Page 22 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

do and how you do it. It is looking in from the outside and asking, ‘What is my business?’
An example is for electricians who carry out electrical services. Some only do residential and some only commercial. Some do both. Some are very clear that they only do commercial, are focussed and say no to residential as it’s a distraction for them. Some residential electricians only do existing homes and don’t pull wires in new homes.
Be clear on what your model is. Stick to your model, but if it is not working, change it. If after a time you just cannot get it to work, get out before you lose your shirt. Go and get a job! I have had several businesses that I just couldn’t get to work. I thought I had the model right, but it was not working. I changed into other products and services, but it still didn’t work. The main lesson here was that I hung on far too long. I should have said ‘enough is enough’ earlier, as it just kept costing me money. It was also the entrepreneur issue of chasing every opportunity when I should have just stuck to the focussed profitable businesses with clear models. It’s not only money you potentially lose, it’s all that time and energy wasted.
Three years ago on a Xmas holiday, I woke up one day, and thought, I have never shown visually what our business model is – distribution, brand, product definition and sales channels. It had to be on one page. Bingo! With the mind fresh, I punched it out in one day and had the illustrator who also did the illustrations in this book, John Stevenson, put it together on one A4 page. It clearly set out what our