Your business can thrive without you.

There’s no question that sales growth, control of costs and profitability are always going to be top of mind for most business owners. In fact, if they weren’t you’d have to ask – “why not?”

But, think about this. What if you looked at the important things to attend to in your business as being like the four legs of a chair?

• Revenue Growth
• Cost Control
• Profitability

• You-proofing

  So what is the 4th leg? You-proofing may be the biggest business challenge you will ever face. For any business owner who leads the charge in their company, it is perfectly normal to be right in the middle of everything. Calling the shots, directing the troops, fixing the many tiny problems as they come up.

  A business not dependent on its owner is the ultimate asset to own. It allows you complete control over your time so that you can choose the projects you get involved in and the holidays you take.

  When it comes to getting out, a business independent of its owner is worth a lot more than one where the owner is at the centre.  Here are some ways to set up your business so that it can succeed without you.

  Before we start, let’s not kid ourselves. These few things might seem pretty obvious on their face, but they can be incredibly hard to actually implement because they will often be completely contradictory to how you have always done things. So, being true and easy to say is the only simple part.

  You-proofing

  1. Give your people a stake in the outcome Develop an “ownership culture” in your business. This will require you to be transparent about your financial results, which will enable and encourage your team to be active participants in your financial success.

  You might be hesitant to reveal the financials of your business, but in the end, people don’t have an issue with a company owner making profit. It’s expected and is encouraging because it gives them a sense of security to know the business is going well.

  For those who are outraged by the prospect of you doing well out of your own business, don’t worry too much about that. The question to ask yourself is – “Do I need people on the team who resent success?” The net result will be team members who will act like owners whether you are on deck or not.

• Get Them to Walk in Your Shoes If you can’t quite bring yourself to open the books to your team, consider a simple management technique where you respond to every question your staff brings you with the same answer, “If you owned the company, what would you do?” By encouraging them to see through your eyes, you get them thinking about their question as you would, and it builds the habit of starting to think like an owner. Pretty soon, team members are able to solve their own problems. 

• Track your products/services to market Identify the products and services which require your personal involvement in either making, delivering, or selling them. Make a list of everything you sell and score each on a scale of 0 to 10 on how easy they are to teach a team member to handle.

  Assign a 10 to offerings that are easy to teach team members and give a lower score to anything that requires your personal attention. Commit to stopping to sell the lowest scoring product or service on your list.

  Repeat this exercise every quarter. If you find this is going to cause problems because it is likely to eat into your sales, it’s time to rethink how you approach getting your products or services to market.

• Create Automatic Customers Are you the company’s best (or only) salesperson? If so, you’ll need to fire yourself as your company’s rainmaker to get it to run without you. One way to do this is to create a recurring revenue business model where customers buy from you automatically. Consider creating a service contract with your customers that offers to fulfill one of their ongoing needs on a regular basis.  5. Write an instruction manual for your business Finally, make sure your company comes with instructions included. Write a team member manual (or what sad folk with MBAs like me) call Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

  These are a set of rules team members can follow for repetitive tasks in your company. This will ensure team members have a rulebook they can follow when you’re not around and when a team member leaves, you can get someone new up to speed quickly and with a minimum disruption.

  You-proofing your business has enormous benefits. It will allow you to create a valuable company and have a life. Your business will be free to scale up because it is no longer dependent on you, its bottleneck.

  Best of all, it will be worth a lot more to a buyer whenever you are ready to sell. 

Additional reading – The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack available from The Book Depository for NZ$21.92, Kindle for NZ$13.17 or Audible for NZ$27.79 A Stake In The Outcome also by Jack Stack available from The Book Depository for NZ$34.06, or Kindle for NZ$18.63

If you like the sound of this but would like some help with making it happen, please feel free to make contact for a chat. Free, no obligation.