the freedom challenge

www.businessflightpath.com P a g e | 2

Business Owners: Are You Trapped in Your Business and Not Achieving

the Results You Really Want?

Only Read This Report if You Want to Put Your Business on

Autopilot and Create the Freedom to Choose Your Lifestyle!

Dear Business Owner,

Let me challenge you with a few different thoughts:

• What if your business could run on autopilot with only a few hours

input from you each week?

• What if your business was able to fund the lifestyle of your

choosing?

• What if you had confidence in your employees to perform so well

you never had to worry, even if you left your business for months?

• What if you could be confident of selling your business at maximum

value when you want to retire?

Right now, that may be a stretch for you to believe, but let me

challenge you to keep an open mind. Because that’s exactly what

business is like for a small group of successful business owners. But

it’s certainly not the norm.

A recent global report confirmed some facts that we’ve all known for

some time. In small and medium sized businesses, the owners, on

average, work 52 hours per week and find it stressful, a struggle to

make a decent profit and a high risk for health and relationships.

On the other hand, there are a small number of special entrepreneurs

who run a very different type of business that becomes the vehicle

that frees them to enjoy the lifestyle of their dreams. They leverage


things other than their own time to get results, but the biggest

differences come from the way they think about business.

For most business owners who are struggling to achieve more, the

natural response is to apply more effort. That rarely works. This

report explains why more effort is not the answer and shows how the

top entrepreneurs operate to create a very different type of business

– one that really works to provide prosperity and freedom for the

owners.

So, if you’re in the category of business owners who spend too many

hours at work and want to know how to break free, you need to read

this report. In the pages that follow I’m going to show you how your

current thinking, your beliefs and opinions about business, lead you

to make critical mistakes that create a fatal flaw that keeps you

trapped and needing to work longer and harder, no matter how

outwardly successful your business seems to be. I’m going to

highlight the different way top business owners think about the

critical aspects of their business and show you the all important

steps these business leaders take to create a business that works so

they don’t have to.

This report reveals how we have used these same steps in the system

our clients have used to transform their businesses like this within

twelve to eighteen months. My challenge to you is to change your

thinking and learn to make it work in your business.

Are you ready to take the challenge today? Take 20 minutes, find a

quiet place, turn off your phone, grab a pen and read this report,

highlighting where you see this report applies to you and where you

can take positive action now.


Business Confidence

Charlie left the bank a little bit annoyed and anxious. He had just had

a meeting with his “client relationship manager” about a much

needed loan which would help him get the new equipment and

expand the workshop to facilitate the expected growth of his four

year old business. The bank hadn’t said “No” to the loan. However

they hadn’t said “Yes” either. They wanted him to arrange a life

insurance policy to cover the loan on the event of his death. The

manager had said, “We can see your business has potential, but we

just don’t feel confident that it will survive if something were to

happen that meant you couldn’t run it.”

As Charlie walked through

the front door of the bank

into the sunlight, he was

muttering to himself,

“Don’t these people

understand how busy I

am. I’ve got a business to

run. I don’t have time to

arrange and attend all

these appointments with

insurance agents, doctors and specialists. Now I have to have a full

physical health check, x-rays, blood tests, cardio exam and who

knows what before I can get this loan approved— and I could really

do with the money right now!” Charlie could already feel his blood

pressure rising. “As if I haven't already got enough stress,” he


thought to himself.

A few days later, Charlie’s insurance agent was telling Charlie, “The

insurance companies have a rating scale to calculate the price of the

insurance package which is based on the risk category you fit into.

The categories are determined from the health assessment factors

they want checked which create profiles of different levels of health

and risk. These profiles give them the confidence that their coverage

of people like yourself will not cost them money over the course of

time and that they will stay financially healthy and able to pay out the

policies that will be claimed on in due course. In other words, they

can predict how many people like you are likely to die or survive over

a given time frame. Health professionals can also use these test

results to tell you how you can improve your health and be more

likely to live a longer and healthier life.”


“Great,” said Charlie, “Perhaps they can tell me how to reduce my

stress too.”

