Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Excuses. Here I am. So, hi guys and welcome to this week's Profit first podcast. I'm Stephen Edwards, I'm the founder of Grow Profit First Accountants. I'm an award winning Profit first accountant here in the UK and we teach you some principles, how to implement Profit first in your business and real life stories at the coface. Working with our clients, working with businesses just like you that ultimately trying to design a business that gives them the life they want. Got less cash flow problems and ultimately more profit. As I say, to do the things you want to do in your life. So today I, if you're new to the podcast, yes, we will dive into Profit first and if you want some specific Profit first strategies, then you can reach out to me. I've got lots of tools and resources. You can go onto our website or you can go back to some of the other podcasts. But I do share tips to be successful in your business because, yes, I love Profit First. Yes, we are all in and we help people with Profit first, but ultimately our mission is to help you build a better business. So I will share any insights from my experience building my own business over the last 15 years and investing over a hundred thousand pounds in development and training and learning and tens of thousands of pounds pretty much every year. So I will share my journey with you. And today I want to talk about how most business owners have got it wrong. When I say they've got it wrong, they think they need to just work harder for longer. They think they need to grind it out. They think if they just put the effort in, they're going to get further and they're going to get there faster. Absolutely. There is a time and a place for everything. There is a time and a place in my business and my journey. When I was grinding it out, I was working 60 hours a week. I was saying yes to every single opportunity because it was super important. You know, I needed to put food on the table, I needed to pay the bills, I left my job. And when you're in that startup phase, that's probably quite important for a lot of people. And actually there is a time and place for it at the beginning because the sheer power, effort, determination will get you so far. But here's the thing, it will only get you so far at some point. That is not the answer to scale. If you want to build a business that gives you a life that you want and you want to build it with intentionality, choice, freedom, opportunity, then actually, actually working harder and longer is not the answer. It's the Opposite, because you will hit a ceiling. You know, I hit a ceiling when we were probably 30%, 40% the size of we are now. When nearly every client relationship went through me and, and I realized I couldn't. It was hitting the ceiling, it was hitting the limit. And I needed to build a team. I need to empower people. I needed to level up the team, grow the team. And some of my clients at that time did not like that. Some of them actually left. But I made the choice for my lifestyle, for my business, for my future. If I'm going to scale this, if I'm going to really maximize the potential, I need to do things a little bit differently. And that links me into today's topic, which I've kind of just introduced you, that it's not about working harder and longer, but you need to distinguish between.
[00:03:15] You've got a lot of choices in your life as a business owner, particularly if you're the sort of person, listen, listening to this, you read business books, self development books, maybe you, you know, you follow people like Stephen Bartlett online, then you probably realize there's so much to do, there's probably a bit of an overwhelm in terms, not another book, not another podcast. How are you going to fit it all in? But here's the thing, you don't need to fit it all in. You just need to understand where you are in your journey right now. And what you need to figure out is the difference between the trivial many and the vital few. Let me just repeat that. The difference between the trivial many and the vital few.
[00:03:54] Not everything in terms of your opportunities, your projects, your goals, not everything on your to do list is equally important.
[00:04:04] Actually, some things, and it will be the vital few are probably 16 times.
[00:04:12] And I won't explain the logic today, but if you're wondering whether 16 times comes from reach out to me, I will explain it another time. Is 16 times more important in terms of your focus, your energy and your attention? So if you've got a list of, let's say, 10 major things, not to dos, because I'm sure you've got dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of to dos, but main kind of things like projects or things that you need to do, let's say you've got 10, the praetor principle tells us that actually only two of them are going to give us most of the results we need just two of them. Two of them are probably going to give us 80% of the success we need in our business. So I literally live and breathe this in my life nowadays. And to be honest, it's still a challenge. I love buying books. I buy so many books, it drives everyone in the house absolutely crazy because they're coming through pretty much every week. But I don't, I no longer feel the urge and the need, the overwhelm that I need to read them all at once. I do it and I capture it for the future. I basically create my own library and I've got access to the things I need when I need them. It doesn't mean I need to, you know, read them all straight away. If you watch Netflix, we've got prime or Apple tv, anything like that, you know, you can't keep up on top of every single show on TV anymore. And you know, most people watching things on platforms that other people haven't even got, it's virtually impossible. So it's the same with the choices in our business. You need to figure out what the vital few are. What's the 20% of activities, things you can do on a daily basis, weekly basis, projects? What's the 20% that's going to give you 80% of your progress? Because I can promise you not everything on your list is equal. And if you don't know how to approach this, the first thing to do is to, and you might. I appreciate different people at different stages in their business and their life listening to this. You might not know what your goals are. So step one is you need to know what you're trying to achieve. Absolutely. What does the 10 year vision look like? But then bring it down to say what does the three year vision look like? Because that, that's tangible, that feels more real. What, what, what needs to have happened in the next three years for me to be satisfied personally and professionally? What does that look like for, for you? So you need to think of the, the three year vision. Then you can bring it down to what needs to happen in the next 12 months, what needs to happen in 2026? Then you can bring it down to what am I doing in the next 90 days? That's how people plan. That's how strategic people plan. They think in quarters. And that will give you direction for what to do every week. In terms of what you do every week, you first need the bigger picture and then you can figure out what are the vital few. What's the 20% of the activities, the projects, the things on your to do list? They're gonna move the needle and get you where you need to go in the next three years. There's lots of resources. There's lots of strategies. There's lots of tools to achieve this. If you. If you want some inspiration, if you want some assistance, feel free to reach out to me and I'll point you in the right direction. But I just leave you on that expression again. You need to distinguish between the trivial many and the vital few. Have a great, great week. Cheers, guys. Excuses. Here I am.
