Using Maslow’s Hierarchy for Goal Setting So You Know What to Focus On Next

Have you ever created a business-related goal and started working towards it, but then wondered if it's really the most important thing that you should be spending your time on? I'm going to show you the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but for your business. It will help you decide what the most important thing is that you should be spending your time on. Once you know about this, then it's going to be a lot easier to make goals for your business. On this page, I usually share things related to tax savings strategies and things related to your business, but as a business owner, and because we're all business owners, I wanted to share this helpful concept that I read about in Mike Michalowicz’s new book called Fix This Next. 

So you may have heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and what it says is that humans have various levels of motivation, and we start with the most basic needs here at the bottom before we move up to the more advanced needs. Now there's a similar hierarchy that was created by Mike Michalowicz and it's in his book, Fix This Next. 

Every business has five levels of needs and knowing them is going to help you identify what's going to make the most important impact on what you're doing. Level one, the most basic need, is making sure that you have a product or service that's valuable, that people want, but maybe you don't know how to effectively communicate its value.

This is essentially figuring out Sales and really it's also the Communication part, the marketing, and the product-to-market fit. Those are the things that are most important. You've got to have something that people want first, right? 

Once you do have something that people want, then that's usually when revenue or when cash starts coming into the business, but a lot of people get hung up or they make mistakes when they do have cash coming in, because they're not managing it correctly. So really the second level of this hierarchy of needs is around Profit and just knowing how to manage the cash that's coming into the business. A lot of times this has surprises, including the bad surprises that are related to tax. If you want to figure out the profit, there's actually another book called Profit First (also by Mike Michalowicz) that really helps you do this. 

On to the third level. Now, once you've got the proven concept and you've got cash coming into the business, then the next most important thing is Order. And this is really the behind-the-scenes operations of the business. This is where you start focusing on systems and how to create a well-oiled machine, essentially, make sure that you've got things operating effectively and you've got the right people in the right seats. 

Once those three things are covered, then a lot of businesses can turn to making a deeper Impact and what that means is an impact through transformation. It's where you can focus on transforming the lives of clients and customers and employees. Now, you may know the purpose of the business while you're working on the first three stages, what you really want to do and what the impact is, but if you can't figure these out first and have a good grasp of them, then it's a lot harder to make a true impact and see transformation in people's lives. Now, for instance, what we're trying to do at Streamline Financial – that's the wealth management firm I'm a part of – with our vision and mission, we'll read it every week. And our vision and mission is to remove the burden from people's lives so that they can have real freedom and peace and contentment with their money. We want to remove that worry or anxiety that sometimes comes with money, whether you have a little, or you have a lot, and we do this so that they can live more of a life of purpose and fulfillment and be who they were created to be. So, that's kind of lofty and big, but it really gives us motivation and purpose behind the things that we're doing and why we're doing the things we do at Streamline. 

The last level of the business hierarchy of needs, according to Mike, is that of Legacy. And this is where you're creating a business that can continue to help people and transform people's lives even after you're gone. 

So as you're looking at your business and thinking about goals coming up and what you're going to do over the next 90 days, where is the biggest problem that you're seeing? 

Is it getting the right people into the business and starting to have a business and have a product that people want? Or is it managing the cash that's coming in or is it getting those systems and processes in order? Is it thinking of that deeper impact on people and how you're transforming their lives? Or is it this idea of legacy and how you create a lasting business? 

I hope that was helpful. If you know an entrepreneur who might like this, please share it with them and subscribe!