What’s the purpose of the hustle crew if the team makes no money? We spend many days swapping catchy quotes about hustling, grinding, working hard, etc. etc while quickly working backwards, not planning, not focusing, nor locating the most powerful streams of sustainability that we can create. While grinding, hustling and working hard have their place, they are merely ingredients to the rather complex business pie. 

Your idea has to start making money and continue to make money over time for you to be taken seriously as a business. 

As we dive right off January’s uber focused goal setting lessons and high jump into February’s funding, raising capital, locating your profit streams and gaining investors theme, I want to ask you….. where does your money come from? 

This is quite important as many of you are wondering exactly how to get dollars into your business, how to get a bank loan or how to get a potential investor to drop his hard earned dollars in support of your business idea. So that we can lose the delusion, make progress, have money in the bank, and finally get some clarity, I have to make an uncomfortable, yet %100 true statement.

 

Most of you are nowhere near ready to get an investor seriously interested in your business. 

Let me run this scenario by you….

Your cousin, who has no job, doesn’t like to keep a job and whose dependability is sketchy, asks you to borrow money. Yes, this cousin. Would you lend it? Would you give him your money in true hopes of getting it back? 

OF COURSE NOT!! 

 Yet, we wonder and wander aimlessly into conversations about not having investment dollars just as the unorganized, ambitious, yet undependable cousin does.  CEOs, your, our, an entrepreneur’s first priority is to learn how to make money and to make a habit of making money over time. 

 Why exactly would an investor want to put their money into your company if:

a. You don’t have your own money invested

b. Your priorities and where your own dollars really go do not match

c. You don’t make money

d. You don’t have a clear plan to making money

e. You don’t have a way to pay said investor back their money

d. You have not yet proven the validity of your idea or services

 

Yep, that was a bit of tough love, but let’s dissect the lesson from this.

Your goal right now, before you seek to find investors, funding or a loan for your company is to get crystal clear on your business’s profit streams. THEN, THEN:

• Start investing in yourself, through coaching, reading, attending conferences and trainings, and in developing the BEST product or service that you can.
• Start making money. Yep, that simple. Start making money. 
• If you haven’t located your profit streams, your focus should be to work on creating them. What are the exact products and services in your business that will make you money? Then, ask yourself, how will they make money and how much money. Yes, you should be this specific, because remember, this is serious business. If you need help with this, join us here .
• Start building your own products, services, and events. Basically, be responsible for finding or creating some of your own opportunities. Get some immediate help with that exact thing here.
• Start keeping track of records ( expenses, revenues, profits).
• Focusing on consistently making money for at least a year before having a conversation about investing in your idea ( can be a totally different story for a high growth tech company) 

 

The Hustle Forward Mindset… 

• I will determine what my products and services will be
• I will make sure my products and services align with what I want to become known for, the ultimate goal of my business and that the product allows me to do 2 things:
•           make money
•           be strategic on how I go about creating, launching and sharing it
• I Respect my set goals, deadlines, my value and my time and only add things to my plate that fit within my ultimate priorities and money goals
• I will spend at least 1 hour each day reading, refining, creating, marketing, sharing my product, service or talent so that I can become known in a particular niche or industry, start becoming known for adding value and begin to get paid my worth 
• I will add analytics to my efforts so that I can fully understand what is working, what is not, and make changes where needed 
• I will hire an accountant and/or bookkeeper to help me to understand, organize and respect my business funds
• I no longer spend time on activities that do not make me money unless they are indeed hobbies, and I will realistically label them as such 
• If I want to go the kickstarter route, I will research the “best kickstarter or crowd funding campaigns” and then create a plan to build my own campaign 
• I will get myself and my business prepared by asking investors exactly what they are looking for to give money to a company like mine and while I am doing this, I will learn to create systems, processes, start a database and keep professional documents in my business so that I am always ready, should an investor want to give lend me money
• I will truly begin to understand that I am my first investor in my business and I should not expect others to find value in my dream if I do not first take a risk and find value in myself 

CEOs, understand that making money is the foundation of it all. If you aren’t making money, you aren’t a business. If you aren’t making money your idea doesn’t seem valid and no investor will be comfortable giving you money. If you aren’t making money the bank won’t EVER lend you money to grow your business and on and on and on. So the #1 goal this February Funding Month, if not already, is to work on determining and building your revenue streams and start organizing what’s coming in, what’s going out and what’s staying behind to grow your business.