Thinking hourly is thinking small

Take these scenarios as fodder for the No More Hourly Arsenal. When you think hourly, you:

• Are thinking in terms of your cost, not the value to your client.
• Lose perspective on the bigger picture and instead focus on getting things done within budget - not necessarily delivering butt-kicking results.
• Pay employees for existing inside your company, not for producing quality work.
• Can't scale your business because you are only charging for the work you perform.

Enough reasons to think bigger?

I have people ask me all the time about their company name. And then there are the folks that I have to pull to the side and tell them that their company name is killing their business.

Either way, your name is important. It either adds value, or detracts from your business. Names that mean something help people understand what you do. Names that are unique can be memorable. Names that click for your clients can be memorable.

In other words, do you focus on bringing in the big kill? The large contract? The Fortune 500 account?

If so, you may want to start hunting something new. If we call the big account an elephant, there are lots of elephant hunters in the world. However, why not hunt for the elephant herders? The companies and people who already know the elephants, have relationships with them, and who can help you get into the account?

I was thinking about the state of American business owners yesterday and came to the conclusion that there is a general paradigm that business owners seem to have fallen into that I call the 50 x 5 Trap.

Here it is:

• We work 50 hours per week
• For 50 weeks a year
• For 50 years
• We're only 50% engaged in our work, and
• When we're 50, we look back and wonder how we didn't achieve what we set out to

This is a sad state. Business owners usually start their businesses for one of 5 reasons:

Positioning is something many people have heard about, but haven't properly implemented in their companies. Positioning is determining how you fit into the overall market, and has the following characteristics:

1. Who you are
2. What you sell
3. Who you sell to (specifically)
4. Your value proposition (why will people buy from you?)
5. How you compare to competitors