Building a company that grows AND survives is only possible through experimentation.

Here is how to do this with your small business...
The environment is always changing, so your business needs to be always changing.

Not day to day, but year to year and definitely decade to decade.

This is the only way to survive long term.
Experimentation is a mindset. Doing things over and over, that are working and paying off, and yet still, always looking for better ways.

Try
- adding
- subtracting
- adjusting the allocation while keeping components the same

What happens? why?

Approach everything this way.
For this to work, you have to be ok with failure.
With things not being as good as before.

Sometimes you will add and it will be worse. Your conversions will drop, your products will fail, your launch will be dud.

Accept this, and you are levels ahead of others!
Given there will be failure, use a portfolio approach.

Don't ride your entire company on every idea.

Take small, inexpensive bets. Tons of them.

Create a culture of taking them everywhere in your business.

Promote the ones that work, drop the rest.
Once you have ideas, products, tweaks, adjustments, or new methods that work... tweak those.

Continuing experimenting.

Don't ever be content with how its being done, or the results you are seeing.
This constant approach towards

- innovation
- improvement
- experimentation
- accepting failure
- and trying new things

when added together, will create a company that grows as well as adapts and survives over the long term.

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More from @joshuamschultz

3 May
Wealth building isn't really a gradual process, it happens in step-wise functions.

Because of this (and the way people are wired), modern portfolio theory is just that... a theory.

The strategy that will actually help you build wealth is a barbell approach.
Helping 10 people manage / invest 10mil+ right now and its the best for all of them.

People have a tendency towards risk, gambling, the large payoff.

Rather than constantly trying to educate and remove that innate tendency... use it as part of the investing strategy
Creating a safe portfolio, that always trends up over the long term, and has a small chance of declining, enables a riskier approach with the remaining funds.

This riskier approach should include asymmetric bets that will enable step-wise growth in wealth.
Read 15 tweets
3 May
Business stages...

Stage 1: The Scramble
Stage 2: The Hustle
Stage 3: The Manager
Stage 4: The visionary

There are probably more, but this covers my thoughts right now...
Stage 1:

You are scrambling about trying to figure what works, why it works, and how to repeat it.

Key Goal: Idea Traction / Market Fit

Key Metric: # of customers handing over money

Key Risk: You aren't offering something compelling, wanted, or painful enough
Stage 2:

You figured out what works, now you are hustling to get more business, straddling between growing sales, and growing operations to support those sales.

Key Goal: Leads, Conversions, Unit Economics

Key Metric: CAC, B/E #'s, GM per key resource

Key Risk: Cash, People
Read 5 tweets
28 Apr
Procedures are enormously important if you want to

- scale the size of your business
- reduce mistakes and fires
- find operational leverage points
- outsource work
- reduce training time
- and create a streamlined operation.

But what should they contain?
1. Name

Every Procedure should have a name. Since these will be stored and referenced, I like to use the name of the task someone would be asked to do.

"Can you send invoices" -> Send Invoices
"Please ship this UPS" -> Ship UPS

This makes it searchable by those who are new.
2. Date Written

You should keep a date written and date updated on the procedure at all times.

This helps people know how current it is.

It gives you a way to identify and update (ex. all procedures over 12 months old need to be reviewed for accuracy).
Read 19 tweets
26 Apr
Scaling service businesses requires sales

A lot of emphasis is put on inbound sales (ie automatic and no interacion until close)

While this works, sions and ROI on time if you do cold outreach

Cold Calls are not dead
Cold Emails are not dead
Stop bys are not dead

Here's how
1. The key to cold outreach is not just volume, but what I call qualified volume.

You will spend less time overall if you qualify your contacts first.

Do this using google, review sites, facebook, company website, or driving by.

Volume without qualification is discouraging.
2. Make sure they are someone who would benefit from doing business with you, not just someone you want to do business with.

I have plenty of people I'd love to work with... but at this point, I have nothing have value to offer.

So I don't waste their time (or mine).
Read 15 tweets
20 Apr
Process Improvement - The basics

Process improvement means
- it costs less to run your operation
- there are few mistakes
- it takes less time to run your business each day
- you can take on more customers without investing in more resources
For the business owner this means:

- more cash
- less stress and fires
- less time in the business

So how do you do it?
While there are countless complex and innovative ways to carry out process improvement, many small business owners can start to see significant improvement with just a little work.

I'll walk you through a basic method here
Read 20 tweets
19 Apr
Ways to keep you and your team focused on and executing on strategy.

Tactics and fires can side track you.

Before you know it, 12 months have gone by, and you've been reacting day to day, with little thought to WHERE you WANT or SHOULD go.

Here are some ways to keep aligment
1. Have a weekly meeting.

I hate meetings, but this is a non-negotiable.

The results and team focus are deniable once you do this consistently and correctly.

This meeting occurs no matter who can/cant make it (including you)
2. Keep a daily check-in for yourself.

Here is an example

Read 6 tweets

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