Images
The more Strategic Work you do, the more effective, productive, and joyful the Tactical Work becomes.
Michael Gerber
Quit being 'busy' and start actively owning and operating your company, and you'll be able to understand where the money is coming from and how to make more of it.
For decades, I've spoken of McDonald's as one of the premier examples of how to build a company, scale it, and ultimately sell it.
I've said it for four decades - work 'on' your business, not just 'in' your business!
The entire idea of building a series of systems in a business is simply this - to create the tools that allow you, as a business owner, to increase productivity and get the job done. The idea behind these systems, of course, is to quit needing your judgement or input in every area of the business.
After decades of studying the men and women that make the decision to open their own Great, Growing Company, I'd have to say it comes down to the Vision they have for that business - do they expect to build the company or just have some income for the short term?
No matter what your company does - build, manage, produce, import - as an owner, you can't avoid the hard work and skip straight to success. No class can give you that, no YouTube video can teach it, and no book can mark it off your list.
Opening a business is going to be hard work, no matter what choices you make. If you decide to fall on your sword and just slog through all the work as an operator instead of an owner, then you take responsibility for the entire operation and the actions of the business.
You did not disturb Hemingway before noon on Monday through Friday - he was in his office, writing the books that made the lifestyle possible.
People crave predictability, and when you design and use systems, you give people predictability. More importantly, when you build systems, they can help you orchestrate, and orchestration helps you create the habits that continuously improve the systems!
I'm not really into the business of giving out tips, but if you are not using an all-encompassing software to integrate and sync your schedule, then you might be losing time. Most of these are free, and they can allow you to keep track of everything in one place and then access that from your computer, phone, or tablet.
There is always going to be someone more successful, richer, better looking, or with a nicer car.
Remember: you cannot build a better mouse trap by fixing the old one - NewCo demands active ownership, and that activity is not the sum of doing multiple jobs but, instead, the sum of implementing paradigm-shifting changes that create new industries and solutions.
If you expect to grow your business, you need to be plotting out your schedules days in advance. Until you get that most basic of steps orchestrated, you can never get to the critical steps that I outline in any one of dozens of books.
Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.
Empirical and observational data along with a healthy dash of intuition often have to be combined as business owners begin to look outward, not inward, at what solutions they can provide to their customers.
The deciding factor of why some entrepreneurs are successful and others fail is not limited to your DNA or your education; it is about the actions you take as the leader of your business.
How can you, as a small business owner, figure out what you are and, from there, begin to take action? Simple - you have to understand what part of the job you are doing and, if it isn't fulfilling the role of the entrepreneur in your business, you must make the decision to take on that role.
'Product life' is measured in months, not years, and as soon as you introduce a 'product', understand that others in your business are going to reverse engineer it to duplicate the results after they circumnavigate the patents, the trademarks, and the intellectual property.
As the owner, you have to look into the mind of the customer and see and feel how their relationship to your product works - not just that the product works.
If you make converting a lead into a sale harder than a trip to the local DMV, then you lose sales to someone else - with an inferior product - who can make it painless. Don't do that!
You cannot build a company or manage a life by chasing others; you have to find your success competing against yourself. There will always be a bigger fish.
Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.
The Internet is fundamentally free, and when faced with the decision to use something free, we, as humans, always seek to grab all we can.
Your own business growth and success depends on many things, and along that growing path, you are going to have to concede certain responsibilities and activities - whether for your accounting, your production, or day-to-day management.
If you haven't created the time as an owner to understand why people are choosing your model over your competition, then you are only managing the business that comes in the door, not actively seeking it out.
Strategic Work is all about the big questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? Tactical Work is all about answers: This is the system we use to do each task. This is how we do it, how we measure it, how we monitor it.
Everywhere you turn, there are lists and statistics. Any business, any sport, any hobby - we will try to categorize who is the best at some component of that endeavor. It's part human nature and part technology, since we have been conditioned to have access to answers and trivial problems at our fingertips.
The world is littered with the tales of small businesses in the dire straits of hiring that spent time and money they couldn't afford to hire people who couldn't perform.
You can't be the accountant in your accounting firm. You can't cut the grass in your landscaping business. You can't work on the vehicles in your auto repair shop... And you really can't spend all of your time managing those actions, either.
As a small business owner, you may not have the luxury to throw good money after bad, but if you can ascertain the 'why' of the failure, you can draw some significance from it and then turn it into something that clients will buy.
Results transform the world, and a great dream creates results. That's what this thing we call 'business' is really all about.
Ray Kroc called his first McDonald's restaurant, which he opened in Illinois, 'a little money machine.' That's why thousands of franchisees bought it.
Don't look at small business as a means to an end and a way to make money until the corporation hires you; look at it as a chance to create something of immeasurable value and beauty in a world that desperately needs it.
Here's the problem with phones - they are a ready-made diversion from the considerably harder work of growing a business.
Be honest: if your pitch is 90 minutes and you only have 60 set aside for a business lunch or a cup of coffee, there is no way that you can give an honest representation of your company or products. You're lying to yourself and wasting your own time as well as that of your prospect or partner.
At some point, you have to declare an idea dead and, if not a failure, then at least not a success.
When you consider how many people are really not good at communication in general and interviewing in specific, it's no wonder that many companies struggle to build high-quality partnerships - or even staffs.
There are three things that can be organized: time, space, and work. Note that, despite what many believe, you cannot organize people - you can only organize the work that people do.
Your goal as an entrepreneur is to understand not only what your business does but the clients that it serves. If you really have your pulse on their needs and wants, then your 'absolute' failures are always going to have limits.
Nobody knew they needed a smart phone, an automobile, or even a cheeseburger from a drive through window.
The number of businesses that fold due to bad partnerships is staggering. In some cases, they are charlatans, in others inept business people, and others find themselves unable to scale with any growth.
If there is one thing that offers challenges to small companies as they start to grow and expand, it is the hiring process... every single area. The issues that can arise run the full spectrum, from 'finding good help' to that ubiquitous catch-all 'training' and everything in between.
The world of the small business owner is all about moving multiple items forward at once, and it's a fool's errand to believe one person can do it all when the shift comes from linear to parallel.
Your Dream, Vision, Purpose, and Mission all come together when you bring products to market - so make sure you're bringing your best.
Look at what is average in your area, your industry, and your company and then be better. That could be as simple as reading another book each month or attending a seminar each year. On the other hand, it also means acknowledging what 'average' actually is and how you, as the owner, arrive at that figure.
I don't know why the word 'solopreneur' is in our lexicon. Nobody can physically do it all by themselves, and more importantly, why would they want to? Being the sales team, the HR department, management, and production all by yourself is terrible. Period.
If you are with five successful people, then you are the sixth successful person. The reverse of this is true as well, so who are you hanging out with?
The greatest business people I've met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.
Entrepreneurship requires an unvanquished spirit of curiosity, an openness to learning, a letting go of OldCo so you're free to create NewCo.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10