The building blocks of any business are Processes (procedures/policies), People (employees), Customers, and Resources (ideas/capital). Leaders, who strengthen and understand each of these blocks, build their business. Those who weaken or neglect these building blocks find declines in both their top and bottom lines.
Believe it or not, organizations can sometimes forget that creating and delivering high-quality products and providing excellent services is their primary goal. Organizations keep ineffective processes in place because it’s convenient, secure, and familiar. Leaders must regularly set aside time to define and redefine their processes, track defects and poor service, and make improvements to solidify these (5) core components.
owner mentality
You have to make the mental shift from running your businesses as a self-employed/good employee to building a business that you can one day sell, scale, or passively own to fund your retirement.
This means constantly reminding yourself that you are only a temporary producer and that your business must eventually replace you in its daily operations.
Be clear on your mission
There’s a reason you started a business and quit your job (or didn’t try to find a new one). Why are you doing this? Keep in mind that your personal mission and the mission of your company can be different, as long as they are aligned and can coexist. You made the mission statement in the business plan and it’s sitting on the shelf gathering dust.
Network and get a mentor
Get a business advisor or coach. It doesn’t have to be someone professional, just someone who can share experiences to exchange ideas and tell you when you are losing equipment, money and mindset.
Get your business off the road to nowhere
When money is tight and momentum wanes, you are left with the day to day work of the business, this is when you learn how to make your business work. It can get exhausting because sales are slow and you are learning how the business really works, to acquire customers, to market products, to understand how changing processes and products affect your finances, and every idea you have doesn’t automatically work out as you envision to increase profits.
At some point while you are running a business, you are likely to experience that feeling of exhaustion or lack of inspiration. Work-life balance is important; there is a truth, in working hard and playing hard to relax. Reading a daily devotional and taking a daily 30-minute walk can help relax your mind, etc.
customer
Customer Acquisition is Expensive To acquire new customers, businesses must effectively target, market, and convince customers to try their product or service.
Many business owners don’t take the time to find out who their target customer is. What are the likes, dislikes, needs and desires of your target customers? What types of media do they consume? What is the cheapest way to reach them? How much is the target customer willing to pay for your products or services? Where and how should we sell our products?
Remember, it is cheaper to keep a customer than to acquire new ones.
Master the art of compromise
Being engaging is important in every part of your business, whether it’s communicating through email marketing, social media, blogs, videos, and other business formats.
Grab the social media warning
The social media marketing plan should include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the business website to communicate with your customer. Use the same theme, images (banner pages), and similar products.
Understanding the importance of business logos
It’s the first thing potential customers will notice about your brand, make sure it’s presentable, professional and polished. Make sure the logo connects with the needs and wants of your customers.
Create an experience for your Brand
Create a fun and informative environment to solve your customers’ problems
The Right Customers are More Important than the Most Customers
The biggest part of business strategy is to get the cash at the door by any means necessary to attract the most customers. The problem is that you achieve all of this at the expense of quality, profit, and sanity. The right customers will allow your business to do better work, build a better reputation, generate more profit, and retain better employees.
Focus on your goal, objectives, theme, but above all on profitability
Don’t try to be all things to all customers. Specialize in solving your ‘target audience’ problems and have fun doing it. Even the largest companies do the best they can when they focus on keeping ‘first things first.’
Operations
processes
They are the actions and applications that executives and teams implement to achieve the desired results.
Leaders must step back to review their processes, individually or in cross-functional groups, to eliminate inefficiencies and optimize performance, annually or as the market changes.
systems
Systems are the reliable processes and procedures that enable your business to consistently produce excellent customer outcomes and profitability for you.
Automated process documentation can increase the efficiency of your business and reduce costly errors; the checklists your employees go through to ensure all orders are shipped correctly; the orientation process for all new clients when they start working together; and the standardized contracts you use with all your new employees and vendors.
Controls/Standards
Controls are the processes, procedures, and safeguards that protect your business from uninformed or inappropriate decisions or actions by any team member. They’re also your company’s way of making sure key work gets done on time and right.
There are (4) main types of trade controls:
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Checklists/Visual Business Process Controls
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Scorecards / Business Performance Measurement Metrics by Function (KPI)
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Built-in internal quality controls—product/process quality controls
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Policy and Procedures—written/measured
scalable solutions
The systems (using excel and quickbooks), processes and procedures that worked for a $1 million a year business, are not enough for a $10 million business or a $25 million business.
Scaling your business requires building it in such a way that your business model and systems can be deployed and replicated to a much larger playing field, based on increased sales volume of ordered/processed products.
For example, choosing a database solution or third-party fulfillment should be based on actual growth rates, not potential or forecast projected sales.
finance
Cash flow and financial statements are your ‘lifeline’.
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Learn how you are making and losing money. Understand profit and loss statements and what processes and procedures relate to improving the “profit” of your business.
Resources
The financial means of the company, in addition, the measurement tools necessary to manage and keep track of finances and assets. Do you have the knowledge, skills and abilities to use these tools to increase your profits?
Small and medium-sized businesses must master the ability to manage their working capital and cash flow. Every business has access to profit and loss statements, balance sheet, and cash flow. Management is using accounting software or someone is preparing reports for management.
How well does senior management understand the company’s finances and does it correlate with their strategy? Do these managers understand which parts of the business need investment, where cuts can be made, and why?
Managers must take the time to learn the relationships and interdependencies between their tools and the reports they use to maximize their resources.
Teamwork makes DreamWorks
You can’t do it by yourself. It is essential to ensure that your company does not depend on the presence of a single person.
Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates needed a great team to help them execute, deliver, and do everything behind the scenes to deliver their vision to clients.
Surround yourself with the best people you can find. Hire people who are smarter than you, then step back and let them do their job. Remember that championships are won by teams, not athletes. Employees are hired to increase revenue or to reduce expenses in order to improve profits, for no other reason.
People
People are not your greatest asset; the right people are. The wrong people are your biggest catastrophe. Mediocre people are the biggest waste of resources.
Leaders should strive to create learning organizations where the organization is always pushing for improvement. An organization where employees feel valued and contribute according to their abilities.
Effective management will create an organization where personal growth is expected and rewarded and where employees feel stimulated and satisfied.
Employees motivated by the vision and mission of the company will generate profitability, but frustrated employees will generate losses.