How To Bring Sanity Into The Small Business

Business owner seem to have one thing in common. They work too much.

If we look closely, many businesses follow the same path.
1. You work to learn a trade and become good at it.
2. Then you use that knowledge to open your own business.
3. Next is to hire others to begin helping when you can't keep up.
4. You end up being responsible and accountable for the business with no one to rely on.
5. Then you work so hard IN the business that you seldom if ever work ON your business.

Is this you? Even if you have revenue in the millions of dollars you are not immune to this scenario. Your revenue is not the measure of success as some believe. Bottom line profit is the measure of success. How much of the revenue did you really keep as profit?

Successful business owners find great processes combined with a great vision make all the difference.

Without a vision, a business is lost with no clear direction. 'Making a ton of money' is not clear direction! 'Making a ton more products' is not a vision that anyone can get excited about.

How about these as a vision? 'A computer on every desk'. 'Overnight delivery guaranteed'.

A vision helps you in many ways. Vision is used as the guiding force behind every decision every person in the company makes. If they question whether what they are doing is getting the company closer to the vision - then they should be encouraged - even rewarded to speak up. The discussion should continue until either the vision is changed or the process is changed.

Vision can be the reason for inspiration. Although most people work for the money, most will also work a heck of a lot harder if they are inspired by something. A really great vision must be created by all and communicated daily by those in charge. This is a very powerful force and separates companies that become successful from those that do not.

Vision will be the result of the processes and procedures that are to be recorded for every possible task. If those tasks have assigned metrics, everybody will know what is expected of them and each other - and everybody knows when something is not going well.

Using these and other simple but amazingly powerful tools, any business owner can take control of their company. They then release accountability and responsibility to employees (and watch the metrics) - and do what owners are supposed to do. Lead.

How well are you leading?