and then proceeded to train the chain’s stylists in his techniques. He finally hired an assistant to help with filling web and wholesale orders of his makeup. He eventually moved his studio to a much larger location and hired more employees to staff this larger location, his revenue increased at a much quicker pace than his costs from this move.

Debra Cohen (49)

Created the Homeowner Referral Network which enables consumers to find home improvement contractors for free; however home contractors pay a commission on jobs when they complete them. She hired contractors as her virtual assistant, webmaster, and IT pro.

Dan Mezheritsky (33)

Creator of the in-home personal training franchise, Fitness on the Go. He relies on contractors to actually do the training. He started out by hiring personal trainers to work for him but they would eventually form relationships with clients and proposing a side deal. Other times, the trainers would do inappropriate things such as taking a shower at a client’s house. He eventually settled on the franchise/licensing model by licensing the use the company’s brand which would handle advertising and social media marketing and its general reputation in the personal training industry; Fitness on the Go would take a 9% cut of the client’s fees allowing the personal trainer to take home 91%. The trainer would pay $400 a month to Fitness on the Go and receive the above branding and also services such as business management, continuing education, and back-end infrastructure support. Mezheritsky uses customized software that he purchased for $25,000, that handles all aspects of the business allowing his to avoid hiring employees.

Cory Binsfield (52)

A real estate investor, decided to start investing real estate after becoming fed up with the commute times to his job as a financial advisor. He moved his financial advisory practice back to Minnesota and noticed that most financially efficient clients had real estate holdings. He bought his first investment property at 33 by purchasing a triplex and living in one unit, he was able to pay his mortgage through his tenants and still have a place to live. He eventually grew his real estate holdings to 118 units over a long amount of time. He focused his selection of purchases to be close enough to biking distance to work and school but not close enough to be priced so highly. He also used the common 1% rule. By making goals on how many units to purchase after a certain amount of time kept Binsfield focused. He also stayed local and eventually outsourced his property management. He also eventually found a reliable contractor and used property management software to facilitate requests between tenants and the contractor. He parlayed his experience into his own blog and podcast on rental real estate investing.

Rich (31) and Vicki Fulop (32)

Owners of Brooklinen which sells stylish luxery bed linens. They began by doing research and reading books to learn about the linen industry to make up for their lack of experience. They realized they could keep the costs low by removing the middlemen, creating the sheets themselves and selling directly to the customers. They surveyed customers of big-box stores such as ABC Carpet & Home, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and Crate & Barrel to find out how much they were willing to pay for high quality sheets. To reach online customers, they created a survey on SurveyMonkey and shared the survey on their Facebook pages and asked their family and friends to share as well. These two strategies helped them determine the price point for their products. Their initial investment was $25,000 from savings and family before moving to Kickstarter to raise $236,888 using only word of mouth. Unlike competitors who focused marketing toward women, Brooklinen chose designs that would appeal to both. As the business grew, they moved to a WeWork coworking hub and used Uber to deliver the products. They also used TaskRabbit to outsource packing and Zipcar to help deliver the products as well. They eventually hired a contractor to handle their paid advertising on Facebook and eventually began to rely on Ruby Has Fulfillment as their Fulfillment center.

Katherine Krug (35)

Created an invention to alleviate lower back pain, hired an industrial designer to create a prototype and used a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the idea. She eventually hired a marketing firm in Brazil and a virtual assistant in the Philippines and other contractors.

Justin Goff (33)

Partnered with his personal trainer to create an ebook called 31 Day Fat Loss. He began spending $100 a day doing Facebook marketing for the book and experimenting with the success rate of his ads. Eventually he found the most cost-effective ads to target his target demographic. He recommends learning Facebook ads. He also created a supplements company utilizing a third-party fulfillment center to handle order processing and shipping before selling it due to difficulties keeping up with customer service.

Paul Hedrick (29)

Owner of the business, Tecovas, an e-commerce website that sells cowboy boots directly to consumers. His cowboy boots are affordable due to his direct-to-consumer business model that removes the middlemen. He was able to stock away 20-30% of his after-tax earnings by living frugally while working a high-paying job to accumulate six-figure capital investment in his startup. He learned product development in Mexico one week out of every month for the first year of his business. It took him roughly sixteen months before he was confident to launch the brand and his products. He focused on building a mailing list for his customer acquisition. He launched a website six months prior to launch incentive people to share the website to receive $10 off their boots purchase. He brought in a partner who specialized in growth and marketing to help grow the company.