A few weeks later, after Charlie had received the results of his health

tests without major alarm, he thought to himself how confident he

now felt about his physical condition. He was basically in good shape,

but as long as he kept his stress levels down, his blood pressure

would remain under control. As a result of the insurance coverage,

the bank now had the confidence to advance the loan funds so that

Charlie could expand his business. But the bank also now wanted

Charlie to send them quarterly financial reports so they could remain

confident that his business could keep making the loan payments.

The thought occurred to Charlie, “I wish I could feel as confident

about the continued health of my business as I now do about my

physical health. I wonder if there is anyone who could give me a

business health check so I could identify all my business risk elements

and learn how to deal with them, too?”

Your Own Business Can Be A Lonely Place

To be running your own business, you must have an independent

streak that caused you to want to leave the comfort and security of

paid employment and go out on your own. A lot of business owners

and entrepreneurs suffer a high degree of dissatisfaction with the

status quo and want to pioneer something new, different or better.

But going it alone can isolate you from support and leave you

vulnerable to loneliness. Not only that, but there is often the lack of

knowledge or simply an inability to call on others for help. As an

independent person, you develop a lot of self-motivation and resolve

that many others don’t have. As a result you grow a business that


survives, maybe even thrives, but how much of its continued success

depends on you?

Think about how confident you could be if you had ready access to

the thoughts and support of your own sales and marketing manager,

operations manager, finance manager, HR manager, training manager

and team crisis manager who worked for you in your business. Or

what about your own general manager who took care of it all on a

daily basis? Most business owners don’t have this luxury. Yet

without this level of support, being a business owner can be very

lonely when you want to get some advice about certain aspects of

running your business or about making decisions about which way to

head. It’s even worse when you suffer from a crisis situation or

ongoing issues you can’t seem to resolve.

As a result, most

business owners work

long hours (too long?)

and suffer stress from

their situation.

However, they suffer

in this way needlessly,

because help is at

hand. If only they

knew!

What did Charlie do?


The Crisis Point

Charlie’s business was booming. As a result of the expansion, the

sales were up and the orders were piling up. For a while, everything

was great. The new workshop capacity and equipment meant that

the company could handle significantly more orders. To give things a

kick start, Charlie had offered some big discounts to get some new

accounts and increase the turnover. These new people were tough

negotiators and kept wanting more products at the discounted prices.

Charlie wasn’t sure what to do. They needed the business now, to

keep the new equipment and now also new people busy. If he

demanded higher prices, would they lose all that new business?

Charlie tried to keep things lean and mean. He kept staff to a

minimum, but that meant he often had to pick up the pieces and

work longer to keep everything together. Some customers were

complaining that their orders were taking too long and there were

other niggling little issues which meant that customers weren’t

always happy. There was nothing major going wrong, but somehow a

lot of orders didn’t have everything right and that caused more work

to fix the problems. It was not only Charlie that was feeling stressed,

but all his workers were stressed out as well. That meant that morale

was dancing on a thin edge and there were often raised voices and

slamming doors that were like the pressure cooker letting off steam.

Then a shipment of crucial parts hadn’t turned up when expected.

After Charlie got off the phone with the supplier feeling annoyed

when they claimed they had never received the order, things were at

their worst. Now they had to pay for a rush shipment so they could

meet their Friday deadline for a major order for a new customer. This


was a trial order that could lead to huge business if they got it right.

Just then, Charlie’s wife rang. “I just wanted to check which suit you

want dry-cleaned for Johnny’s graduation ceremony on Thursday?”

Charlie went pale as the blood drained from his face. “Oh no,” he

thought. “How can I make Johnny’s graduation and still get this order

completed by Friday? It’s just not possible. But how can I miss

Johnny’s graduation? What am I going to do?”

At 5:30pm on Friday, Charlie sat back as he watched the last truck

leave the workshop with the last of the important order. “Whew!

I’m not quite sure how we did

that, but we got there.” Just

then, Charlie’s workshop

supervisor interrupted the

reverie by barging into the office.

“Sorry boss,” he said. “I was just

setting up the next production

run for the Jones order (their

best customer) and I can’t find any XYZ widgets we need to get it

started.” “What the ……?” yelled Charlie as he stormed into the store

room.

