27 Win More and Risk Less with MR and Leadership Foundational Principles #Leadership

In Episode 27 of the Beau Leadership Group Podcast, host Bob Beaulaurier reveals how to risk less and win more in entrepreneurship's precarious world—balancing family, finances, and fierce competition without losing your spark (or your shirt!).

• Beat the Odds with Real Stories: Hear the heartbreaking tale of a bakery owner grinding 90-hour weeks for financial success... only to lose his wife before they could enjoy it. Or the entrepreneur blindsided by competitors leaking bankruptcy rumors, forcing a massive brand repair.
• Master Market Research to Stay in Business: Adopt a "null hypothesis" mindset—assume your idea flops until data proves it rocks. Survey 100+ customers, test MVPs on landing pages, and check Google Trends to avoid the 42% startup failure trap from no market need (per CB Insights). Pivot early to save your home and sanity!
• Nail Pricing for Profit Without the Pitfalls: As a pricing expert, Bob warns against knee-jerk hikes that tank sales—60% of restaurants fail from bad pricing. Use research to set smart prices that boost revenue while keeping customers loyal and your business thriving.
• Leadership Secrets to Build a Powerhouse Team: Don't go solo! Assemble specialists who outshine you (Harvard says weak teams cause 23% of failures). Delegate like a pro, solve the "hit by a bus" problem, and join networks wisely—avoid generic advice from groups like SCORE.
• Preserve Relationships and Get Home to Family: Set boundaries like no work after 7 PM, plan retreats and outings, and manage stress with meditation, prayer, or team-building fun (think bowling or golf). Studies show entrepreneurs face 10% higher divorce risk—protect your home life as your business foundation.
• Stats That Hit Home: 20% of small businesses fail in two years (SBA data), but due diligence, scenario planning, and quality data turn precarity into prosperity. Distinguish real emergencies from normal stress to avoid burnout.

Ready to safeguard your income, relationships, and future while making smart money moves? This episode's pure gold will equip you to lead smarter, live better, and win big. Subscribe on Buzzsprout, Apple, or Amazon today—contact Bob at BeauLeadershipGroup.com for more. Bless your week—let's thrive together!

www.beauleadershipgroup.com

Confidence doesn’t happen without practice.
When you improve your confidence as a leader, you improve confidence in every aspect of your life.

Email me at bob@beauleadershipgroup.com to

↳ Learn how DISC can teach you your leadership style and amplify results

↳ get your Elevate Your Personal Confidence Superpower Plan

📞Ask me your Question or Get Featured! Ask Bob Anything

#Leadership #MaxwellLeadership #DISC #MarketResearch #BiblicalPrinciples #LeadershipInvestmentDecisions #CLEAR

Transcript

 Risk Less, win More Market Research and Leadership Secrets. Welcome home, my Leadership,  📍 friends .

Welcome to episode 27 of the Beau Leadership Group podcast. I'm your host, Bob Beaulaurier, and today we're diving into the most important thing for entrepreneurs and lots of leaders managing risks

entrepreneurship is precarious. Yep. That's our word for today, the precarity of entrepreneurs.

Precarity is the noun version of the precarious word, precarious My word power Friends and, uh, take a moment to listen to my word Power episode of the Beau Leadership Group if you've not already. Please subscribe while you're there at your Apple bus route or Amazon looking up that episode on word Power.

Anyway, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is like walking a tightrope with no net juggling family, finances, and competitors who might just fax your bankruptcy notice to the world. My friend thought he was just following his mentor's advice and restructuring his company until his competitor got wind of it and told all of his clients before he could.

Tell the clients himself restructuring under one of the federal chapters of bankruptcy. True story. This friend ended up being exceptionally successful in the long run, but he had to repair a big hole in his brand for quite a while. True story that actually happened prior to me getting outta college,

so how do you beat precarity? It starts with due diligence and leadership that's smarter than killing yourself slowly with a 90 hour work week,

some people do work 90 hour work weeks. I had a friend who had a bakery and worked 90 hours a week with his wife, day in, day out. They were there early in the morning and late at night. And financially they did great new cars and did things for their kids, and I think he even had an airplane, but. What my friend didn't realize is that a short time after selling the bakery, his wife died and never really enjoyed their success.

And you gotta wonder, did she work herself to death rest wise and eat like your life depends on it because this is another way to manage your risk and let's unpack seven minutes of pure gold to make you a better leader and entrepreneur if you're an entrepreneur. The precarity problem folks, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship isn't for the faint hearted.

It grows gray hair. I've got some and the risk are real. Your income, relationships, and even your home are on the line. Did you know that 20% of businesses, small businesses fail in their first two years and 10 to 20% end up in bankruptcy? That's per the small business administration, by the way. Competitors don't play nice.

They attacked your character or out flank you with better pricing and don't get me wrong, and started on the work life balance. Is there one? I'm not sure. Sometimes I've seen entrepreneurs lose their spark because they're burning out, not building up and he gotta build up. Precarity means you're one bad decision from a disaster.

But here's the secret sauce. You, the entrepreneur, are the only one who cares enough and has that deep caring to keep the ship afloat. So how do you manage this madness? Two words, due diligence. Do. It's not easy. Everything worth doing is uphill, right? So let's start with the biggest weapon against risk market research.

Let's quickly remind ourselves of the null hypothesis, which I covered in another episode and market research. Here's the question for you to hook you. What if your brilliant idea is an idea nobody wants? CB Insights says 42% of startups fail because there is no market need. So even though you may think it's a great idea, you have a four in 10 chance that it's not that great of an idea, right?