Kelly Lester

Creator of Easy-Lunchboxes, an online retail business that sells lunchboxes. Her first business was an online store that sold decorative switch plates and soaps. She used money from her husband’s acting career to help with the startup costs. She has started to sell her lunchboxes through Target.

Jonathan Johnson (57)

Created DirectGov Source, a business that sells medical equipment and supplies to protect hospital employees from infectious blood and PPEKits that sells protective equipment for law enforcement. He registered his business to a list of government vendors of medical equipment and almost immediately began receiving orders for defibrillators. He also made hundreds of cold calls a day to police departments to introduce his law enforcement equipment. He second business, PPEKits.com focuses solely on protective gear. Manufacturing and order processing originally took place in his garage before moving to a 1500 square foot office and warehouse and hiring an assistant to help with bookkeeping and order processing. He relied on a drop shipper to process orders (his business is primarily drop shipped). The government will place the order, he will order from the manufacturer to ship to the government client, and then he collects what the government owes. To offset any late payments, he opened a line of credit with a bank.

Matt LaCasse (30) and Lizzi Ackerman (29)

Creators of Birch Benders, a pancake mix company. They used their own savings and a local attorney to incorporate their company. It took a long process of experimentation to get their ingredients right. They originally used their kitchen in their rented home as the laboratory for this testing. They would demo their products at their local Whole Foods. They moved from mixes from being sold in jars to a resealable pouch to reduce their prices. They eventually hired a branding agency. Their sales really increased when they decreased their product size from 24 ounces to 16 ounces. They used a copacker to package the mixes and didn’t hire any employees until three years after they started the company.

Matt Friel (32)

Owner of Game Deal Daily. He first began flipping local vintage clearance games purchased locally for a higher price online. He found himself spending a lot of time driving around to fulfill orders from his ebay store. He reached out to other video game sellers for advice on increasing his inventory and eventually formed a relationship with some who were also distributors which sold games to him at a bulk discount price. He also eventually moved from personally shipping the products himself to moving his store to a giant e-commerce site and using their fulfillment service. He also uses the large e-commerce’s warehouse to house his inventory in addition to his own 3000 square foot warehouse.

Introduction

Elaine describes the modern trend of the Free Agent workforce or workers seeking alternative avenues for producing income separate from or completely replacing your traditional W2 employment; this includes pursuing jobs within the gig economy or even potentially starting to operate their own business. Though this lack of dependence on a traditional employer may seem risky on the surface, it is a valid alternative as it allows the person to develop self-reliance on their own actions rather than be at the mercy of their employer’s whims. Also, in most cases, becoming a business owner allows for more freedom and autonomy than the alternative. Understanding and teaching these solopreneurs how to successfully run their business is a curriculum that is suspiciously missing from higher education therefore most people learn through experience and other alternative means such as this book. To become a successful free agent, you must be able to produce enough income to effectively handle many of the costs that are traditionally handled by their employer such as self-employment taxes and healthcare.

Chapter 1 - The Million-Dollar, One-Person Revolution

The internet has allowed individual entrepreneurs to tap into the global marketplace leading to a trend of non-employer firms able to generate significant revenue. Online legal services allow a person to set up a business entity quickly. WordPress, Squarespace, and Weebly allow a person to set up an website quickly and inexpensively. Platforms like 99Designs, Upwork, Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour make it easy for people to contract out design, tech, and writing work in the freelance space. AWS and more allow for low-cost scalable cloud storage. Facebook and Google provide for relatively low-cost digital advertising and audience reach. There are also many inexpensive online payment services that allow them to handle credit card and ACH transactions.

These small businesses, instead of focusing on scaling through employee acquisition, primarily focus on contracting out their outsource-able tasks. Instead of quitting their jobs to focus on starting a traditional or physical business, or trying to scale a startup for a large exit, these entrepreneurs focus on scaling through outsourcing and automation to build a stable and profitable business with a small employee footprint. These businesses fall into the following categories: E-Commerce, Manufacturing, Informational Content Creation, Professional Services and Creative Services(Marketing firms, consultancies), Personal Service Firms offering expertise (fitness coaching), Real Estate.