Later that night, after Charlie got home and things had cooled down a

bit, his wife said in a very significant way, “Charlie, I’ve had enough.

Something’s got to give. I can’t take any more of this and I don’t think

you’re going to be able to take much more of it either. Your blood

pressure is going through the roof and you’re always stressed. You

get home and you’re no good for anyone. You hardly see the kids and

when you do you always seem to be telling them off. This isn’t what I


want for the rest of our lives and I’m not going to take it any more.

You’d better do something.”

“Yes,” said Charlie. “I don’t think I can take it any more either. Why

did I ever get into this business anyway?”

Why did you start your business?

Have you ever come to the point where you wondered why you went

into your own business and whether it was really worth it? I’m sure

that most business owners have at some stage. You may have

started your own business because you wanted the freedom to

choose your own way, to create a lifestyle of meaning and personal

fulfilment.

And maybe you also planned to eventually sell your business for

millions so that you could be free to do whatever you chose to do

with the rest of your life - adventure, travel, sports, family or even

charitable work.

How's your plan working out so far?

Charlie’s experience is replicated across many businesses every day. I

know it was in my first and in fact, at various times in my other

businesses as well. In my first business, four years in, I was struggling

with seventy hour weeks because we were so busy with record sales.

But at the same time, poor cash flow was crippling me. And I had lost

control of costs and productivity altogether. Instead of becoming the

dream I had hoped for, I was living a nightmare.


That was the crisis point I experienced that caused me to look for

help. I didn’t know which way to turn. I tried my accountant, who

was very successful and a

great accountant. But

instead of being able to

help, he could only give

me theory. Luckily for

me, my major supplier

came to the rescue and

gave me some advice that

started to turn my

business around.

After that, I devoted as much time as I could to studying successful

businesses and how the entrepreneurs who started them achieved

their success. I have now read hundreds of business books and have

also been back to university several times to study for business

degrees, culminating with a Masters of Business Administration

(MBA). But while these studies were helpful, nothing could compare

with the learning I went through developing my own businesses. For

the past twenty years now, I have been involved with managing

businesses and advising other business owners.

The story I told about Charlie is remarkably similar to my own

experience. But after working with at least a thousand other business

owners, I know that many, actually most, have faced and are facing

similar trials each day. Unfortunately for most business owners, the

dream they started in business with hasn't worked out the way they

wanted. And they have little confidence of every achieving it.

The sad truth is that:


• 61% of small and medium businesses fail to even make a

profit,

• less than 10% create an asset that's worth millions,i

• while their owners work an average of 52 hours per

week or more.ii

In the USA - the wealthiest country in the world - less than 2% of

small businesses make even a quarter of a million dollars profit a year

and most of these supposed "success stories" could not be sold for

anywhere near enough to create financial freedom and to retire.iii Yet

their owners are locked into a situation where they need to work

more than 52 hours per week on average, just to keep the business

going.iv

Across the Pacific in Australia and New Zealand the story is much the

same.

In NZ, 60,000 new businesses started up in 2007 and 54,000 closed

down - ouch!v How about this: in 2001 in New Zealand of 43000 new

business start-ups only 40% were still operating after 5 years.vi At

the same time, according to a Grant Thornton international survey,

New Zealand business owners work an average of 53 hours per week

while the Aussies spend more than 56 hours per week trying to keep

their businesses alive.vii

An Australian study by the Productivity

Commission into Business Failure and Change

found that “the closer you look at the exits, the

more it becomes likely that some business

owners find the challenges of growing a

business, employing staff, paying taxes, getting


entangled in government red tape and managing money all too hard.

And a job with four weeks holiday and sick leave eventually looks too

attractive to ignore.”

Wow! Why would anyone start up in business knowing the odds of

long term survival, let alone making a profit, are so stacked against

you and rather than finding freedom, most business owners end up

working harder and more hours than they did as employees?

It doesn't have to be like that!

Why do most small business owners fail to achieve the success they

dreamed about? Why do they end up struggling year after year,

pushing forward with grim determination, doggedly shouldering aside

the obstacles that block their progress time after time, only to find

when the accounts are finally done there was hardly (if any)

improvement on the year before?

