The troubled Orphan Maintenance

In Part 3 of this Four-Part Series on Sustainable Success, I introduce the Third Moon of Maintenance - Ganymede. 

In The Fourth Moon, I talk about the Third Moon of Jupiter, Ganymede, being the largest moon in our solar system. Ganymede is even visible by the naked eye from earth. Its surface can be divided into two types of terrain: dark and light.

It is appropriate that the Third Moon of Maintenance is the largest, because Maintenance must be visible. 

Most business owners that reach the Third Moon waste their time there and actually cheat in not maintaining their Strategy. Having developed it on the First Moon, and implemented it on the Second Moon, they don’t honour it by maintaining it on the Third Moon. They hide in the dark terrain of Ganymede rather than having the discipline to be visible in the light terrain.

Third Moon thinking is about visibly maintaining the commitment to your strategy, agreed actions, disciplines and procedures. It is about creating a culture to not occupy the dark hidden terrain of Ganymede in cheating, but rather committing to visibly maintaining your strategy in the light terrain.

Only Third Moon visitors that occupy the light terrain of Ganymede can continue on their journey to the Fourth Moon. In The Fourth Moon, as Tom and the crew found to their frustration when reviewing the status of Dylan IT’s Maintenance, Maintenance is the most challenging aspect to delivering on your Strategy. 

So why does Strategy fail without Maintenance? 
Put simply, business performance cannot be optimal, sustainable or leveraged if your Strategy is not alive and being maintained.

The only worse thing than ‘no strategy’ is ‘some strategy’. 

Without Maintenance, you don’t know what disciplines have been followed within your business. A culture of ignorant bliss can set in. Without established disciplines, stakeholders do not own Strategy. You are in no-man’s-land, which is dangerous in business. Instead, create a culture of ownership and accountability within your team around Maintenance. 

Maintenance is not particularly alluring; so it is often an orphan with no-one willing to claim parentage for the troubled child of Maintenance.

Accept that Maintenance can sometimes be boring. But understand that it is the final passport check on your mission to the Fourth Moon. 

“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not.”
Galileo Galilee

If you haven’t signed up for your free Giveaways that include videos on Maintenance, sign up in the top right hand corner here www.darrenkbourke.com and you can log in (orange Login button) to access them under “My Content”.

Next is the final blog and Part 4 of the Four-Part Series in which I will introduce the Fourth Moon of Callisto where you will ultimately Leverage your strategy. This is your pay-off for adopting the forever disciplines of The Fourth Moon metaphor and things get really interesting on the Fourth Moon I assure you.

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!

Cheers, Darren K Bourke

The Secret Sauce to shift you from Sporadic Success to Sustainable Success

What’s the difference between sporadic success and sustainable success?

To consider this question, let’s look at some real-life statements I’ve heard from numerous business owners over the years. 

Statements from Owners of businesses that experience sporadic success:

“We often feel like we’ve just bought a job earning a wage”
“Our profits vary dramatically from year to year for no apparent reason”
“My working hours are horrendous with me often working late nights at home and weekends”
“We rarely get to take holidays because the business can’t run without us”
“Day to day operations are chaotic and reactive with no real structure”
“We have a successful year every few years but this is generally followed by a few ordinary years”
“Staff come and go and we struggle to attract the right people”
“We work pretty much for anyone and seem to attract bad customers”
“Our products and services are sold to a wide market”

And here are some statements from Owners of businesses that experience sustainable success:

“We pay ourselves a market salary in addition to earning a good commercial profit from the business”
“Our profits are reasonably predictable from year to year”
“My working hours peak occasionally but I generally stick to general business hours”
“We take holidays twice a year because we have team members to cover us”
“Day to day operations are planned and there is a real flow to our business”
“We aim to achieve growth year on year, and if there is a blip in performance, we know why”
“We engage and reward our loyal staff and we reckon we have a good story to attract new talent”
“We know our ideal customer and mostly work with them”
“Our products and services are aimed at our niche market”

So what’s the secret sauce that differentiates these owners? 

The second group of owners, those that experience sustainable success, have really thought hard about their strategy. Like all of us, they have agonized over their product or service offering, their niche, customer base, pricing, pitch and more. 

The secret sauce is that they have got this strategic thinking out of their head and into the universe. It’s alive. They have taken all of this thinking and boiled it down to create a clear strategy that is documented, measured and monitored constantly. Their strategy has been painstakingly shared with their Stakeholder Quadrant (Customers, Employees, Shareholders & Suppliers) and effectively implemented throughout their business.

So now you know the secret sauce, make a commitment to develop and document your strategy. Educate your Stakeholder Quadrant on your strategy. Bring it to life and shift from sporadic success to sustainable success!

Coming Up

The Fourth Moon Blog and other social media I broadcast will be dedicated to delivering tips, techniques, hacks, resources, shortcuts and ideas to shift you from sporadic success to sustainable success. My commitment is to challenge, inspire and facilitate you to greater success.

In a forthcoming Four-Part blog series, I want to introduce my four methodologies of thinking that will change the way you approach your business and personal life and shift you towards sustainable success. 

With the background methodologies on sustainable success bedded down, I will then turn to delivering a rich tapestry of information that aims to challenge and direct you to play a bigger game!

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!

Cheers, Darren K Bourke

Introduction to The Fourth Moon

Over the past 25 years I have worked with hundreds of businesses in my role as an accountant and business consultant, recruited hundreds of people as co-owner of a recruiting firm and navigated my way through my own personal entrepreneurial ventures.

Over that time I can’t tell you how many business owners have confided in me the feeling that they simply don’t enjoy the rewards and benefits they feel owning a business should bring. It’s not that they’re not putting in the hard yards, but in spite of their efforts they find themselves stressed, time poor and under constantly mounting pressure in their work and home environments.

This is an all too familiar plight for a growing number of small and medium business owners but business success doesn’t have to come at the expense of personal authenticity and fulfillment. Over the course of my career I’ve learned some universal principles of success that apply regardless of industry or size of business.

My book, The Fourth Moon, was born out of a desire to share these time-tested, proven strategies to help business owners to strategize, implement, maintain and – most importantly – leverage their success.

Using a powerful metaphor based on famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei – and his discovery of the four moons of Jupiter – The Fourth Moon takes readers on a journey to achieving sustainable success using proven, easy-to-implement strategies I’ve refined during my 25 years’ experience working with nearly 1000 clients in small and medium business.

My narrative-driven book is a practical, step-by-step guide that any business can follow, challenging business owners and teams to adopt a fresh approach by viewing their business through a new lens.

Focusing on four universal elements of business success: Strategy, Implementation, Maintenance, and Leverage, The Fourth Moon: a step by step process for sustainable business success, invites you to embark on your own personal - easy to follow - journey to The Fourth Moon:

• achieving control, confidence and authenticity.

• working fewer hours and establishing work-life balance.

• increasing profit, wealth and business value.

• reducing stress and improving lifestyle.

• achieving optimal, sustainable and leveraged success.

Whatever your challenge, I am confident The Fourth Moon will guide you through each stage of your journey to achieving your ultimate goal. 

Secure your copy here http://www.darrenkbourke.com/buythefourthmoon

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!

Cheers, Darren K Bourke