To accomplish a high revenue, one person business you must first identify the high revenue, one person business best suited for your skills, interests, and experience from the previous types. Next, you must launch the business successfully using low-cost and easily accessible distribution channels. Next, you must keep the business humming so you can enjoy your life outside and give back. Accomplishing a similar high income in a traditional job would require a greater time devotion and much less freedom than that which can be found by starting your own business.

Chapter 2 - What Makes Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses Work

To develop the best business idea, it is best to first start with your interests instead of forcing yourself in other areas of little interest. Next, you need to explore the market to verify that there is an actual market for this idea. Next, you must expand beyond your own solo capabilities by using the tools available to contract out, outsource, and automate your work, your idea should be big enough to require this scaling factor. You should try to outsource your supply chain. You should try to nurture a community of customers who are passionate about your product and by extension can help you acquire other customers as well. The million-dollar, one-person business gives you the choice to either remain small and continue earning a great income or to continue growing it to a larger business.

Chapter 3 - What Business Could You Start?

The first thing to consider is what type of business you want to run and the lifestyle that it will support which will require extensive deep thinking, soul searching, market research, and experimenting. Oftentimes, people are immobilized in their pursuit of starting a business because their expectations are that they must have an exemplary idea. This immobilization, procrastination, and fear can lead to a lot of regret. When coming up with a product or service to sell, you should ask yourself, “What are you passionate about? How can you deliver value to people?” Traditional employment encourages people to compartmentalize their work and personal lives, to successfully start a business as described in this book you need to get an idea of what matters most in your life in terms of what you hope to succeed with this business.

E-Commerce

One of the most accessible ways to create a high-revenue, one-person business due to inexpensive technologies but requires building a reputation as a curator of a certain type of highly specialized product and creating a community to avoid cutthroat pricing competition and dilution of profitability. This often requires the product(s) to be very niche oriented. Once you have an idea, you can set up a website using WordPress or Shopify to set up a basic online store (or you can use Amazon’s marketplace). You can use Facebook and Google ads to target consumers and test the interest level in your products. There are different options within the e-commerce category including B2B and franchising.

Manufacturing

For manufacturing, there are many options to contract manufacturing to a factory using websites like Maker’s Row, 3D printing, and video conferencing which allows you to inspect prototypes without being physically present.

Informational Content Creation

This includes the sale of products such as webcasts, videos, books, ebooks, seminars, courses, or poducasts that showcase your expertise in a specific area. The key is to have an existing passion and high level of competence in a specific interest. Clickbank is a valuable resource to see what digital products are selling well. You can also view the best sellers and high traffic blogs in your particular niche to get an idea of what people in your niche respond highly to. Then figure out what unique and new angle that you can bring to the space.

Professional Services

Scaling professional service is difficult but possible with creative use of automation, outsourcing, and help from independent contractors and also charging a higher price than competitors. One such way is to increase your hourly rates and building retainers as you build your record of success. Another approach is to bundle your services into a package and offering this package to prospects for premium prices. There are many ways to increase your profits. For example. you can review your clients and determine which are producing a profit and which are not and try to either raise the rates or replace the ones that do not make a profit. You can also get a sense of the market rate in your field, if most competitors are charging more than you, you should probably increase your rate. You can also raise your rate in relation to your client’s ROI for your services.

Personal Services

Has the same limitations has the above area but creative thinking and automation can still overcome these obstacles.

Real Estate

Typically people whose solo business is real estate investors use income from other jobs to provide the capital necessary to invest in real estate.

You can use crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo to test market demand for your products without spending a lot on market research. This is also a viable strategy to building the initial capital to fund your business idea while also testing the market demand for the product.

Chapter 4 - Make It Happen

Most entrepreneurs have a primary income stream separate from their business to help them pay their immediate expenses and to allow for the majority of the business’s earnings to go back into the business to aid in growth; this also allows them to free up their minds for more creative work. There are different routes to obtaining this separate cash flow to create this financial safety net, even for those who do not have existing connections nor experience raising money. The first route is the side hustle route, taking small gigs and contracting jobs to support your baseline expenses. Another route is keeping your day job, living frugally and saving your money to create the initial investment capital while paying your expenses.