From my experience across thousands of small and medium sized

businesses, I’ve found that most of the difficulties in business are

caused by five critical mistakes in executing the process of business

which leads to one common fatal flaw that undermines the chances

of success, rather than from any fundamental problem with the

business itself.

When times are hard, as they are for many now, the natural tendency

of most business owners is to just work harder. And that’s the

natural and most obvious thing to do. The problem is that this

natural reaction to the problems is actually making their situation

worse. While it’s admirable, it’s the wrong focus, because it creates

even more dependency on them.


Despite the fact that this fatal flaw exists in almost every business,

and the fact that almost everyone knows about it, no one is telling

small business owners about it and how to fix it. It’s no wonder you

end up working harder and harder and getting nowhere. It’s not your

fault! Even your accountant and business coach aren’t warning you

about this. It was the same for me. I only stumbled on the process to

build a successful business almost by accident because of the amount

or reading and study I did about

business success.

While each of the successful

entrepreneurs I studied created

their own success path, I came to

see that there were some

consistent principles in how they

did it. And while most of these successful entrepreneurs worked hard

for their success, their success was not due to them working hard in

their businesses. Their successes were due to the fact that they

thought about their role in the business differently from the norm.

The result was they worked hard on building a business that works

successfully, not from reliance on their own hard work, but due to the

development of systems and processes that led to successful

outcomes with consistency and precision.

Later, I will share the 7 step system I discovered, that I and almost

every successful entrepreneur has used to break free of business

dependency and limitation, to create a highly successful business that

runs without them. But first, I need to spend a bit more time

establishing the context for why this system is so important.


The Freedom Challenge

Isn’t your real objective to develop a business that works for you,

rather than continuing indefinitely to work for the business? But

that’s what happens to most business owners, as the statistics show.

The crazy thing is that often, instead of continuing to work 50 or 60

plus hours per week, cash flow and free time can be created with just

a few simple changes.

It may be hard for you to accept that a few simple changes could

revolutionise your business and take it to the next level. Sometimes

it’s hard to see the answers yourself simply because you don’t know

what’s possible. Your experience has led you to having certain beliefs

about the way business works. Sometimes you just need a change in

perspective that challenges those limiting beliefs before you discover

a better way.

Let’s explore a perspective that can yield some answers…

As we saw earlier the statistics show that most small business owners

struggle to survive and most end up resigned to a future of long hours

for meager rewards.

But that’s not what small businesses are supposed to deliver.

Let’s quickly review what a small business is supposed to do from the

perspective of the owner. Or to put it another way – what you were

probably thinking when you originally got into your own business?

• Did you think it would give you freedom to do what you’re

good at?


• Did you think it would give you the freedom to grow and learn

without being stifled by your boss?

• Did you think it would give you freedom to get great

satisfaction from doing work you enjoy?

• Did you think it would deliver financial freedom?

• Did you think you would have the freedom to choose what to

do with your time?

• Did you think you would be free to grow your business into a

flourishing enterprise?

For 90% of business owners that vision has already disappeared

under the sheer weight of attending to the demands of daily

operations, getting stuff done, sorting out problems and keeping

things going.

So what is the freedom challenge?

Read on to see how you can accomplish that.

The Freedom Challenge is:

1. To remember the vision of freedom you had

when you originally got into your business

2. Find out what’s stopped you from achieving

it, and…

3. Do something about it


Was your vision crystal clear when you started?

The fact is we mostly get what we aim for.

However, my experience is that most small business owners don’t

really have a clear view of what they want to build. The typical

pressures of running the business mean they are usually just

concerned with staying alive, keeping on doing what they have always

done in order to get by. I call this “managing to survive.” I know that

was how it was for me before I hit my crisis point in business and I’ve

discovered that most business owners operate just like I did. We only

change direction when we hit a crisis point. Because we haven’t

actually defined what we really want, instead of moving directly

towards it, we just end up trying to avoid what we don’t want. But

because that has our focus, we inevitably keep getting drawn back

towards what we don’t want.

