TLDR: Your business problems are not due to recent decisions but decisions made 20+ weeks ago. Decisions such as NOT completing your cashflow forecast, updating your quote register, setting up systems to improve on-time payments, referral strategies, etc. It is important to know the things for business improvement.
Why didn’t you do them? It’s because you’re not committed to the four layers of trust in your leadership. How can you expect clients to trust you if you don’t trust yourself?
The Importance of Trusting Yourself as a Business Owner
What if I told you that, even if you were using all the tools, tactics, and strategies you need to grow your business… even if you thought you were doing an awesome job at sales, marketing and business development… was there still something holding you back from getting the results you want?
You see, you’re only as good as you believe you are as a business owner.
You could have the best team of tradies, but that doesn’t mean anything if you’re not pushing yourself and the business to find new opportunities and expand. The limitations you put on yourself are reflected in your business. Take a moment to let those words sink in.
It all starts with you. If you don’t trust yourself to take on the tasks necessary to grow your business and make it a success, you won’t do it. Simple as that. Growth and success stem from the trust you have in yourself!
The 4 Layers of Trust
Being a business owner is a completely different kettle of fish to being a tradie. You’re an excellent tradie, which is one of the reasons you went into business for yourself. But trusting yourself to deliver the best results on a job, and bettering yourself as a team member, is nothing like the work you need to do as an owner and entrepreneur.
There are four layers to trust that you must work on to lead your business to success. Each layer has a succinct and distinct level of personal best and personal improvement.
- Integrity – Is what you say and what you do. If there is a connection between being and doing, then you are in integrity. You’re disciplined in listening to your commitments, and you follow through in your action.
- Intention – Are you clear about where you are going and when? As the owner, it is your responsibility to lead. Even when you have a leadership team, if you’re the key stakeholder, you still need to lead. Your intention should not be hoodwinked or hijacked.
- Capability – Your trust in yourself regarding your skills, experience, ability to have cut through, etc. You need to build the capability in yourself and your trust. Trust in yourself to leave no one behind.
- Capacity – Trust in yourself that there is still more capacity in you and your team. Create an environment where there is room for more channels, leverage, and clients. Don’t put a glass ceiling on yourself or your business.
Trust Affects Your Decision Making
All your current problems have nothing to do with what you’re doing right now and have everything to do with important things you didn’t do 20+ weeks ago.
Take a look at your cashflow forecast, for example (and if you don’t have one, this is your reminder to make one!) If you have cashflow problems today, it’s not because you ran out of money. If because of the stuff you should have done in the past and didn’t.
It’s because there were several weeks in a row when you said you were going to complete it, and you didn’t. You’re not following through with what you said you were going to do.
But once completing that cashflow forecast weekly without fail is hardwired into leadership, I can almost guarantee that other things in your business will fall into place. Not only will you have access to data to implement effective decision-making, you’ll also have built your trust in yourself because you followed through. You’ll be committed to knowing vs hoping and wishing things to happen.
Human beings with high trust in themselves and a consistent, reliable, credible level of performance are the individuals that go the distance and have all they desire in life.
Trust vs Performance – Changing your Mindset
Author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek worked with the Navy Seals to understand how they pick their elite members. The leader drew an XY axis to show trust and performance. Performance is measured by skills on the battlefield, and trust is off the battlefield.
Nobody wants a person with low performance & low trust, for obvious reasons. Everybody wants a high performer of high trust.
But what’s interesting is that the Seals learned that the high performer of low trust is a toxic leader and team member. So they would rather have a medium performer of high trust (sometimes even a low performer of high trust) over a high performer of low trust.
This is coming from the highest-performing organisation on the planet, and they value trust over performance. Yet, in business, it’s the opposite!
We typically only measure performance, which promotes toxicity within organisations. But when you’re up a creek without a paddle, and you need someone to take charge and turn things around, you turn to a person with high trust (who might not be the highest performer) because they are the person who is always in integrity, always has intention, has the capability, and trusts in their own and their teams capacity.
You put so much effort (or you should do if you’re not already!) into tracking your leads, revenue, profit, etc., but I guess that you’re not putting effort into improving the trust you have in yourself as a leader.
Watch Simon Sinek’s 3-minute video explanation here.
The work you did reflects your present. The changes you make today predict your future.
I’m sure you can think of someone who made millions of dollars, and yet you wonder how they’ve managed to do that? It’s because they had NO doubt in their mind that they would succeed. They trusted themselves completely!
If you get this right, it will be a game changer. Trust starts with you, and then flows to your team, clients, and suppliers.
Your business is your own creation, you keep it alive. If it’s not taking off the way you want it to, then think about how much trust you are extending to yourself in achieving your goals.
You don’t need to be extraordinary; you need to trust that you’re building new behaviours that give you more data, wisdom, knowledge, insights, etc., sooner.