Anything for a Buck

by on Apr 1, 2019 10:58 AM

Entrepreneur: a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risk. So how does Trilogy Partners help manage potential risk? We help owners fully understand the financial story of their business including the danger of “Anything for a Buck”.

It starts with an idea, for a product or service that you can do better than anyone else. This idea will make you more money than you’re earning now PLUS, you make the rules and set your schedule.

So, you make the leap. You buy the domain, create a website, and hang out your shingle. You are open for business.

The phone rings! It’s a friend who needs X. Now X isn’t exactly what you do but after a brief conversation, you accept the work because you’re just starting out.

Then you get an email from someone who needs Y. Y also isn’t what you do but it’s close enough, so you write a proposal.

Time passes and you take on work that is within your strategic plan and some that’s not. You are working hard, putting in more hours than planned, yet the ROI isn’t there. Your vision of working smarter, not harder, isn’t panning out and you’re not sure why. What went wrong?

Instead of committing to your vision, you decided to do anything for a buck.

Consider my very first client, AFAB, aka “Anything For A Buck”. That was their business model and it didn’t work. Here’s why.

AFAB tried to do a bit of everything for anybody. Every time they quoted a job, they were starting from scratch and that takes time. They couldn’t build on experience, because every job was different and required new and unproven resources and processes. In a nutshell, they were guessing. Often, they would lower their quote to secure a project, minimizing the value of their brand. Also, by not specializing, the quality of their work suffered, and they did not stand out from the competition.

Stick to your vision. You know what you do well and why it adds value. You’re passionate and that passion shows. Every time you deviate from that model, you are spending time and money trying to reinvent a wheel that someone else has already invented, someone who is passionate about that wheel. Your time IS MONEY. Taking a lower rate of pay or a lower gross margin is a false positive. On paper, it looks like the business is making money, but unless you’re taking a fair market salary for what you’re doing, profits are overstated.

At Trilogy Partners, we understand how difficult it is to turn away a customer, especially a paying one who you genuinely want to help. But learning how to measure which clients and work are profitable is essential to the health and sustainability of your business. We can help you define your strategy and design a financial plan to support your vision. Call us at 609-688-0428 and let’s get started.