How many speakers do you hear, books do you read, or podcasts do you listen to that give you a specific prescription on how to best run your business? Much of the business media we consume is hoping that you take their specific path to business success. It is what helps them build their brands, sell their products, and have testimonials to promote to other business owners.

I have found that there are a lot of good ideas out there, but it is rare to find one ‘program’ that is a perfect fit. There are simply too many factors that go into business success to believe that someone disseminating information to the masses has the prescription that is just right for you. In fact, the more successful you become as a business, the less relevant these programs are for you. Instead, what brings you value is personalized and specific advice.

Think about when you started out in business, at the ground level, what were you try to achieve those first few years? Simply put, you were trying to achieve the obvious goals:

1. Have a viable product/service that has demand in the marketplace.
2. Have the right skill set to deliver that product to your customers.
3. Have enough team members to cover the necessary tasks to generate revenue.
4. Support your family; make a profit.

These goals certainly weren’t easy or simple to achieve, but they were rather obvious. If you fail at any one of those early one, your likelihood of business success into the future is low. In that environment, these mass-marketed prescriptions for business success would have been relevant and helpful, because they are principals that can be applied to many different businesses to assure survival early on.

What about now that you have had success? Your goals are less obvious, more personalized, and more undefined by nature:

1. Should I sell my company or work on an internal succession plan?
2. How do I properly reward my team to attract and retain the best talent?
3. What happens to my business if something happens to me?
4. What financial management techniques should I be implementing to optimize my bottom-line?
5. How can I best prepare personally for exiting the business in the future?

A prescribed formula is not going to solve these problems for you, at least, not in a way that personalizes the solutions to your goals and values. So how do you find the best solutions for YOU?

1. Take the few concepts from books, speakers and podcast that are relevant and actionable for your business and throw out the ones that are not.
2. Define what is most important to you (values) and where you are trying to get to in the end (goals).
3. Identify and leverage the strengths of your business (people, process, product) to drive growth and sustainability.
4. Hire the right team, internally and externally, who care about you and your goals and can effectively drive personalized solutions together.