The true cost is often not what you think
You might get there on your own.
That is not the same as saying you will.
And even if you do, the real question is:
How long is it going to take you?
Most business owners learn by doing.
You try something.
It works.
Or it doesn’t.
You make a decision.
Sometimes it turns out to be the right one.
Sometimes you find out six months later that it wasn’t.
You employ someone.
You set a price.
You introduce a process.
You change the way you manage the team.
You spend money on marketing.
You try to improve sales.
You make mistakes, adjust, learn and move on.
That is how most people build a business.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
The problem is that it can be a very expensive way to learn.
Not because every mistake costs thousands of pounds.
Some do.
But because the biggest cost is often time.
If you spend two years solving something that could have been solved in two months, you do not just lose the difference in time.
You lose everything that could have happened during that time.
The extra profit.
The improved cash flow.
The better team.
The additional capacity.
The reduced stress.
The opportunities you could have taken.
The decisions you could have made differently.
The time you could have spent doing something more valuable.
That is the part people often miss.
The Cost of Help Is Obvious
If you work with an adviser, consultant, mentor or coach, the cost is right there in front of you.
There is an invoice.
You can see exactly what it costs.
That makes it very easy to ask:
“Is this expensive?”
The cost of doing it alone is much harder to see.
There is no invoice for making the wrong decision.
There is no monthly statement showing you what indecision cost.
Nobody sends you a bill for spending another year tolerating a problem you could have fixed.
There is no line in your accounts called:
Money we would have made if we had sorted this sooner.
But the cost is still real.
You Might Work It Out Eventually
A lot of business owners are perfectly capable of working things out for themselves.
That is not the point.
The point is whether they need to spend years doing it.
You might eventually work out:
Why the same problem keeps coming back.
Why the team keeps relying on you.
Why your margins are not where they should be.
Why sales are inconsistent.
Why you keep avoiding a particular decision.
Why one member of staff keeps creating problems.
Why you are busy all the time but never seem to get ahead.
Why the business still needs you involved in almost everything.
You might work all of that out.
Eventually.
Or you can sit down with someone who has seen versions of the same problem many times before.
Someone who can ask questions you have not thought to ask.
Someone who can challenge the assumptions you have accepted as facts.
Someone who can tell you when they think you are solving the wrong problem.
Someone who can help you see the options you are missing.
That does not mean they run the business for you.
They should not.
It means they help you shorten the learning curve.
Faster Is Valuable
The value of good support is not simply that you learn something.
It is that you learn it sooner.
You make the change sooner.
You stop repeating the mistake sooner.
You make the better decision sooner.
And you start receiving the benefit sooner.
That can completely change the economics of getting help.
If a change would eventually produce more profit, save time, reduce waste or improve the performance of the business, then every month you delay that change has a value attached to it.
Suddenly, the question is not:
“How much does this advice cost?”
It becomes:
“What is it costing me to take the long way round?”
I Am Not There to Do It for You
That is an important distinction.
I do not make your business better.
I help you make your business better.
I challenge your thinking.
I help you see what you may not be seeing.
I give you another perspective.
I help you understand why you are getting the results you are getting.
And I help you work out what needs to change so you can get a different result.
You still have to do something with it.
But you do not have to work everything out from scratch.
There Is Another Reason I Am Comfortable Saying This
When I start working with somebody, I invoice them at the beginning of the month.
We will have at least two meetings before that invoice becomes due.
And if, at the end of that month, they genuinely do not believe the work was worth what I charged them, they can tell me why and I will cancel the invoice.
I will not work with them the following month.
But I am not interested in charging someone for something they do not believe created value.
I can offer that because I am very confident in what happens when an experienced business owner has someone alongside them who can challenge their thinking properly.
The value is not in having another meeting in the diary.
The value is in getting to the right answer sooner.
You Can Take the Long Way Round
And sometimes that is exactly what people choose to do.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But it is worth recognising that doing everything yourself is not necessarily the cheap option.
Sometimes it is the most expensive option of all.
Because the real cost is not what you pay for help.
It is how long you spend learning things the hard way.
You might get there on your own.
I help you get there faster.
By Andy Walter
I help business owners build businesses that are easier to run, with less pressure and less stress.
Join us at the next Your Mastermind Group networking session.
#BusinessOwner #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #SME #ProblemBehindTheProblem
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