How to Win at Tennis

My brother is a keen tennis player. He has been since he was around ten years old. To win at tennis you need to practice the range of the strokes you are likely to play during a match. For instance, your serve, forehand, backhand, volley, half-volley, overhead smash and if you’re super skilled and keen you can even practice a drop shot. These are the basic actions you can take to improve your tennis game.

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From Concept to Action

Previously, we introduced the three essential elements that every business must build: money, ideas and people. The big idea here is the way these things determine your business model. Before we jump to that big picture it’s worth looking at the strokes or actions we can take to improve each one of them. Just like in tennis we want to turn the conceptual into general action steps to know which areas to work on, practice and deliberately improve. What are the Capital Actions you can take to grow your business?

Money

Here are six basic actions for you to grow your financial capital:

1. Earn – Maximize this.
2. Spend – Minimize this.
3. Save – Put something away for a rainy day.
4. Invest – Create a surplus today so you can use it later to grow and leverage your business.
5. Give – Donate some money to people less fortunate than you.
6. Borrow – Borrow money from someone else to grow your business or you might lend it someone to help them.

Which one of these six money actions are you most focused on? Which ones are you not focused on?

Ideas

Here are six basic actions for you to grow your ideas capital:

1. Design – Turn your simple ideas into a plan for the future or a specific design that you can build (eg strategic plan).
2. Build – Turn your plan into something real.
3. Systemize – Leverage your ideas by turning them into repeatable actions.
4. Reflect – Take time out to reflect on what is working and what is not to create opportunities to grow.
5. Write – Document your ideas in ways to share them with others.
6. Capture – Record your current thoughts, those of your team and even feedback from your clients and suppliers.

Which one of these six ideas actions are you most focused on? Which ones are you not focused on?

People

Here are six basic actions for you to grow your people capital:

1. Meet – Make new connections or catch up with former clients.
2. Congregate – Hold an event so your colleagues, clients and community can meet and learn from each other. Alternatively, attend other events.
3. Invite – Make offers to your community to buy your services, assist you on a project or to attend your events.
4. Share – Help others by spreading your knowledge. For example, with social media.
5. Serve – Help other people who are paying clients, work pro-bono or generally be of assistance to other people. Crucial for growing relationships.
6. Partner – Form marketing partnerships to grow your business faster.

 Which one of these six people actions are you most focused on? Which ones are you not focused on?

Review Your Business

Here are a couple of questions to help you review your business across the three types of business capital:

• Q: Which of the three domains are you most focused on?
• Q: Which action in each area of capital would make the biggest difference right now?
• Q: And, which action would make the biggest difference in the near future?

Comment: Have we missed anything? Are there any other important Capital Action steps you would add to these lists?