That's two out of five ideas. That's why I'm begging you don't brainstorm with your brother-in-law around a table and a few beers. 'cause you might love the idea, like you love your brother-in-law when you've had a few Budweisers. Get real data. Think like a scientist. Start with an null hypothesis. Assume your idea has zero demand until proven otherwise.

For example, want to open a soup dumpling restaurant? Don't just dream about it. My favorite dumpling spot just closed in Portland, Oregon because they didn't adapt. Survey a hundred potential customers and ask, would you pay 15 for this? And guess what? If you only get 10 people out of the a hundred that say yes, those are the only people you should be looking at their demographics and ideas about it.

And that's not a normal distribution. You need 25 people that are interested in your product to even get an idea of what the market might think, and they should be randomly selected and a few other things, but. Test an MVP on a landing page. Check Google trends for local demand. And if the data says, Nope, pivot or walk away, it's cheaper than losing your house, isn't it?

I'm a pricing expert and I've seen restaurants raise prices to fix cash flow, and that seems natural, right? You want more revenue? Raise your prices. But only then they tank because customers are price sensitive. One study showed 60% of restaurants fail in a year, one, often from bad pricing. Do the research.

Hire a pro. You need to, as Henry Ford said, nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into jobs. And Henry Ford also said, patience is the key to business market research is job one, even though for a long time Ford's tagline was, quality is job one, quality is a major antidote. to failure . But that's another podcast.

And I'm a fan of David Acker on the subject of quality. And he's from Cal, if you wanna look him up. Now let's talk leadership, because precarity doesn't just hit your wallet, it hits your life your darn life. That's why you're here, right? Is to live your life job. Number one of a leader. Build a team that's better than you.

It's the old. What if the CEO is hit by a bus problem? I've seen key employees who build a huge real estate organization get a stroke, and the whole show almost failed. All those employees, multiple locations. I think they had 36. You can't wear every hat. Accountants, salespeople, they should pay for themselves, get good ones.

They're worth their price in gold if they're good. Harvard research backs this weak teams cause 23% of startup failures. That's one in five failures as started. And stopped by the team starting it. Let me say that again, that stat. Weak teams cause 23% of startup failures. Again, that's one in five. Find specialists, mentors, join networks like SCORE perhaps, but there are pitfalls and caveats with score too.

I see them at the small business administration and different groups. Those score, retired executives do not necessarily know your business. And I've seen retired accountants give some of the worst business advice I've ever heard at Score. Why? 'cause that accountant never worked outside of accounting. He understands raising your price at the restaurant will increase revenue and.

The problem is he hasn't had the kind of competitors that you might have at your restaurant. His frame of reference is an industry where government requires you to file your taxes so everyone he talks to has to file their taxes, right? Most businesses are not required by our government.

I find with score that one of the biggest errors that happens with them is the industry that I am involved in. And there's data to back this up too, because entrepreneurs fail to do market research. That's what I'm telling you. You need the data, right? And identifying your customers target customers, how to do it.

Market sizing. This step is often skipped, or the entrepreneur assumes their shoes. Or the , insert product that they've designed for shoes has a huge market because everyone has feet. Well, that's not how it works. People have to be interested in your product, have to be willing to pay the price. You need to cover your, nut, right?

Don't get me started.

And here's the leadership rule number one, which is kind of under between the lines here that we've been talking about already, but. You can exaggerate it with some biblical wisdom too. Find someone who can replace you, even Jesus' f mutiny and was knocked off at the age of 33.

Without a replacement, you're stuck working 90 plus hour weeks burning out while your family forgets your face, and some studies suggest that you are 10% more likely to get a divorce as a small business person. In my experience, it happens when funds are running out too, when they're low, so don't start before you have the funds.

Resilience is key. Forbes Magazine says fear and stress are the top barriers. Don't let fear and stress win proactively. Meditate and use prayer in whatever you can to help. Just like the song says anxiety hates Psalm 23, but you need to distinguish between what is a real emergency and what is just normal business.

And that can be done with data and market research 'cause normal business is stressful. You've gotta take these due diligence steps. Plan those breaks, retreats and family outings to keep everybody on your teams as stress free as possible and make those teams work.

This podcast has a lot of tips to increase your chances of avoiding crisis management and crisis management is one of the reasons I started this podcast because no one needs to live through crisis manage. I know I have at times, and there is a reason many companies have bowling, softball, and other fun stuff like golf tournaments because it is good to have some of those times where you blow off steam together and get to realize that, oh, they're a human being.

That has fun too.

Get some bonds going, but set boundaries like no work after 7:00 PM. Actually, I also think there should be no strikes and protests after 7:00 PM It's not very nice to our police departments and plan for risks. Scenario plan, competitor moves and keep learning markets shift. So you must also shift my pricing, pet peeve businesses that don't test prices regularly, your output is only as good as your team and your data garbage data, and you will make.

Garbage decisions, we learned that in stats 1 0 1,

the takeaway. Entrepreneurship is precarious, but you can thrive with due diligence and leadership. Start with an null hypothesis. Prove your idea with real data, not dreams from your brother-in-law over Budweisers. Build a team that outshines you and guard your home life like it's your business foundation because it is.

Want more? Please subscribe to my podcast and. Or contact me through the Bow Leadership Group website. Until next time, manage your risks and keep leading with God in mind and bless your week.