The Ambiguous &: Business Basics & Beyond

Molly Beyer invites us to think about our growth edge in this episode. What is our growth edge? It’s when old patterns are disrupted and we’re challenged to do more to grow our business. Molly explores what challenge looks like, how to meet it as a solo entrepreneur, and why supportive non-competitive competition is key to success.  

One of the biggest advantages to our growth edge is challenge but we are only ever truly competing against ourselves, so how do we grow when our only competition is us? How do we focus on the incremental improvement in ourselves and in our business if we have no comparison on which to base that growth? Molly describes the advantages of competing alongside others with ourselves. Entering a challenge with peers and colleagues not to compete against them, but to have support in the journey of competing against ourselves.

One of the ways to do this is to have an accountability team, according to Molly. Mentors, coaches, and other people who are meeting similar challenges ahead of us from whom we can learn, or behind us that we can help. Molly discusses healthy side-by-side challenges, the importance of support and accountability, and why giving also involves receiving in order to achieve our best growth edge. Join Molly on this new path in the journey to business growth.

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books
  
  

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Molly Beyer digs deeper into the benefits of time tracking in your business in this episode. Last episode she explored why time tracking is so useful as a pricing tool, helping us figure out how much time we spend on products and services to ensure we price them correctly. This time she goes a little deeper and talks about why time tracking benefits goals and productivity by highlighting opportunities to innovate, automate, and delegate tasks.  

When Molly separates her processes into “buckets” of time to identify everywhere she’s spending time, she also color codes those buckets. Her categories are things like administration, professional development, client work, and so on. Color coding them enables her to assign a specific color that relates to her zone of genius, her areas of strength, to tasks that she needs to keep doing while also identifying those tasks that maybe could be automated and those that definitely need to be automated or delegated.

With green as the zone of interest, yellow as can do but maybe later reassign, and red as must delegate or automate, a simple graph will detail exactly how much time we are spending on things we don’t need to be doing. This is where time tracking helps us with what to delegate, what to automate, and what to focus the bulk of our time on. Are we doing things that a virtual assistant or team member could do? Are there tasks our CRM could do automatically? Where are we losing time on things others could do and how do we realign our time distribution? Join Molly to answer those questions and grow business productivity.  

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books
  
  

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Molly Beyer addresses the importance of time tracking in today’s episode. While there are many metrics that can be used to track progress, set targets, or measure success, time tracking is both crucial and often overlooked. Find out why time tracking is a fundamental pillar of every successful business as Molly walks us through ideal tracking methods and how they help. 

Molly has divided time tracking into seven important steps to both understand time tracking and set your system up for maximum effectiveness. She talks in detail about each of the seven: tracking all business-related time, utilizing digital tools, dividing tasks into key business buckets, color coding, breaking tasks down to the granular level in tracking, and determining when and how the best work is done.

Why bother time tracking if you have sales metrics? Why is time tracking necessary if targets are being hit? Those are exactly the kinds of questions Molly answers in this episode and her experience, advice, and step-by-step breakdowns of how tracking time benefits a business will convince anyone of its importance. Join Molly, then, to reassess existing time tracking methods or create efficient new ones based on her knowledge. 

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books
  
  

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Molly Beyer took us on a journey through a foreign land in the last episode but in this episode, we’re going to climb a mountain with her. She shares eight basic steps that are necessary in starting to build a successful business. And the steps are remarkably similar to preparing to climb a mountain. Both endeavours require careful thought and planning, as Molly explains. 

The eight steps set us up for business success. Step one, build up the basics. Step two, pick a target. Step three, get some training. Step four, build a solid plan. Step five, outfit your operation. Step six, prepare for complications. Step seven, plan, plan, plan. And step eight, build slowly. What do these mean for a business? How do we apply them? What sorts of documentation and knowledge do we need? 

Join Molly to learn the answers to every question that comes to mind about the steps. She explores the meaning behind each one and how it affects the foundation of a business. Ensuring that preparations are made with forethought and in a specific order will give our businesses a better chance at success. And they allow us to pour resources into the right places and not drain funds and energy on things that aren’t needed until our business is off and running.

Resources in this episode:

• Resource Guide For New Business Owners & Independent Contractors

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books
  
  

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Host Molly Beyer talks about the necessity of creating a solid business plan in this episode. Likening owning a business to being a traveller in a foreign land, a map is the key to success on the journey. A business plan is exactly that: the map of how to navigate our business to success. Molly walks us through the first questions to answer that define our businesses.

Molly acknowledges that different types of business plans cater to different goals. A traditional plan with data and financial projections is vital when we’re seeking financing or funding, but a lean startup plan can accommodate some of the information in the traditional plan in a less in-depth, more story-based way. The main structure of defining a business, however, remains comparable.

Join Molly to learn exactly what the executive summary and market analysis portions of a traditional business plan examine. This information is the minimum of what we should know before starting a business. Molly walks through the first eight questions in the business plan questionnaire provided with the episode, explaining what they ask and how she answered for her own business as a demonstration of what we need to know. This is vital information for any business owner looking to start or revise the goals of their business.

Resources in this episode:

• Business Plan Questionnaire

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books
  
  

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Host Molly Beyer welcomes us to The Ambiguous &: Business Basics and Beyond podcast in this inaugural episode. Molly breaks down the definition of success in her signature frank and holistic conversation style, exploring the differences between each individual’s idea of success. Through sharing part of her own life and business journey with us, Molly introduces us to the idea that success is truly fluid.

The goals we set for ourselves that define what success means to us do not always stay in place. The goalposts can move as life happens to us and we may have to alter our perception of what we want from our business or career. Molly’s journey through unexpected job loss, health challenges, and family priorities redefined her original imagining of how her life would turn out and it’s through this insightful lens that she discusses why we need to be flexible in outlining our success goals. 

Join Molly as she shares the struggles that shifted her career path, the goals she started with versus the goals she has now, and why defining success fluidly allows us more happiness as life unfolds. She challenges us to answer questions about our own business goals and views on success in this thought-provoking first episode. 

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Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books

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Business success is dependent on a solid financial foundation & success looks different to everyone & there is a lack of equity of access to resources and information for small business owners and independent contractors & there is a societal narrative making us believe “balance” is our ultimate goal & … There are so many “&”s that impact being your own boss. Let’s have some frank discussions on the basics of business with a holistic focus on everything that helps business owners define and find success.

Contact Molly Beyer: 

• MKBeyerBooks.com
• MKBeyerConsults.com
• Facebook: MK Beyer Books