Avoiding the Four Horsemen of The Business Owner's Apocalypse - Getting the Reward You Want and Deserve - The Trinity of the Business Owner's SalvationWe've been discussing over the last five weeks four behaviors that consistently, time and again undermine business owners from achieving the goals they most deeply want - a rewarding, satisfying conclusion to their lifetime of business ownership. I have been so appalled over the years at how consistently these four behaviors - Denial, Delay, Disruption, and lack of respect for Detail - undermine even the most successful of businesses that I coined a term for them, The Four Horsemen of the Business Owner's Apocalypse.If these behaviors are so pervasive and insidious, how then can and should an owner overcome them? By a adopting what I call the Trinity of the Business Owner's Salvation - Vision, Planning, and Guidance.Vision is creating a clear picture of what you want from your business ownership transition to look like. We go into denial and delay because we are fearful of what the end might look like. So we don't deal with it. By thinking through what we want (even if we're not sure how we are going to get it), we create a goal, something that should be attractive to us, something that we don't want to deny or delay but encourage and facilitate.Planning allows us to map what we need to do to accomplish our vision. It creates the pathway. Planning with benchmarks overcomes the delay and allows us to get on track when we are disrupted.Guidance is having the mentor, the coach. You've not done this and you need to align yourself with someone who has. Just as no great athlete goes without a coach, neither should you try to navigate this most important of transitions without a guide. Your guide will remind you of your plan, keep your vision in your mind to motivate you, and bring the experts with the detailed knowledge that you need to make your vision happen.With Vision, Planning and Guidance the Four Horsemen will be put in abeyance and you will get the reward you deserve.
