Think about how you first started your business. What was the evolution of it, from startup to growing the business and taking on staff. Do you remember what was the impetus for you starting your business?
The majority of business owners start out the same way and they slowly entrap themselves with their business and here’s the sad part, they don’t even know it. Let’s talk a bit about this trap that we get ourselves into and learn how to get out of it.
Before you started your own business, you were probably working for a boss as a “technician” doing whatever you were trained to do in your vocation. Then you realized you either didn’t like your boss or you thought that you could do a better job than what they did. You may have wanted to start your own business thinking that it will give you time freedom. And these are the thoughts that starts it all. After some thinking and planning you pull the trigger.
In the beginning of your business startup, you have a lot of time and not much work so you do whatever you can to get new clients. You also don’t have revenue so you do whatever it takes to cut expenses. This means you perform all functions on top of the “Technician” and “Operator” hats that you wear; including bookkeeping, admin, and even janitorial duties because you can’t afford to pay someone else to do it. You are bootstrapping the business as it is already and your sweat equity is what is funding the business.
Eventually, you get some business and you’re thrilled! You put your heart and soul into doing the work well and giving the best customer service possible because it’s your own business. You exceed all of your customer expectations because it’s done to your highest standard. Your ecstatic customers tell others about you and eventually, you get more work than you can handle. At this stage, you are learning new skills as the “business operator” that you never had to deal with when you were just working for your boss. Things like managing production schedule, monitoring expenses and cashflow are things that you never learnt in your vocation school, and now suddenly, you have to learn very quickly.
As you get busier, and busier, you evolve to the next stage of your business growth and you start to bring on staff. This brings on another whole host of challenges and issues that you’ve never had to deal with as a “Technician”. But the work continues to come in and worst of all, all the customers are asking for you by name because you’ve served them so well. At this point, you are faced with a common dilemma for many business owners;
- Do you do all the work yourself to maintain the high standard that your customers know you for and accept that you don’t have work-life balance or…
- Do you start to accept a lower quality standard because you realize you simply can’t do everything yourself?
Here in lies the subtle trap that we as business owners create for ourselves. We’ve created such a successful solopreneur business that we can’t easily get out of it. In effect, the very business that we created to give us time freedom is now enslaving us. On top of it all, our education as the “Technician” never taught us how to be a Business owner so we are lacking the very knowledge to get out of this trap.
So what do we do? Well, if we know that it’s time-freedom and work-life balance that we ultimately want, then it’s time to think like a “business owner” instead of a “Technician”. We have to separate the business from ourselves and set it up so that it can run on it’s own, without our involvement. We have to shift from the “technician” mindset of our business bringing in work for us to do, to having a self-sustaining business that generates profit for us as the owner, even if we weren’t working in it.
In setting up the business, there isn’t just one thing that you can do to setup for success. In my years of building my own businesses, studying other successful businesses, and reading many business books, I’ve come to realize that there are 8 key components of a business that needs to be strong in order to have success. If you can strengthen these 8 key components, then profits will follow and you can start to step away.
1. Mindset
It takes a very different mindset to be a business owner than it does to be an employee. This is why all business owners should strengthen this component first. You can do it through personal growth training, reading books, or finding a mentor or coach. If you don’t do this, then you will hinder the growth of your business because YOU become the obstacle of the business.
2. Values, Vision, & Mission
It’s crucial to understand your company’s core values, vision, and mission because that’s when you will start to attract the right clients. Also, when you start to build a team, you need to understand this because good people are purpose-driven and they want to see if they are aligned with what your company stands for and where you’re going.
3. Marketing
There are a lot of things around marketing and a lot of noise that could be distracting, but there are some key fundamentals that is foundational for any business. So exploring and determining your Target Market, Core Audience, Niche, and Core Focus is important so that you know the direction for your marketing strategies.
4. Process
This is a key component if you want to step away from your business but still maintain the quality in your business. If you can refine your process, document it, train on it, and monitor it, then you can start to have the business run with little involvement from you.
5. Metrics
It’s impossible to know how your business is doing if you don’t measure it. By having Metrics for your business, it highlights the key things that are important for your business. When you do this, you should be setting up Metrics based on whatever that aligns with your values or are priorities in your business. Then you will see these important things start to shift towards the direction you want it to go.
6. People
Managing people are one of those things that you have to learn as you transition from being the “Technician” to a business owner. They don’t teach you this in school, but it’s important to learn this if you want to have a strong company culture and reliable workforce. If you can do this well and learn it quick, then you can cut down on the People stresses in your company, which is actually the most expensive costs of any business.
7. Issues
As a Business Owner, we are problem solvers and that just comes with the territory and it will always be there. The good news is that you don’t have to solve all of them yourself. If you build a team and delegate the issues for your team leads to solve, then you can focus on the only the major ones. Additionally, if you learn to solve theses issues well, and get to the core cause of the issues, then you can resolve them once and for all, so that it doesn’t keep on coming back.
8. Goals
This is the key to getting results. Any business looking to get some traction to their vision, needs to learn and setup a system for actualizing their goals. If you can be diligent and get your weekly tasks done, then it will lead to your monthly goals, which will lead to your quarterly goals, and then to your annual goals. Then finally, by actualizing your annual goals, you will fulfill the long term vision that you’ve set for yourselves.
So there you have it. Strengthen these 8 key components of your business, and you will start to have a self-sustaining business. But I’ve only really given you a brief introduction to these key components and all of this is easier said than done. If you are serious about strengthening them, then I would suggest that you reach out as I’ve done this for my very own businesses and I’m sure I can help you do the same!
I have an in-person training program which I can take you and your managers through. In this training, I will not only teach you how to do everything you need to do, but I will also be along side of you as you execute it to make sure you stay on the path to success.
