Step By Step Blueprint for Business Success!
Building a great business is not easy.
It takes a burning desire to continually improve by trying new ideas, systems and processes. You must love what you do, love your customers and not be afraid to hire people better than yourself.
To build a profitable business, you must know how to price what you do, track the costs, and do the paperwork required.
To expand and grow, you have to market and sell, seek referrals, and then present winning proposals.
To take your business to the next level, you must learn how to trust people and delegate decisions to them so you can invest your time on bigger issues.
This requires you to get organised and systemised so your people can do what you want them to do.
Have you ever said to yourself:
- I am tired of “doing” all the important work myself.
- I can’t find any good help.
- I’ve got to find a way to make more profit.
- I wish I could pay myself what I am worth.
- I wish I could find more free time.
- I can’t figure out how to get rich.
- How will I ever retire at this pace?
Where is your business today?
Is it moving towards giving you what you expected when you started the entrepreneurial journey?
Business owners had a vision of their perfect business when they started.
As they began to grow, they hit the challenges and roadblocks of time, energy, money, people or customers.
Many get stuck at the control lever and can’t let go of doing the work or delegating.
Some have organisation and time management problems. Some don’t like paperwork or accounting and leave those for later.
Others just like to do the work and don’t know how to run a business.
In a survey of over 5,000 business owners, the top ten reasons business owners fail are as follows:
10) Company wins business by selling low price
9) Owner doesn’t understand how to run a business
8) No passion for customers
7) Not maximising the use of technology
6) Not offering anything different than competition
5) Trying to grow in a slow market place
4) No leadership or strong management team
3) Not enough money and too much debt
2) Owner controls everything
1) Owner doesn’t change!
The Downward Spiral
Which of these ten factors are holding your company back from becoming a better business?
Most businesses never get to the next level because the owner is not willing to make the necessary changes to make it happen. He or she gets stuck in their “un-comfortable” zone doing the same things over and over.
A downward spiral occurs when a company gets stuck at the same level. What happens often goes like this:
- Too much work to do yourself
- Hire some cheap or untrained help
- Work gets out of control
- Customers become unhappy
- Can’t make enough money
- Can’t afford to hire better people
- Can’t find time to train people
- No time for marketing or sales
- You spend your time putting out fires and fixing problems
- No referrals or repeat customers
- Have to sell low price to get more work
- Can’t make enough profit to grow the business
- No hope for the future
The Perfect Business
Imagine owning a company 100% run by your management team. You only spend a few days a week in the office while your company makes an exceptional profit and generates lots of loyal repeat customers. The other three or four days you are free to do what you please – fishing, golfing, spending time with your family, seeking investment opportunities, giving back to your community, or just doing nothing. All while your company runs smoothly, makes money and you continue to get paid for being the owner.
Now imagine your company creates lots of other business opportunities to create a financial empire which gives you a generous positive cash flow every month.
Does this sound good to you?
Ask yourself:
1. Is your business where your really want it to be?
2. Is your business headed in the right direction?
3. What do you really want from your business?
4. Am I willing to do what it takes to get my business on track?
Along the way many business owners struggle with the same problems all entrepreneurs face:
- Not enough good help
- Not enough time in the day
- Not enough profit
- Not enough patience to get our people to do it right
- Few organisational systems
- No freedom to do what we want to do.
Better is Better!
In other words, customers, employees and other companies are in control of your time. You have no life away from work, you’re busy doing the wrong things. You’re working too hard for the money. As your business continues to grow, you continue to work more and enjoy it less. And finally, at a crossroads, you realise, bigger is not better.
One day you may wake up and realise that your business isn’t working for you and that you are not getting what you wanted from your company. And you may discover that better is better!
But How Do You Build a Better Business? Through trial and error, research, studying to be a chartered accountant, educational seminars, coaching, consulting and books, I discovered the step by step business success blueprint to build your business to work for you.
Step By Step!