Psychologists tell us that what we accomplish in life comes from our

subconscious mind, not our conscious mind. In a way our

subconscious mind is like an autopilot, it adjusts what we consciously

strive to achieve so that it’s consistent with our subconscious picture.

So if you don’t have a particularly clear or specific vision for your

business then your subconscious mind will set about having you

create whatever picture happens to be there by default. Whether

you know it or not, you have a vision for your business, and your

subconscious will be quietly keeping you on track to fulfill that

picture.

Here’s a quick way to check on the state of your vision.


How long can you walk away from your business for and still have it

function normally?

If it’s less than 4 weeks then you really have a job, not a business.

The great majority of business owners, even the profitable ones, will

almost certainly have a business that is overwhelmingly reliant on

their constant presence and demands their personal time, attention,

and input to continue to function and survive. When you create a

business like that, even if it’s financially rewarding, you end up just

like our friend Charlie – stressed to the max and relationships at

breaking point (or worse). None of us wants to get to that point just

for the sake of continuing in our own business, do we? However, so

often we seem to be trapped by our business and we can see no way

out of our crisis situation. Or we just keep progressing towards the

crisis point if we haven’t already reached it, with no clear vision of

what is ahead.

So, to create the change that is needed, step one of the Freedom

Challenge is to discover, or re-discover, what your long-term vision is

for your business.

The next step is to find out what’s in the way.

What’s stopping you from achieving success?

Once we know where we want to go, it should be easy to get there,

right?


Oh yes! It would be if it weren’t for the barriers we encounter along

the way and the difficulties we have, or mistakes we make, to

overcome them.

The problem is that most business owners, with little or no

experience in growing a business, don’t know what to expect and are

taken unawares by the growth barriers they run into.

As you can see in the diagram below, there are three areas of

knowledge:

• What we know,

• What we know that we don’t know,

• What we don’t know that we don’t know.


It is the last one that causes trouble, as illustrated by the famous

quote attributed to Charles H. Duell, director of the US patent office

in 1899, who said “everything that can be invented has been

invented.” Clearly he didn’t know what he didn’t know. The

relevance for you is that you are almost inevitably going to hit a

business growth barrier that will make your life more difficult, simply

because of a lack of the right knowledge. But now that you know it

(that you don’t know) you can either ignore the warning or do

something positive to prepare.

For a simple illustration of the impact this factor could have in your

life and business, check out the video at

www.businessflightpath.com/yesyoucan.

Are you on a flight path to success?

If you were to graph the business growth trajectory of most

businesses, it would look like the flight path of a plane that is

struggling to gain altitude. Maybe it’s even still struggling to get off

the ground. Most businesses reach a level and then the trajectory

flattens out and they bump along at around the same level of sales

and number of employees for a number of years. It’s a constant

struggle to get to the next level. The business often fails to escape

the gravitational forces, or growth barriers, to experience the

freedom of full flight and the exhilaration of enjoying what the

business was really meant to do.

Meanwhile, though, a small fraction of entrepreneurs operate

everyday under a completely different paradigm and are on a flight

path of personal and financial freedom. These are like the pilots who

not only get their planes off the ground and gain altitude, but also


have the freedom to operate on autopilot or really put their plane

through its paces and experience the thrill of supersonic flight.

These individuals… let’s call

them “Top Guns”… (Ok, I

know that’s cheesy, but please

indulge me. It was one of my

favourite movies and it’s a

good analogy). Anyway, these

Top Guns are entrepreneurs

that leverage the principles of

designing and engineering an

autopilot business that grows, thrives, improves, and functions

independently. Top Guns reap the enviable rewards of having a

business that funds their personal adventures and desires, and frees

them to enjoy the lifestyle of their dreams. You probably know and

admire someone like this and would love to be like them.

Top Guns are entrepreneurs who’ve discovered a way of doing

business, different from the norm, to gain the freedom and money to

do the things they most enjoy and value. They build super successful

businesses without it becoming a life-sucking, time consuming, overly

demanding master.

How does a normal business owner become a Top Gun?

Even more importantly, is it even possible for YOU to become a Top

Gun, and if so, HOW?

