Would you like your business to soar? The biggest challenge for any business owner is to let go and allow their team to do the work. And this holds the business back from reaching its potential.
In my experience, most small business owners are control freaks. They find it almost impossible not to be all over everything because they are worried that others won’t do it to their own exacting standards. I get it, I’m the same!
But if you do want to:
- Grow your business;
- Have the option of selling it at some stage;
- Concentrate on doing the work you love;
- Be able to go on holiday and actually take a break;
you’ll need to make some changes.
To have an effortless organisation, there are three key aspects to develop:
- People
- Process
- Technology
See the graphic for the main elements of each of these.
All three need to be working in harmony so if only two out of the three are working, you won’t get the same benefits:
The right team with well-documented manual processes
This is a great start, and your business will operate at a good level, but you won’t be able to crank the handle and scale without adding more people (and limiting your ability to be more profitable).
The right team with the right technology
You will have a well-motivated team along with online tools that support their work. But unless you have worked through what the ideal processes are before you implement the technology, you’re likely to have fragmented software or apps that don’t talk to each other and aren’t optimised.
Well-documented processes with the right technology
You’ll have well-documented processes and integrated them with online tools. These may work seamlessly together, but unless you have the right team who are bought into your company vision and strategy, having the best systems and processes will be a waste of time as compliance will be low.
All three are interlinked and the magic happens at the intersection of all three – If you can get all three working optimally, your business will be cooking on gas.
The result is you will have a business that:
Is highly efficient and scalable
You can do more/service more customers with fewer people and you can start to grow your business.
Has improved customer service, customer satisfaction and customer retention
You’ll have optimised processes that you are continually improving so customers get consistent, high-quality service every time. As an added bonus, those customers will rave about how awesome you are and will refer new business to you.
Has a well-motivated workforce
Your team want to do the best for you and your customers and loves working for you.
Is more profitable
This goes hand in hand with improved efficiency. If you can do more with less, your profit margins will improve. And because your customers refer new clients to you, your new customer acquisition costs are lower – adding to the bottom line.
Is self-managing
It can stand on its own without the need for you to be micromanaging everything – Happy holidays for you!
Is sellable
Whether or not you want to sell it, if you do, you will have all the elements that make it attractive to a buyer and your business will be working like a dream. Nice to have the option, I think!
Recommended reading
These are two excellent books that I recommend to help you in your progress to business nirvana:
Clockwork – Design your business to run itself – Michael Michalowicz
SYSTEMology – Create time, reduce errors and scale your profits with proven business systems – David Jenyns
If you’d like to learn more, or you’d like a copy of the graphic, let me know.
(Picture source: Enrico – Pixabay)
