FTI Disease: What Is It & How Can I Avoid It?

What is FTI Disease? And why is it so important that you, as a businessowner, do everything you can to avoid it?

FTI Disease is Failure To Implement Disease. And you need to be wary of this because it’s the main reason why most smallbusinessowners – and that could be you – aren’t getting what they really want from their business. For some, this can even mean business failure.

The truth is, FTI masquerades as many ills, but these are almost always just symptoms.

For example, are you always “busy” – even to the point of carrying it like a badge of honour? This “busyness” can be a dark hole that far too many businessowners throw themselves into, often for their entire working lives.  

Ask yourself honestly:

“Am I too busy to pay proper attention to the REALLY BIG issues in my business? Issues like:

-        Is my business giving me a realistic return for the hours I’m putting in and the risks I’m taking every day with my money?

-        Is my time input into my business such that I’m able to strike a happy balance between my work, my family and other lifestyle considerations?

-        Could I sell my business now if I wanted to? And if I could, do I honestly think that I would get a nice nestegg from it to retire on?

 Today we live in a world where more and more people are looking for instant cures.

But for these symptoms, there simply isn’t an instant cure. It takes time. Time to identify, to plan - and to then implement a properly thought through strategy.

So if you’re a “busy” person, ask yourself: would I prefer:

-        to start planning and implementing a properly thought through strategy now? or:

-        to say “I’ll get around to it later”? When you do that you’re simply taking the chance that one day, out of the blue, the security of you and your family could be put at risk.

Put at risk if the day arrives when your health or your motivation suddenly says “Stop Now”. The day when the choices you have today can be abruptly taken away.

 And if you did decide to take action now, what would you prefer? Would you:

-        trust yourself to fly solo, or:

-        get some proper independent, objective, professional advice, just like you do in so many other areas of you and your family’s life that you feel are important, like your doctor, dentist, lawyer, your childrens’ teachers and so on. Someone to help you see what you’re too “busy” to see – or you simply don’t know what can be seen.

So in truth a more accurate description of FTI is not Failure To Implement Disease – but rather, and more ominously, it’s the Failure To Implement a Properly Thought Through Strategy.