No business owner starts the day wanting things to be worse today than yesterday. Their challenge is not recognizing what they need to do differently or stop to make their circumstances better. When uncertainty builds, pause to anchor yourself on the facts of the business you know to be true and turn to guiding principles to help you take action today rather than hiding from your problems, hoping they go away. This latter approach, when sales are down, and cash is tight, never resolves itself.
Overview
Uncertainty is defined as doubt. When you are overwhelmed with problems and don’t know what to do next, this is an example of uncertainty. The more you doubt yourself, the more unease you have about making a decision or taking a needed action, the faster everything around you grinds to a halt waiting for you to lead the way.
Should your uncertainty turn to worry about what could happen next, this level of uncertainty leads to heightened anxiety and depression. The more you worry about actual or potential problems, the more anxious those around you become about their future and what could happen to them.
Uncertainty in business is never a winning formula for making more money. You put yourself at increased risk of uncertainty anytime you can’t identify the actions that need to start, change, or stop to produce superior profits and protect cash flow.
If you find sales slowing and cash flow tight and don’t know what to do, your uncertainty will become increasingly problematic as you burn through cash. You protect yourself from becoming paralyzed by falling back to principles and facts. Every step we take in the direction of uncovering truth and resisting faulty or incorrect assumptions moves us closer to having understanding what we must do in our business model to earn profits. One way or another, truths discovered will be indisputable.
It is easier to execute with confidence and determination when you work with the truth. Truth is a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, or principle. Pure truth is valid at all times and in all places. It is always right, no matter what the circumstances.
The lack of facts around your current situation leads to uncertainty. Businesses that consistently lose money and struggle to find the cash to pay their bills lack organization and order. A business with uncertain ownership will have employees who are confused, disorderly, and out of control.
To protect your business from owner uncertainty, remember principles. Principles are “concentrated truth,” packaged for application to a wide variety of circumstances. Business CPR and the 7-P Framework are management frameworks proven to help business leaders organize their thoughts into facts about their business and then apply them to build a profitable business with predictable cash flow and cash reserves in the bank. Acting on facts helps you see the light at the end of the tunnel.