How Owners Can Gain Greater Freedom Fulfillment Fortune
Your goal as a business owner should be to design a company that is distinct from you and quite candidly, works in your absence. You should create a separate cash flow entity, not merely a job for yourself. It should pay you a healthy salary plus a return on your investment of money, time and effort. You should build equity! You should build wealth! Bottom line, your role as owner should be to shape, manage and grow this independent and enduring asset – your business.
Your enterprise should function without you, not because of you. I know this sounds bizarre, but hear me out. While you can be the brains behind the enterprise, you should not be like Hercules trying to hold up the entire weight of the company! You will be crushed!
Your business should work harder so you don’t have to. You should be able to make money everyday without having to work everyday. You should invest more brain equity and leadership equity and much less sweat equity into your company. Your business should be a product of your brain, not your brawn.
You should strive to build a business that does not enslave you and does not rely on your being present every minute of every day doing all the thinking, deciding, worrying, and working. You must adopt a new way of thinking and acting.
In short, you must become a strategic business owner. Specifically, you must learn to adopt a CEO mindset; systematize and document your business; lead more and work less; create a simple business plan; utilize the leverage of marketing; effectively manage your greatest asset, your people; and learn to let go. You must transform the way you see yourself and your business. You must begin to think differently.
As a strategic business owner, your primary aim should be to develop a self-managing and systems-oriented business that still runs consistently, predictably, smoothly, and profitably while you are not there. You should shape and own the business system (an integrated web of processes) and employ competent and caring employees to operate the system.
You should document the work of your business so that you can effectively train others to execute the work. You must make yourself replaceable in the technical trenches of your business. To repeat, define and document the specific work to be done and then train and delegate. This is how you begin successfully to beat the blues, escape death by details, and gain greater freedom.
With a documented operating system, your employees should be able to carry on the work of the business while you focus on big picture priorities or God forbid, decide to take a break. You should be able to escape the daily drudgery. In fact, your company should run on autopilot status even while you’re on an extended, work-free, guilt-free vacation. If it does, you will have designed and built a business that truly works and is worth a fortune. More importantly, in the process, you will have gained back a personal life that is fulfilling.
To maintain freedom, independence and fulfillment, as your business grows, so must your leadership effectiveness and operating systems. You must stop micromanaging and start leading (macro managing). You must become more purposeful and proactive. Specifically, we suggest business owners and managers follow the following life-changing process:
1) Step one: learn to work on yourself by transitioning to a new way of thinking and behaving. Re-program yourself and your habits. Stop acting like an employee and start thinking like a CEO. Learn to work on your business, not in your business.
2) Step two: systematize your company by creating, documenting and continually improving all your key processes, procedures and policies. Trust the business system and personnel you put in place and remove yourself from the company’s daily details. Be more hands-off and more brains-on. Replace yourself with other people. Define and document the work to be done. Train others and delegate the work. This operating system is your foundation for freedom.
3) Step three: increase your leadership capabilities. Excel at leadership, not doer-ship. Your business needs a clear vision and strong leader to hold others accountable, not another employee doing technical work. Help build and direct your team.
4) Step four: develop clarity of direction for your business and employees by creating a simple business plan and an effective implementation process.
5) Step five: learn to effectively manage your people, your greatest asset.
6) Step six: instead of incremental growth, engage the leverage of marketing to achieve substantial, profitable growth.
7) Step seven: learn to let go, delegate, and truly enjoy business ownership, your relationships, and your life.
By working less in your business, you gain more time to work on your business and make those essential changes necessary to optimize your company and your life. You may well be skeptical. That’s normal. However, let me ask you “Are your current paths and strategies working”? If so, you wouldn’t be reading this article. If not, I invite you to acknowledge the problems in your business, take responsibility for them, and dare to try new approaches.
How Owners Can Gain Greater Freedom Fulfillment Fortune - To learn more about this author, visit Jonathan Goldhill's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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