You’ve heard these phrases for a life time: Be Prepared, Be Proactive, and Begin with the End in Mind. These are core disciplines for success and prosperity as a business owner too.

Be Prepared

For the Boy Scouts of America, the Boy Scout Motto BE PREPARED means a scout is always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.

The motto of the Girl Scouts of the USA also is BE PREPARED. For Girl Scouts, this means being prepared at any moment to face difficulties and even dangers by knowing what to do and how to do it.

Be Proactive

Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, almost 20 years ago. It’s been a top-seller for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. These habits are still essential and apply equally when you are planning to complete the lifecycle of your business. We’ll only look at the first two habits here.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Being proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about.

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty--successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them, e.g., playing 1000 hours of a video games instead of attending classes and flunking out of college.

If you don’t have a blueprint to build a house, the framework you build may never qualify for an occupancy permit. If you don’t have long-term as well as short term goals and objectives, you could excel in the moment and yet never build a nest egg for the future.

Begin With The End In Mind is the ability to envision and plan for what you cannot see at present. 

Plan Your Exit From The Outset

When it comes to your business, now and long-term, you must roll up all three of these principles:

• Be Prepared
• Be Proactive
• Begin With The End In Mind

into one, and Plan Your Exit From the Outset. If you take your ownership responsibility seriously, then it’s integral to your job to be prepared, to be proactive, and to begin with the end in mind.

As an owner, that means, you will:

• Design Your Business Mission Statement
• Communicate it to all stakeholders
• Be prepared for all contingencies (death, divorce, disability, disagreements, and departures) and continuity challenges (severe weather (fire, flood, or blizzard), power outages, dangers (hostage, crash, or a state of emergency). [Can your business withstand any of these surprises? How prepared are you, your team, your business, your systems?]
• Eliminate excuses and procrastination that murder your business
• Be proactive about building your business as a wealth-producing asset not just an income stream:

      - Exploring your endgame in the business and beyond

• Begin with the end in mind. 
  At its core this means having your affairs in order and your plans for a business transition mapped out early to ensure you can cash out on your terms and on your timeline and transition to the reinvention of your dreams (some combination of a new venture, adventure, avocation or simply your favorite hobbies) knowing your legacy and dynasty are secure. This can only be achieved with early and consistent long-term planning: 2-5 years before a transaction is in sight.

That’s why early exit planning (we teach business owners to ‘plan your exit from the outset’) is the only option if you are committed to all three principles of Be prepared, Be proactive, and Begin with the end in mind. If you’d like to have a conversation about being prepared and being proactive in your business, call This Way Out Group at 508.820.3322 or email us.