This month I had the opportunity to make a brief presentation to the Santa Fe Chamber and the La Marque Rotary, on "Growing and Thriving in an Uncertain Economy." I thought I would share some of these thoughts with you, the readers of our e-news.
If I were to ask most businesses if they want to grow their business, what thoughts do you think go through their minds? What if I were to ask in a different way, "How would you like to grow your profit and at the same time work less."
You might be thinking, "How am I going to do that!"
In working with small businesses around the country, small business consultants know, universally, that the reason business owners feel that way is not due to the volume of work that the business produces. It is due to the type of work that they are doing.
To change that, an owner or manager may have to nudge himself out of their present comfort zone and make changes to the types of activities that make up each workday. Not all of them, but gradually, some of them.
To grow your profit and at the same time work less, you need a plan. Not just any plan, but a brilliant, well researched and thought-out systematic, strategic plan. A strategic plan consists of several components. Your business needs to work as a whole system that touches on
your target market's definition and needs,
how your products and services are defined to meet those needs,
how your internal production system assigns accountabilities and details job descriptions.
how your daily bookkeeping keeps you informed with pertinent data to make timely decisions
how you communicate your strategy to employees and motivate them to do the work
how your ensure quality control at every point of relationship interaction, ensures satisfied customers.
You need an air-tight system; a strategic plan that gets you what you want.
But that's just part of the story. Once you have a strategic plan, you need to put into place all of the measures to execute the plan. How do you accomplish that? You accomplish that by doing the same thing I mentioned before: gradually change the types of activities that make up your workday. So what does that mean?
Brilliant business consultant, trainer, and author Michael Gerber who wrote the book, The E-Myth Revisited, (which I highly recommend to any business) has defined three different types of business personalities: The Technician, The Manager, and The Entrepreneur.
The Technician is a highly skilled worker. He or she has expertise in something, whether it is closing a sale, soldering fine wires, building houses or cooking. They work very much in the present. Doing what's right at hand.
The Manager is skilled at analysis. He or she looks at data and sees the patterns. They write job descriptions, procedures, budgets and profit analysis. They work with the data from the past and use it to develop meaning that can improve the business.
The Entrepreneur is a visionary, preferring to think about the future, designing systems, products, services and procedures purely from his or her ideals. Most people who think about who it is that starts new small businesses think that it is this personality.
If you have a business that is older than a year, and you do not have any employees or contractors that you hire on a regular basis, you are working as a technician. In order to work less and make more profit, you have to make a gradual change from working as a Technician to working as an Entrepreneur. And you need to strengthen the Manager personality in you as well.
It is the Entrepreneur who has the ability to write a strategic plan. The Technician will provide a lot of information to ensure your internal production system works well enough to satisfy your customers. The entrepreneur can take this information, research the marketplace, and find ways to make current or new products and services fill real needs.
Once the Entrepreneur has designed the strategic plan, the Manager and the Technician will help him or her to create an execution strategy to ensure the needs of all the stakeholders are fulfilled.
You cannot expect to grow, thrive, or even survive in a down economy unless you have these two things: An airtight Strategic Plan and Laser-Sharp Plan Execution. And to accomplish this, you need to be more Entrepreneur and Manager than Technician. In reality, all business owners are some blend of the three of these personality types.
What kind of strategic plan do you need? Brilliant, well-researched and well-thought-out.
What kind of plan execution do you need? Brilliant. Laser-sharp.
BUT
You don't have to do all of this by yourself! You have a support team, and that is the Small Business Development Center. We have a staff of excellent, experienced consultants and trainers who understand your issues with customers, time, worry and cash flow. We understand what burn-out means. And it's our job to help you succeed. Not to just survive, but to thrive.
Our consulting is totally free of charge. Our classes are very low cost. We want you to let others know, if they are trying to start or grow a business, we want to help them.
AND, this year we have created more tools, more classes, and more programs that you can customize to suit your needs. So, we hope you will put us to work to help you grow and profit. Next time you are stopped or confronted by a challenge, please remember us, and pick up the phone.
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