In essence, the only barrier or obstacle to becoming and enjoying the

fruits of being a Top Gun is your decision to keep doing business in


the way that keeps it dependent on you and making the critical

mistakes that your peers in business are also making.

This point is critical! If you start off going in the wrong direction with

your business and efforts, unless you make a change, every step

simply moves you further and further away from what you really

want… and closer to what you don’t want. And the harder you work

at it, the further away you get!

The five critical mistakes that stop business owners from

becoming a Top Gun

In the past twenty years working with thousands of different

businesses, we have learnt that what keeps the owners trapped in

underperformance boils down to five critical mistakes. These

mistakes are the same ones I made and incredibly, no one else is

telling people like us about them like I do in this report.

So what are the five typical, fundamental, critical mistakes most

business owners make? Any one of them is enough to stop your

business from gaining altitude and could potentially send your

business into a life threatening tail spin.

By exposing and eliminating these mistakes you’ll be able to grow

your business faster and easier than you ever thought possible. You

will avoid the fatal flaw that kills off the chances of success in most

businesses. You will start to adopt the winning beliefs and behaviours

and start to build the same success factors that the ultra successful

Top Guns employ.


1. Short Term Focus

Most owners of SMEs (small to medium enterprises) become more

focused on short term survival than long term success. Typically,

short term cash requirements become the driver for most things that

happen in the business. If the need is constant, the needs of the

future development of the business are often totally neglected.

Most business owners spend their time putting out fires. But the only

way to stop this problem long term is to work on prevention rather

than cure. If you deal with the causes, then you won’t have to worry

about the fires at all. This means taking time out to analyse what’s

going wrong and planning what needs to be done to achieve the

goals.

Stephen Covey, in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People”

points out that the No. 2 habit is to “Start with the end in mind”. In

other words work out where you want to get to first. With a short

term focus, the tendency is jus to bounce from one crisis to the next

in a reactive mode.

The 5 Critical Mistakes

1. Short term focus. 2. Reactive marketing 3. Ineffective delegation 4. Lack of control

5. Doing it all yourself


2. Reactive Marketing

Advertising decisions in SMEs are often determined reactively,

depending on how busy things are. There is no defined marketing

plan. Advertising is initiated when sales slow down and stopped

when sales pick up. Advertising is usually tactical rather than

strategic. This endless reactive cycle just tends to keep the business

operating around the same level of sales – survival level.

Smaller businesses tend to operate reactively when it comes to

marketing and use price as the main competitive element. This again

sets up a reactive approach to price setting and marketing activity,

creating a chain reaction with competitors which ends up damaging

everyone’s profits and cash flow.

Marketing is about communicating to the market the distinctive

reasons why a company’s products should be the logical choice

compared to competitive offerings. Most SMEs, through lack of

knowledge, do a poor job of this communication process. The lack of

ability and effort in communicating competitive advantages leads to

the focus on competing on price.

How do Top Guns overcome short term focus? Top Guns believe in creating their own success and determining their own future by developing a business plan that maps out the long term goals for the business, what the business needs to look like to achieve those goals, and a detailed action plan for how they are going to get there. Working to the plan provides the discipline required to avoid defaulting to doing the urgent short term work but neglecting the important long term development work.


3. Ineffective Delegation

You can’t grow your business without delegating work to someone

else. However, most business owners would prefer to do the work

themselves than learn how to choose the right people, set them up

with the right systems, then motivate and nurture them.

Ineffective delegation leads to a number of issues.

1. Differing expectations between boss and employee.

2. Inefficient work methods, leading to quality and productivity

issues.

3. Disappointment for the business owner because the employee

doesn’t think the same way as the owner.

Top Guns plan their marketing Top Guns believe in their superiority First they determine their company’s strategic advantages over the competition and then they proactively communicate the value of those advantages to the market using a structured marketing plan. More often than not, this style of strategic marketing allows them to sell at higher prices than competitors because they focus on what customers really value. Don’t allow yourself to say you don’t have any competitive advantages. If that’s your current belief, either find them, develop them, or get out of business before your proactive competitors drive you out.


