Murray PriestleyBusiness Acceleration Author & CEO

It’s just a plain fact that business people get caught up in day-to-day activities, that makes it difficult to focus on the “right” things to do to be effective.

Time gets past you.

You find yourself putting tasks off, pushing them out to future dates or saying to yourself “I’ll get around to it”.

I’m no different.

I tend to agree to do more than I should. I hold on to tasks that should be delegated. Sometimes I’m simply inefficient.

Do you relate to this?

One of the smartest things that anybody has said to me is “schedule 2-3 hours per week and just sit there and think about the business, the big picture”.

No email, no Internet, no PC, no telephone, not interruptions.

Sounds feasible?

Well some interesting things will occur when you try this.

First of all, you will probably have to “force” yourself to actually follow-thru and make the time to do this activity. This will be especially true after the first time going thru about five times. After five weeks, it will start to become a very welcome habit.

Secondly, you may struggle to actually “do” something during your allocated time.

My first mentor insisted that even if I stared at a plain piece of paper and did nothing – that this would be OK. I would have given myself a rest from the day-to-day and given myself a chance to consider thinking strategically.

But the most productive activity that I’ve learnt to do during that time is go through your Visioneering and Journey Mapping process, which I’m going to cover next post.

Additionally, I personally add an exercise that I learnt from Chet Holmes, a masterful businessman and sales leader that used to run some of Charlie Mungers businesses. You may not have heard of Charlie, his Warren Buffets business partner and a multi-billionaire as well.

Chet devised this exercise to enforce constant and focused improvement from his management teams. www.chetholmes.com

I’ve taken Chet’s concept and adapted it for the “business” of investing.

The idea is simple – but extremely effective.

Each week, during your enforce “time-out”, take one hour and focus solely on thinking, planning, brainstorming and creating – using only pen and paper, each of the following topics. One per week for 12 weeks, then repeat.

By doing this, you’ll be devoting four quality hours per year to each of these balanced topics.

I’m not sure about you, but with no distractions, I can get an enormous amount of work done.

1. Enhance Your Skills Through Training
2. Balance Strategy versus Tactics
3. Research Opportunities
4. Enhance Your Presenting Skills
5. Enhance Your Delegation Skills
6. Refine Your Investment Processes
7. Revisit Old Opportunities
8. Time Management
9. Goal Setting
10. Model Successful Investors
11. Enhance Your Team
12. Understand Asset Allocation

One hour per week, completely focused on each topic.

The changes you make by doing this consistently, week in, week out, will be lasting and permanent.

Many businesses need capital to grow.  Sometimes it is essential to find investors that will offer start-up capital to fledgling companies as they have potential for growth.  The investors that provide this start-up capital are Angel Investors.  Angel Investors are Venture Capitalists on a smaller scale.  Angel Investors tend to provide capital up to $1million and VC’s any amount above that.

What is Angel Investing?

Angel Investing is the process of finding start-up companies and funding the early stages of their development in exchange for a share in the company and percentage of turnover.  Businesses often opt for angel investment as the funds do not appear as a debt on the balance sheet.  If the business chose to raise capital with a bank loan then if the company fails they are still liable for the debt.

Angel Investors are normally confused with venture capitalists.  An angel investor is a passive investor that will fund an enterprise during the first stages of development.  They will provide seed capital to companies who have potential for massive growth.  Angel investors are normally wealthy individuals and their contributions are anything up to a $1 million.  Venture Capitalists generally take a more proactive view of controlling the project as they often provide significant funding of $5 million or more.

Angel Investors make money by claiming a portion of ongoing turnover and also realize a large lump sum gain when the company is sold or floated.

How Angel Investing play a part in your portfolio

Angel investors can invest in a number of ways; with their own money direct into a start-up company, as part of a pooled fund known as an ‘Angel Group’ or through an Angel Investing Managed Fund.

The target exit time for angel investors is fairly long with a sale of their share coming after at least 5 years.  That can seem a long time to tie up amounts around $1million.  Angel Investing can be very risky if the correct due diligence is not conducted.  As in every kind of investment you should thoroughly research your proposed strategy and make a decision based on the facts.  Not on gut feeling or even market sentiment.  Markets can change in an instant but solid numbers take time to appreciate or deteriorate.

If you have insufficient funds to directly invest into a business you could join an Angel Group.  With a minimum investment of $100,000 you could join an Angel Group and have your funds diversified into a number of start-up projects.  This will diversify your investment and you realise a gain that is an aggregate of the group’s total turnover.

If you are not comfortable with having your money tied up for a long period of time then an Angel Investing Managed Fund may be a suitable option.  Returns are vastly diluted by fees, failures and by having your investment more liquid.

Angel Investing is definitely worth an investigation as the returns can be very high.  The perceived risk of this kind of investment is high but relative to the potential returns, and relative to potential falls that can occur in the stock market, this kind of investment is stable.

This post is a bit of a rant for me, as it constantly annoys me when I see the vast number of people who cannot take personal responsibility for what they are doing.

Look at any number of situations and I’m sure you’ll agree or will have at least seen this in action.

People make decisions – then find out it was a wrong decision – so what happens? They blame someone or something.

People enter competitions – then don’t win – so what happens? They blame someone or some circumstance.

People make investments – they lose money – so what happens? They blame someone or the advice or the system they were following.

There’s a common denominator here – most people look to blame something external to themselves.

The real problem is that most people don’t take responsibility for themselves and therefore spend the rest of their life blaming others.

Well, I take responsibility for what I do, say or how others see me. If I fail, lose or am out-of-pocket – so what. I learn from it and move on.

At least I don’t carry the heavy burden of others on my shoulder – helps me stand tall.

End of rant.