So often we meet business owners who say they are working harder than ever before – doing quotes, working on site, managing people… and yet they can’t understand why their business isn’t growing.
They don’t realise that whilst all those operational tasks are important, the business will never grow if they are the ones doing all the day-to-day work.
Ultimately, there are only two ways to approach the role of a business owner - to operate as a highly skilled employee or to operate as the leader. Employees work in a business to do what is required to keep the business running successfully. Being the leader on the other hand, must step away from all the ‘doing’ and focus on the business from an altogether different standpoint. To do this successfully there are 4 key steps you will need to take as a business owner:
Step 1 - Understand there is a big difference between things that are URGENT and things that are IMPORTANT.
The tasks that are urgent in the day to day running of your business can also be important, such as invoicing, doing quotes, taking customer phone calls. But if you want to really grow your business and scale it up into something much bigger, then you’ll need to focus on what's important. That is planning and leadership – which are important but almost never urgent.
Make time for the important task of planning and implementing systems for growth, and your urgent tasks can then get taken care of by the people you put in place to manage them.
Step 2 - Take the leap of faith to becoming a leader instead of a worker
Taking a leap of faith to shift into leading existing staff is the second, and possibly most significant step of working on a business and not in a business. You need to lead your staff through training and development to work of their own accord. This will allow you the time and headspace to develop and implement growth plans.
Step 3 - Develop personally to lead the team and delegate
The first steps of freedom often involve working on developing personal leadership skills and eliminating those traits that are counterproductive. Educating yourself, taking courses, attending seminars, networking, absorbing the latest thinking and innovations that are in the marketplace. This stage of the process is to build the skills and knowledge that will underpin effective and worthwhile decisions.
Step 4 - Recruit and train the right people
Working on obtaining and retaining the right people to work in your business is essential. Being able to delegate successfully and hire the staff that can get the job done, and do it well, is an art form in and of itself. All businesses require a clear set of expectations for their staff. Once this is in place, retaining a great team may need work on implementing a staff development program to inspire and further motivate.
Working On a business means being able to take a holistic view of all the different moving parts of your business, and then consolidating the knowledge in your head into systems and processes. Then the business can run successfully without you.
Hear from our client SteelVision the phenomenal success you can achieve by working on your business rather than in your business...
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You’ll find having an Action Centre business coach is just like having a marketing manager, sales team leader, trainer and recruitment specialist - wrapped in one - all for one nominal investment. We are the business partner you need without sharing your profits - with over 60 years of collective coaching experience to keep you on track and accountable for your own success.
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