4. Frustration for the business owner because the employee

doesn’t get the same results the owner would have.

Often the business owner has expectations of employees that are

simply not communicated clearly, therefore they don’t get the results

they expect. The outcome is frustration leading to resigned

acceptance that “you can’t get good staff these days”

4. Lack of Control

Imagine getting in an aircraft and attempting to fly without

instruments. You can probably get away with it for a while, but if

you’re making a lengthy journey you need to know if there is enough

fuel, to check you are flying in the right direction, and if you strike

turbulence while flying blind, you may completely lose track of where

you are.

Running a business without performance indicators is like flying blind.

Some business operators we’ve seen don’t even know what their

Top Guns clearly communicate their expectations They believe clear interactions between people and good relationships are essential to productivity, so they develop effective communication processes. These include job descriptions, operations manuals, work instructions and appraisal systems to ensure that expectations about an employee’s role in the business are effectively communicated and understood and that the employee’s performance results are fed back and effectively worked through to the satisfaction of each party. Delegation can then occur without frustration and antagonism.


financial position is from month to month. That’s like guessing how

much fuel you have left, then being surprised when the engine stops.

Flying by the seat of the pants may have worked once upon a time

when the world was simpler and more forgiving, but life and business

is much more complicated now, and if you don’t know where you are

or the state of your aircraft you risk crashing.

5. Doing it all yourself

Becoming a top business leader requires a significant degree of

personal growth and development of critical skills. Significant

achievement always involves help from others. There are significant

changes that need to be made to the structure of any business as it

transitions through each stage of growth. Many business owners are

not aware of these transition points and hitting the growth barriers

appears to take many by surprise. As a result, they often remain

stuck at the barrier and may struggle to find a way through.

Top Guns keep control with KPI’s Top Guns believe that knowledge is power and they use it to make continuous improvements. They develop effective control systems through monitoring key performance indicators to keep track of where they are. This extends from the basic financial statements that keep you in touch financially, to non-financial measures that keep track of productivity and efficiency in many areas of the business. The controls are like a business cockpit, where the business owner can keep track of the business just like a pilot in a modern aircraft.


In small business it has long been accepted that you need external

professionals for preparing accounts and dealing with legal matters,

however it is also becoming commonplace to bring in specialist skills

to work on improving specific business functions – like strategy,

marketing, sales, or productivity.

Successful business requires effort and leverage and usually is not

achieved without a significant amount of mentoring and guidance

from people with the right experience and expertise.

Can YOU Take A Six-Month Vacation From Your Business?

The reality is, as confirmed by the surveys quoted earlier, if most

business owners continue to operate within their current belief

system they are never likely to achieve complete freedom from their

business.

Top Guns choose to work with experts Top Guns believe in continuous learning and personal development. They look for people who can help them lead a business through the various growth phases. They often have a number of mentors and specialists who add value to their own expertise and who coach and guide them through the challenges they need to confront.


On the other hand, the Top Gun has a business that is an autonomous

operation that functions and flourishes with only occasional

intervention. This is why the Top Gun can go on vacation for a

month, 2 months, or even six months or more for that matter… and

when they come back… their business will be better, bigger, more

efficient, and more profitable than before. And this is also why the

Top Gun has true freedom. Because they’ve created a business that

thrives independently of them.

The Freedom Challenge is about putting your business on

autopilot

Until your business works without you it is impossible to realise the

vision implicit in the freedom challenge.

Running on autopilot is only possible when every part of the business

operates according to a system. It also means you must have

competent people in key positions who know what they are doing

and are accountable for doing it right. As Jim Collins puts it in his book

“Good to Great” - a great business consist of “the right people doing

the right things in the right way”.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was one simple formula, which when

applied to a typical business, always produced the results we defined

in the Freedom Challenge (time, money, and freedom)?

However the reality is that every business is different. Every business

has its own set of unique circumstances, is confronted by unique

challenges and opportunities and has a unique group of individuals

managing and operating it. It’s actually impossible to apply a single

formula to creating a business that can operate on autopilot.


