"Business is Rocketscience"

Landing business profits and getting out of your business in one piece is like landing a rocket on the moon, then returning to earth intact.

Stage 1

In Stage 1 you have one purpose: leave earth's gravity. In this phase, if you falter for a blink, you get sucked back to earth as shrapnel. Gravity means you spend more than you earn. Any activity that does not improve your chance of getting revenue fast (escape velocity) must go.

That's why companies working from garages, spending like misers win more often. Fine-tuning and finesse: forget that stuff for now. It is intense focused power that is required. 

The business opportunity is the rocket; vision+energy is the fuel; relentless focus is the direction. Who sets the direction? The captain. However as you'll see below, once you've achieved escape velocity, you need less all-out-power and more subtle-guidance. If the captain of your company is growing slower than the company; you need a new captain.

Stage 2

In Stage 2, you get to the moon. To get to the moon, you need a long-haul focus, great operational skills, and most importantly: landing-skills. That means landing deals; closing sales. In Stage 2, direct your spend things that help you land.

In stage 1, you sold to enthusiasts off the strength of your conviction in your product.During this stage, you must sell on the combination of reputation, marketing, detailed management of a process, relationship, product and vision.

Landing requires painstaking control of many instruments. There is no prize for almost landing a rocket. Similarly, there is no prize for almost-landing a business deal. If even a little side-booster goes the wrong way, such as junior staff member badly handling a customer interaction, the result is disastrous. 

At the end of stage 2 you have a profitable company returning annual returns to its stakeholders.  

Stage 3.

In stage 3, your mission is to re-enter Earth's atmosphere without getting burnt-up or burnt-out.

Most businesses never do this. They burnout on the home stretch, or they forget their original mission and moon-bound to their business. Getting to the moon = getting a financial result. Returning home = making that business result into a business return.

How do you make the business result into a business return? First think about what a business return does not mean. Do you know people who attempt to leave their business and the business burns up? Do you know people who have simply burned out though their business is profitable. That's not a business return; that's a business fail-to-return: a failure to bring a result home.

Making your business result meaningful means making sure you don't lose your soul, family, friends, or the respect of all three. Bill Gates for example, like him or loath him, successfully returned home to Earth. He got his business return the minute he dedicated his life to giving what he has gained. In doing this he said he gained upliftment. He found more happiness in the sunlight of giving than he ever could in the moonlight of business. 

So how does rocket-science inform how you operate in business?

1. Work out what your 'return home' is. Is it buying 1 million books from Amazon or planting 1 million trees in the Amazon.com? Is it saving whales or save stamps? Whatever it is, get crystal clarity on this. This clarity will stop you getting crushed by the G-force of phase 1 which asks 'how bad do you want this'. This clarity will stop you meandering in phase. This clarity will stop you burning out in phase

2. Get a rocket-scientist to check your rocket. Imagine a rocket was built without rocket-scientists. Well that's exactly how most businesses are built. A rocket-scientist is a seasoned business expert. Get one or get no-where. Passion and talent is not enough.

3. Vision is the best glue. One team, one vision, no loose panels. A company without a united vision is like a shuttle with a loose panel. You know what happens next. Work out your vision together and stick to it.

4. Dream like a visionary, spend like a miser. Do this right through phase 1. Or you'll never leave earth.

5. Get people with big visions on board the ship: technical prowess is not enough. The technical prowess is not even your rocket: it's a single turbine in your engine. The fuel is your big vision.

6. When leaving the gravity of negative cashflow in Stage 1, focus on acceleration. When sustainably growing in phase 2: focus on guidance and landing. Find the landing skills inside of you as a captain right now. Otherwise, get out of the way and get someone who knows how to land.

7. Above all enjoy your ride, learn the rocket-science, take a packed lunch, and don't forget to come home ... at peace, and in one piece.

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