Most business owners start by trying to fix what is broken or urgently needed. For example, when you land more work than you can handle, your tendency is to hire anyone you can find to help you out. You don’t have enough time to interview and screen candidates properly. So you hire the wrong people, put them to work without training, and expect perfect results.To get good results, you need good systems before people can do good work.
Great people are an asset, but when each of your employees do things their way, you end up with different and poor bottom line results. This then makes you stress out about hiring people.
It’s not your people, it’s the lack of systems and training that causes good people to do poor work.
When most people start building a better business, they have no idea where to start. But as you start putting the steps into place, you will make fewer mistakes and you will have fewer emergencies and you will find more time to work on more of the important issues.
It is important to follow these steps from 1 to 10. When you jump ahead, your progress will stop.
As an example – within the construction industry (but this applies to any industry just as well), I often hear business owners say: “I need a good estimator.” Hiring a good estimator is a great idea after you have a great estimating system in place which includes job-cost tracking and a cost history library. If you hire an estimator who brings in lots of work, will you make any more money without trained field crews, field organisational systems and project management controls in place?
You can’t grow and be profitable jumping ahead of yourself.
Take it one step at a time.
Before you hire an estimator, get your finances and field management systems in order and be ready for profitable growth.
The Kando Success System – Step By Step!
1. On-Purpose… On-TargetDetermine what you want, establish a clear vision, and set on-purpose and on-target goals aligned with your mission and value. Identify what you want in the area of profit, wealth, finances, customers, employees, market area, cash-flow and freedom. Install action plans and set goals to make your business and personal targets a reality.
2. Make a Profit
Develop a profitable business model to give you a financial return for the risk you take. Calculate and track progress towards your required sales volume, break-even point, overhead, fixed cost of doing business and profit markup to reach your goals. Install action plans to make your profit goals become a reality.
3. Install Financial Systems & Controls
A fully integrated accounting software package with profit and loss statements, balance sheets, job cost reporting, cash-flow projections, accounts receivable and payables aging are required. Secure a bank line of credit and establish a bonding relationship to grow a profitable business. Install financial controls to ensure accuracy and accountability.
4. Track Time & Productivity
Employ methods to track time usage – stop being busy and start becoming productive by using time more effectively. Become aware of what your Return on Investment is for your and your team’s time.
5. Install Customer Experience Delivery Systems
Ensure that the experience your customers receive, and expect to receive, is systemised so that their experience is predictable – both from their point of view and your point of view. Sometimes great, sometimes good, sometimes not so good… that is hard work for you and not so good for your bottom line.
6. Install Operational Systems
Replace yourself with systems and get your company organised, systemised and in control. Systems get everyone in your company doing things the same way and produce consistent results without your constant supervision and attention. Identify what systems you need and then use the Kando 7-step formula to create systems.
7. Marketing & Sales Systems
Excellent customer systems help maximise your bottom-line by selecting the best opportunities for your company. Create an on-going marketing and sales programme to build long time repeat loyal customers. Set yourself apart from your competition, differentiate, find your niche market, create customer relationships and seek value-added opportunities.
8. Install People & Leadership Systems
Hiring and keeping good people starts with a system to build a great place to work that attracts and retains the best people available. Install an employee development and training program to motivate, recognise and train accountable and responsible leaders, teams and workers.
9. Grow Equity & Build Wealth
Leverage your business success by seeking other business opportunities, partnerships and ventures that will build equity, create wealth and provide positive cash-flow. Use your profitable business as a stepping stone into other businesses and investments such as property, rental companies or providing other services which compliment what your company already does.
10. Enjoy Freedom & Have Fun!
Enjoy the benefits of business ownership, passive income and the freedom to pursue what you want to do with all your free time and money. Give back to your community, family, friends or faith with your business success.
Only you know what you want your business to do for you.
Only you are holding it back from being what it can become.
Take a look at where you are, decide where you want to be in five or ten years and then determine what steps to take.
Start now by taking the first steps out of your “un-comfortable” zone.
Let us know your progress.
It’s an exciting journey building a better business. All the Best!
Click Here To Go Back