You can work on your business on the weekends and learn what activities are ultimately unimportant and removing those activities, replacing them with more business-related activities. Another route is getting others to invest such as private investors by selling them a small stake in the business in exchange for capital. This same approach can be used with family and friends, just consult a legal expert so that you retain your control in the company as you sell equity in your company. Another possible route is by entering business plan competitions and using the award money to help fund your business plan, however you should always read the fine print. You could also use a business credit card and if your credit score is good enough, you may be eligible for a 0% interest rate, once again you should read the fine print and not borrow more than you can reasonable pay back. Above all else, the best approach is to grow your business slowly and out of cash flow rather than credit. You could also use crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo and offer the product as gift attached to a pledge. There are also equity crowdfunding platforms that can be used a well, once again you should avoid making the mistake of selling too much equity.

When creating a new product, you may have to make changes through experimentation. It may take several iterations before your product actually begins to work; however once you find out what works, you should amplify on what you’re doing to actually scale your revenue. There are several ways to do this: you can contract a social media expert to help your social media advertisement campaign, you can use a major retailer to aid in reaching a larger customer base, you can advertise on niche online platforms and communities, or build relationships with social media influencers or bloggers, or even create a visual social media platform.

You should consult a small business accountant (one that also owns a small business) who takes time to research and understand your business. An accountant can help you find avenues to reduce your tax burden by looking for possible deductions and restructuring your legal business entity. You need to control and improve your cash flow, by projecting ahead on possible cash flow intake and expenses, finding ways to speed up and automate payments, and paying your bills more slowly, reducing your need for inventory, and keeping some cash reserves. You should have the capability to handle high volume sales before attempting digital marketing or pay-per-click marketing. You can choose either premium pricing models or high volume sales.

Your business’s product or service should scalable, you should build media and consumer reviews, you should remove barriers to buy, you should make sales a part of customer service, and invest in public relations and digital marketing.

Chapter 5 - Keep Getting Smarter

Most entrepreneurs treat their businesses as laboratories as they experiment and learn how to scale their revenues and profits. They use internet research and stories of other entrepreneurs to find ways to solve any problems that they encounter. This can be done by asking empowering questions and customizing interesting ideas from others, not simply copying their strategies. You should work smart, strategically, efficient, not simply grinding away as is the common mentality taught by parents, teachers, and past bosses in the traditional job market. Avoid allowing the small tasks like responding to emails, or shipping to consume your entire waking hours. You can use Nadler’s Eliminate, Automate, Delegate, and Procrastinate method. What can you eliminate? Outsource? Say ‘No’ to? Put on the back-burner?

Regardless if you’re using contractors or outside vendors, you should look for external help that you can trust to help you automate repetitive and labor-intensive processes. You can use online freelance platforms to experiment and test different contractors to determine which ones you trust with these operations. You can use services such as Splitly to do A/B testing to test outside vendors. You should always monitor the operations of your outside vendors to ensure that they handling the operations well and not incurring complaints from customers that could derail your business’s progress.

Chapter 6 - Realize and Reset Your Vision

Owning a micro-business gives you the freedom to choose if you want to grow it into a larger, more traditional business with employees or continue owning a profitable micro-business. You should take your entrepreneurial temperature frequently by stepping back and thinking strategically about the direction of your business, revisiting the purpose of their business and how it relates to your own personal life, and reviewing your actions to ensure that it is matching this purpose and direction and possibly changing direction if necessary. Next you should set clear goals for your business, only to refresh those goals when they are met or when it is necessary. And then you should be prepared to reinvest in your business or other pursuits when the timing is right.

You should be selective in the wisdom and advice that you listen to when considering the goals and visions that you have set to ensure that this advice does not conflict with your own goals and vision. You should avoid distractions by asking yourself: is this a high impact thing for your business? Would waiting six months negatively impact your business? Would you be missing out on this opportunity altogether if you waited six months?; whenever you encounter a distracting opportunity. Sometimes you may simply just need to say ‘No’ to distracting opportunities. If your business begins to plateau, it may be ideal to bring in an outside coach to help mentor you and open you up to new possible strategies of breaking through this growth plateau.