And by the way, having your business operate on autopilot we don’t

mean that you can simply set it and forget it. As the pilot you’re still

responsible for the flight plan, for monitoring the instruments, for

landing and takeoff, for handling turbulence as it occurs, plus a host

of other things. But it does mean you don’t have to have your hands

on the controls all the time. You can safely leave it in the hands of

your co-pilot for some time before you need to step back into the

cockpit, ready to take it in new directions or to the next level.

The 7 step system that lead to freedom and prosperity

The other day I received a letter from Charlie. Remember how we

left Charlie, stressed at crisis point................... Actually, the letter

was written by Charlie’s wife and she enclosed these photos. The

letter started with, “Dear Greg, We just wanted to

write to say thanks. We are sitting at the outdoor

restaurant at the top of the steps up to Piazzale

Michaelangelo in Florence, Italy, celebrating our

freedom. We wanted to share with you some of the

enjoyment we are having on our trip through

Europe, which

wouldn’t have been possible

without your program. When

Charlie called you, he didn’t

know which way to turn. The

business was out of control and

our stress levels were very high.

But your program helped him

develop clear goals and a plan

that showed him how to keep the business growth and development


on track, but without getting stressed at the same time because he

could be confident that the right systems were being put in place to

make everything run efficiently. Now, just over one year later, we are

able to leave the business with the confidence that it will not only

survive, but thrive for the two months we are away. It’s hard to

believe how different our life is now!”

Rather than a looking for a business success formula which doesn’t

exist, there is a simple 7 step system anyone can take to build a

successful autopilot business. These 7 steps are an outcome of our

observations over many years and many businesses and reflect the

difference between a successful business and a “managing to survive”

business.

Think of these 7 steps as the prerequisites for you to put your

business on autopilot. Without them, most businesses never deliver

on the owner’s vision of freedom and prosperity. Until your business

works without you it is impossible to realise the vision implicit in the

freedom challenge.

The 7 steps for business success

1. Take Charge 2. Plan for Autopilot Stage and Beyond 3. Build a Sales Escalator 4. Create Systems to Remove Dependency 5. Build a Self-Reliant Team 6. Develop Your Control Mechanisms

7. Break Free without Fear


I’ve been using these steps for years now, both in my own businesses

and with my clients, to create consistent, reliable results to

establishing a business that really works, so the owners don’t have to.

How do you put these 7 steps in place?

If you’ve read this far you are obviously serious about wanting to

learn how to break through some of the barriers to business growth

that were not visible to you before.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to get as much inside

information as you can, so you can build a massively successful

business and to get your business organised so it can be run on

autopilot. Of course, there’s only so much I can fit into this report,

but the whole system is spelled out in my book, Put Your Business on

Autopilot. If you want to learn more, check out the details and get

your copy at www.businessflightpath.com/autopilotbook.

But if you are ready for action now, you’ll want some more specific

advice that is uniquely relevant to your business. I’ve made it

possible for you to start getting that advice for free. Simply go to our

Freedom Challenge assessment to discover exactly where you are

now and to see what has to change. The Freedom Challenge

assessment will provide the opportunity to look at your business in a

new way and will show you what has to be done to have the

confidence to break free.

Take the test

The Freedom Challenge Assessment leads you through 10 simple

multiple-choice questions. Within minutes a comprehensive business


health report about your business situation will be emailed to you.

Simply go to our website at

www.businessflightpath.com/autopilotanalysis and answer 10 multi-

choice questions. It’s free and fast!

The report will be emailed back to you within minutes, and will give

you a concise overview of how to transform your business into a

highly profitable, self-sustaining business that operates on autopilot –

giving you the freedom and confidence to choose the life you want to

lead. DO IT NOW before you get caught up again in the continuing

incessant demands of your business.

www.businessflightpath.com/autopilotanalysis

Click the link now to start your journey to FREEDOM.

Endnotes i National Federation of Independent Business (USA)

ii Grant Thornton International Business Survey

iii Inland Revenue Service (USA)

iv Grant Thornton International Business Survey

v New Zealand Department of Statistics

vi New Zealand Department of Statistics

vii Grant Thornton International Business Survey

the freedom challenge

Documents