™Marketing Magazine Issue 8 | Page 30

MAKE AN IMPACT MAKE AN IMPACT BY: MIKE MICHALOWICZ Why did you decide to start your own company? When I ask business owners and entrepreneurs this question, it is most often answered, “I wanted to make a positive impact in the world.” The same is true for me. Yes sure, I wanted to be my own boss, do work that brings me joy, create my own systems, have financial freedom—but the end game is that I wanted to make things better through my business. I wanted (and still want) to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. To make the world a better place for me, my family, and my community. I know – with the current state of things you may be feeling as though your dreams are a lofty goal and need to take a back seat. Your business has a crisis to survive, after all. But you can accomplish both survival (heck, thriving) and impact – even during a pandemic. You are closer to your dreams than you may feel right now. They don’t have to fall by the wayside. The biggest impact you can make right now is through HOW you serve your clients and community in the face of one of the biggest challenges in our lifetime. But you can’t do that if you don’t have a solid foundation in your business. So let’s recap what I have been talking about: Using The Business Hierarchy of Needs (The BHN) is the key to the success of your business right now. Let’s take a look again at the model: You have to “get” in order to “give". To reach the IMPACT level, you must assess the vital needs of your business in the three first levels (the “get” levels) of the Business Hierarchy of Needs. You must GET enough cash (SALES), stability (PROFIT), and efficiency (ORDER) to maintain a strong foundation. It’s easy to lose sight of your dream and get wrapped up in the day to day operations of your business. But if you have these three levels working consistently, you can, and will, see your impact. And be able to give. Great Mike, thanks for the pep talk, but things are a little different than when I first started out—I hear you loud and clear. The needs of your customers and clients have likely changed over the last weeks and you may feel stuck in, say, the sales level of The BHN. This is why I created the Recession Response (Page 31) which addresses the HOW. How to take steps to ensure your first three levels of The Business Hierarchy of Needs are in place, so you can go ahead and make your impact in the world. I invite you to visit the Recession Response for tips and tangible, actionable resources to help you maintain your SALES, PROFIT, and ORDER levels of The BHN, because you can still achieve your dream and impact your community in a positive way. You were put on this earth to have an impact. And that impact is not achieved by sacrificing yourself, or your business. Nail the first three levels of sales, profit and order. Then you can give back to the world and make your impact. You’ve got this! Mike Michalowicz is the creator of Profit First, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe to drive profit. He is the creator of Clockwork, a powerful method to make any business run on automatic. And his latest, arguably most impactful discovery, is Fix This Next. In Fix This Next, Mike details the strategy businesses can use to determine what to do, in what order, to ensure healthy, fast, permanent growth (and avoid debilitating distractions). MikeMichalowicz.com 30 | TULIPMEDIAGROUP.COM