Written by: Dorothy Andreas, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
You’ve heard it a thousand times, “work on your business, not in your business”. While yes…this is a great concept, you need to do both. And do both well.
Setting yourself up to operate at the highest levels of personal effectiveness is how you will scale at a rapid pace. Scale you must, lest you experience the exhaustion and disappointment of creating a new job for yourself, not building a sustainable company.
Most every new entrepreneur wants to do things differently than their previous employer. You saw the problems. You had a great idea, a better way for a business to function. Your vision was so scary, you had to go for it. But what comes next?
I get this. Knowing what type of an employer I never wanted to be, I left college at the age of 19 to open my first business. Filled with pride and confidence, until shortly into the first day, when I realized I had no clue of how to run a business. Every negative word my father told me about being too young, not smart or skilled enough, and basically every fear I’d ever thought to myself, coursed through my mind, as I greeted the next client, pretending that I knew what I was doing.
Be humble and aware in a new way
Nothing humbles us like accepting the truth that we don’t have all the answers. Knowing what questions to ask will save you countless hours of headaches, lost revenue, and low profits. So, how do you know what to ask? Pay attention to where you feel tension arising in your body. The very instant you feel it, shoulders tense, chest tightens, jaw clenches, you know you have an opportunity to fill a gap by getting answers. Create your concise list of questions. Ask for referrals when looking for who you will accept advice from. Getting support from people who have had superior success in the areas where you want to succeed is priceless. The notion that one must know everything as the founder leads to stress, burnout and cruising into the category where at least 50% of startups fail in the first five years. *
Know thyself
Knowing yourself is a journey few find comfortable. But not you, the bold risk taker! It’s dicey business to delve into your own history and learn why you hold yourself back in certain areas. Most every successful founder I’ve encountered for the past 40+ years has one common trait – they want to learn more about themselves, to be a better business leader. This is mindset work. Your mindset truly is the first and most crucial step of trusting yourself enough to grasp whatever you can learn to be your best at what you set out to achieve.
As you get to work on knowing how you are perceived, first to yourself in those deep recesses that nobody will ever know about, every aspect of your life begins to improve. As you upgrade your beliefs and habits, you quickly attract a circle of influence that allows you to walk among the wiser, the healthier, the more authentic, and those who choose to stay curious learning something new in all circumstances. You deserve this too. Expect the oddly wrapped situations that make you want to hide under the bed to soon be illuminated with golden lessons when you reframe them as feedback, not failures. Problems repeat themselves when you don’t learn the lesson from what happened.
The business can run, even in your absence
As the mindset component shifts into higher gears, you will quickly start to identify the systems in your business that need attention. Without strong systems, the business structure often lives in your head. When the structure and systems are created, implemented, and followed, your business grows. When they are absent, your people make stuff up. Your staff, your clients and your community all think about your business through their own set of filters, which may or may not be what you hope for. The absence of systems is akin to the absence of a safety net when you’re on a tightrope. Isn’t this how it feels on many days?
How do you create or improve a system; measure what works and what doesn’t. When you sense disappointment in any result, deconstruct deeply and quickly. Your memory of the situation will be skewed within 24 hours, based on all external influences. There is almost always something missing in the set-up that leads to the underwhelming result. When a good result happens, record all of the components that lead to the outcome. Repeat and record the steps in the process. No step is too trivial. In fact, the tiniest of changes often lead to the best results.
An example
For the sake of this article, I’ll use the sales system. If a customer says no, you get to reexamine your pitch, words, energy, tone, offer, solution, price, and your audience. When you remove the blame from the customer who didn’t invest, then look at the nuances of your process of conversion, you start to see what is missing in your sales system. If you are not comfortable looking at your process to this point, you will miss a great opportunity to improve your system.
Necessary systems
Every business has systems that must be in place. I’ve identified primary, necessary and macro level systems all businesses need. Your systems will include a subset, a micro level, specifically based on your sector of industry and your business vision.
Legal Compliance (all local, state, government, and tax requirements)
Solutions/Creative Process/Product (innovation that sets you apart)
HR/Management/Training (the human capital that is vital to growth)
Technology/Equipment (software, hardware, gateways)
Production/Delivery (from your ideas into their hands)
Money Management (cash flow/taxes/budgets/accounting)
Marketing/Client Attraction (branding/exposure/referrals)
Sales (the process of how you close on your offer)
Working in and on your business
The above list requires working on your business. This is the backstage work that customers will never see. As you define how things are to be done, you create a strong structure. Relying on this solid foundation, you and your people can be far more creative in your approach to growth. Getting additional support on the creation of your systems sends a message to your team that you are deeply invested in getting it right. This signals that you are interested in support and growth. This demonstration garners a culture where constructive feedback feels safe, not threatening or demeaning.
Working in your business almost always includes a component of selling. To be fully comfortable selling anything, the element of self-trust is a necessary mindset component. Those who believe everything in their world should come for free or at a discount struggle to convey the ideal energy that will close high-ticket deals. A deep-seeded belief that money and success is not for you transfers an underlying negative energy, which often leads to confusion, disappointment and a loss of sales. Having a positive money mindset attracts similar energy. The more you know in your heart that success is for you, the more success will attract itself to you. The more you sell, the more you will sell.
Working in your business on dedicated Heads Down Days©, allows you and your team to go forth and connect to your audience with far more confidence. These are the days when you improve and refine your systems, create strategies, review results, and set yourself and your team up for excellent end results.
The days you are out and about, connecting and selling are Heads Up Days©. These days are your money-makers! You are in front of your customers, connecting at a confident and energizing level. This is when you get to implement the unique abilities that you are known for.
Simple steps to success
With systems in place that you have created by simply paying attention to what works, eliminating what doesn’t, documenting the process and sharing it with your team, you have created a foundation that you can always refine. Taking the time to notice the patterns, both in yourself and your business results, yields a great payoff. Implementing systems provides you great comfort ~which is what every entrepreneur needs, especially in rapid growth phases.
Building a successful business requires a blend of mindset, well-defined systems, and strong support networks! Click here.
Dorothy Andreas, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dorothy Andreas has been an entrepreneur since 1980. She started 9 businesses, had successful exits, and has employed over 1000 great people. A Keynote speaker since 1995, winner of over 80 awards for business excellence, mentorship, leadership and philanthropy, her passion is her family, business growth, and the charities she holds close to her heart. Dorothy is the author of three best-selling books; Streamline Success: Eliminate Chaos From Your Service Business, Conflict Revelation: The Three Essential Elements for Creating Harmony in Business, and Build A Million Dollar Beauty Business.
