As a business coach I often observe that the challenge with growing a business for most business owners is that they can be scared of ‘letting go’.
You see, most business owners start off in their business doing everything… and as the business grows they try and take on more and more to keep ‘in control’.
Yet the time comes in the growth of the business where they HAVE to let go…
They can’t physically keep up!
Sometimes the business owner does their best to keep up. They work more, longer and harder – but despite all of their efforts the business starts to ‘stagnate’.
And the owner becomes tired.
There are no more hours in the day.
They begin to realize that they can’t possibly keep their fingers in ‘all the pies’.
They have to let go.
Now most business owners are proud of the fact that they ‘know what’s going on’ in every area of their business…
And some dread losing this ‘contact’ or ‘control’
You see by being ‘in’ the business the business owner gets a feel for how the business is traveling.
If they keep on the ‘floor’ they can see customers coming in, what stock is selling, what stock is being delivered.
Now the big step (for them) is moving away from being involved – to overseeing. Because they are scared that they’ll lose the ‘feel’ of the business.
And it’s at this point that some business owners panic.
What’s the answer?
The best business owners learn how to keep a ‘feel’ of their business without having to be there.
How can they do that, you may ask, if they’re not involved every day?
How can the best business owners know if it’s busy?
How can they know what stock is needed?
How can they know if customers aren’t happy?
How can they know which staff are being productive and which ones aren’t?
How can they keep their eye on the registers and the petty cash?
How can they do all this?
They can do it by setting up and monitoring their measuring and reporting systems.
I call them ‘dashboards’ or ‘scoreboards’.
You see the best business owners set up ‘dashboards’ so that they can ‘see’ how their business is going.
It’s like a dashboard in a car, or a cockpit of an airplane.
When you’re driving you don’t need to put your head out the window to ‘feel’ how fast you’re travelling. You just look at your speedometer.
And you don’t need to look in your petrol tank to see how much petrol you have used. You just look at your fuel indicator on your dashboard.
If you set up Key Performance indicators in your business – you can see how different areas of your business are performing.
All the best businesses do it. And you should too.
And you should start now… before you put on more people…
I get all my clients to start measuring critical areas of their business. And there’s a certain process to do it, and a certain way to measure it so that it works.
And when you get it working – it can help liberate you from your business.
When you have your own ‘dashboard’ or ‘scoreboard’ you will need to look at some key things daily, whilst others are better to look at weekly, monthly and even quarterly…
And when you have them – you can step out of your business. Because the ‘dashboard’ will tell you what’s going on when you’re not there.
It’s magic.
Even if you’re not in the business you’ll be able to gauge how things are going and how your people are going. Who’s doing things and who’s not… so you can step in and take action to improve the situation immediately.
With the right systems, people and training like I have outlined, works like a charm and it’s one of the most powerful things that you can do to take your business into the multi-millions of turnover.
I use these with my clients with extraordinary success.
We look at them every week to assess how the business, and how the team in the business are performing – and based on the accurate and timely information – take action to correct anything that ‘off-track’ and caress anything that is on track.
For example.
One of my client’s critical areas dropped from 37% to 22% then 21%. Now to you that may just be a percentage figure – but to the business owner and I it meant we were losing $2,000 profit per week – every week that it stayed at the new lower level. That’s $100,000 profit in a year.
So we jumped into action. After a certain process that I stepped him through we drove it back up to 44% and kept it there. That one thing alone made him tens of thousands of dollars in just a matter of weeks – let alone what it made him over a year.
Another step that I take my clients through is setting up their ‘dashboard’ whilst they are still ‘involved’ in the business – then the next step is to send the ‘dashboard’ to their home for them to look at in their own time
This steps them from having a ‘feel’ of the business to looking at the ‘dashboard’ so that they can transfer their ‘feel’ of the business into assessing the numbers that are on their ‘dashboard’.
As we step through that we determine ‘standards’ that each of the critical areas should be reaching each day, week, month for the business to be dong ‘nicely’.
Then armed with the standards and the dashboard – the business owner can comfortably step out knowing what the dashboard has to show for him/her to stay in control of the business.
We then work on getting the business owner out of the day to day running of the business. For example if the owner is working 5 days in the business… the first step is to move him to 4 days in, and one day out. Then 3 days in, 2 days out… then 2 days in 3 days out and so it goes until the owner is able to choose their work hours because the business runs without them having to be there.
Then when you choose to come into the business – you can do the work you want to do, and focus on the building your team to run your business for you.
Remember when your business is working it means that you don’t have to.
Your life may never be the same.
Join me when the timing is right for you and together we can grow your business and help you ‘let go’ of your business – and stay in control.
Set up your business so you can let go and stay in control.
Copyright © 2006 by Casey Gollan. All Rights Reserved
Business Coach, Mentor And Growth Specialist
Casey Gollan, Business Coach, Mentor And Growth Specialist. Grows $1 Million p.a. Small Businesses Into $2 to $5 Million p.a. Businesses Over a 2 to 3 Year Period.
How A Business Coach Can Help You Set Up Your Business So You Can Let Go And Stay In Control - To learn more about this author, visit Casey Gollan's Website.
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