I am starting a series of posts to help business owners learn or revisit better business skills.
Now, before you automatically reject this series because you already own a business, I suggest that you keep something in mind: business consultants like myself make a lot of money helping established companies. I have worked with some of the world's smallest companies and a few of its largest. I have yet to find an organization that can't be improved. These articles may not follow a logical sequence, as they are often inspired by specific events or circumstances related to a current project I am involved in.
Nevertheless, over the next few weeks, we will cover the best lessons I have learned and those I share with my clients who need to improve their company's business skills. Remember, championship teams are built on fundamentals. Dribbling and passing in basketball. Blocking, tackling, and running the ball in football. The same principle applies to all businesses. If there is a breakdown, it often relates to some fundamental issue, not the big ones, and most often those
Working In vs On a Business
Two Kinds of Businesses
When I am called to help a struggling business, I usually encounter one of two situations. The first is an owner who is a subject matter expert and struggles with allowing anyone else to perform the work that he or she is so brilliant at. That business is a trade business. It might be a plumbing company, a bakery, or a restaurant, but the function of the business is that the owner works IN the business. Often, these ventures are initiated by someone who is employed but dislikes working for someone else, desiring to express their own opinions and visions. There is nothing wrong with that if the owner understands that they have a job and it will never evolve into more than that, as long as they remain focused on working in the business instead of on it. In that case, they own the job, but it remains task-oriented, and if they ever need to step away, the business will likely fail quickly.
The other situation is someone who starts or buys a company and comes in with the mindset that they are now an “owner,” and they don’t need to perform the tasks of the business at all. That mindset rarely results in success. Unless you have enough money to suffer the burn rate of a trial-and-error process of staffing the company, simply owning the company seldom results in success, even if you purchased a successful company of the type discussed in the first chapter. I have seen this many times, and I have yet to see one succeed. Suppose the business was successful due to the personality and skill sets of the original owner, and the new owner does not have a transition plan that results in replacing the former. In that case, the essence of the business is lost, and you purchased nothing of value.
So, what is the correct approach?
In either case, a prudent businessperson would create a detailed business plan that includes every foreseeable contingency and has sufficient capital in place to navigate unforeseen events.
I am starting a series of posts to help business owners learn or revisit better business skills. Now, before you automatically reject this series because you already own a business, I suggest that you keep something in mind: business consultants like myself make a lot of money helping established companies. I have worked with some of the world’s smallest companies and a few of its largest. I have yet to find an organization that can’t be improved. These articles may not follow a logical sequence, as they are often inspired by specific events or circumstances related to a current project I am involved in.
Nevertheless, over the next few weeks, we will cover the best lessons I have learned and those I share with my clients who need to improve their company’s business skills. Remember, championship teams are built on fundamentals. Dribbling and passing in basketball. Blocking, tackling, and running the ball in football. The same principle applies to all businesses. If there is a breakdown, it often relates to some fundamental issue, not the big ones, and most often those
To be continued