In this Australian Business Podcast episode, Owen Rask and Danil Goloubev reflect on 2023 and what they learned from running their businesses, from guests on the show and from you.
The duo cover topics like: Be ready for great opportunities – if you’re not ready to pounce, you’ll miss out. Create a personal board of directors (see Shane Parrish episode), or find an elephants group (see Nick Crocker episode).
Know your customer journey inside-out, they don’t see the business through your eyes The vital importance of journalling your thoughts – clarity is critical for new business owners.
There’s a full list of resources available on the Show Notes page.
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23 things we learned about business in 2023
- D: Take advantage of opportunities that come your way. For example, instant asset write off ended and many people who “waited” to upgrade large equipment or vehicles will miss out on the benefit
- D: Traditional is not always best. Just because that’s how they used to it. Doesn’t mean that’s how you should do it. Find ways to separate yourself. Service based business usually rely on word-of-mouth referral due to quality and trust pass on. Even though it is an effective form of lead generation it should not be your only one.
- D: Small business is not a monopoly, your success is not contingent on your “competition” failing. I heard someone say that they will send so and so out of business. Really got me thinking about how important it is to focus on you and why you are different.
- D: The importance of goal setting and strategy. So many businesses operate without any plans and you can see which business owners focus on strategy and which ones do not. Look at the growth of the businesses. Having a plan is better than waiting for the perfect plan.
- D: Personal health (mental and physical) has almost an PED effect. On efficiency, clarity and confidence. Something I look forward to taking a lot more time to focus on in 2024. When you feel good you operate great but when you feel bad you operate horribly.
- D: Being brave is not having the confidence to do something, its being scared and doing it anyway. Business risk vs rewards and calculating when to do something. i.e. could be a major hire that will separate your time from working in the business to working on the business. Big financial cost, benefits that can’t be calculated.
- D: With employees, make the tough decisions, don’t wait around for things to get better. Hire slow, fire fast. The business is more important than the person. You can’t let the vehicle that feeds everyone stop or slow down for someone that may not be the right person for the business.
- D: Focus on things that have the biggest impact first. You can’t fix all your pain points at once, focus on big impact and make your way down the list.
- D: Put away the shiny object syndrome
- D: Divide and conquer – splitting the business up to make faster progress
- D: Letting go – in order to grow you need to let go of things in your business
- D : Call a spade a spade – don’t put off hard conversations
- O: your customer avatar / profile can shift – don’t ‘think’ you know what it is, know what it is
- O: feedback, feedback, feedback – every time you get a contact with a customer, ask them for their honest feedback – capture it online or by simply speaking with people
- O: use AI to improve productivity, massive step changes came this year to content creation, website development and content management (e.g. Google and Microsoft tools)
- O: be aware of privacy and your policy around it – so many hacks lately, don’t take it for granted that you will be okay. Capture the minimum amount of sensitive info (e.g. credit cards or intimate details), or use the industry standard software. You can get cyber insurance.
- O: “whatever can be automated, should be automated” As Danil said, software is eating the world… most of the time. Try to set aside time for productivity improvements, at least every quarter.
- O: journal your thoughts on business – separating today and tomorrow is a wonderful way to get more sleep, and not take mental baggage into tomorrow. There’s no structure needed, just keep the paper beside your bed.
- O: Invest in a coach – it changed my life and my business. I invested in coaching in 2022 and I began to see all of the benefits of it in 2023. Huge incremental gains on the personal and professional front.
- O: Pricing doesn’t have to be guesswork. Navarre from Navexa, episode launched in December, introduced us to exactly, step-by-step, how to pricing your products/services AND create different tiers of products based on your customer segments. You never need to guess again. The formula is there, in that episode, if you want it.
- O: the value of persistence –
- O: You have to be okay with making mistakes and spending money on things that sometimes don’t work. Take calculated risks with capital.
- O: Customer journey – know how they experience your business
- O: Think about your personal board of directors (Shane Parrish) / elephants (Nick Crocker episode)
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