Got Business?

This is the first post in my “Business Development” series which will be appearing every Thursday. I’ll discuss what I am currently learning as I create an online business that takes me to my goal of financial freedom.

A business….what it is not.

When I had my picture framing company I used to think I had a business. I would tell people proudly that I owned my own business. But when I saw that they would be jealous of my so-called freedom from having a job I had a true “joke” that would illustrate just how free I really was.

I would say, “Yup, I am completely free to do whatever I want….as long as I work 12 hours a day.”

Michal Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited [a book that I'll reference a lot in this section] calls being self employed in that manner worse than having a job – because your boss is a lunatic

A business…what is it?

My new definition of a business goes like this:

A set of profit producing systems and procedures that operate without my involvement. As the owner, I could be trapped on a desert island for 6 months and when I was rescued and returned to civilization my business would be worth more than when I left.

Think it’s impossible? Martha Stewart became a billionaire [for the second time] while she was in prison!

That could only happen because she had a business system.

I Know I Need a System, Now What?

Good question. Don’t forget this is not being written by someone who can claim to have pulled this off; and Martha declined my interview request.

I have to admit that the idea of systematizing everything that I do just to create one simple info product seems completely overwhelming. Without enough startup capital to last for a year or so, I doubt that it is really possible to do it fully at the same time as trying to actually get profitable ASAP.

What I think is important in the beginning is not to get it perfect or even close, but to just begin to create system blueprints for what is happening in my business.

Train Your Brain

…to work, not only on the product, but on the business at the same time. Right now it may only be 20% on the business and 80% in the business but at least the seed is planted and you have opened the door for the business system design to take root and grow.

In my experience, if you take the attitude that you’ll work on the business system design after you start making money…you won’t ever do it. That’s what I told myself with my framing business [which I owned for 11 years]. You know when I finally got around to doing all the process designs and operations manuals?

When I sold the business and they were part of the purchase agreement! Yikes, how silly is that.

The silver lining was that I discovered that I really loved doing that stuff and I saw how valuable it would be to the new owner. I was able to write documents and create pictures so that the new owner could take over and hit the ground running without having any other training.

Everything from how to find clients to collecting overdue accounts and creating the products to sourcing supplies was written down; and it worked. I think the new guy called me twice to clarify things from the documents.

The Power of the Business System

With a little bit of lateral thinking at this point I could have leveraged the real power of my documents and, rather than sell the business, I could have hired a couple people to run it and continued to own it and have it generate an income for me…hands free. Or, I could have sold the document as a franchise prototype.

That’s the real power of a business system. It takes the dependency on people out of the money making equation.

For most entrepreneurs this is the factor that determines the level of success they can achieve.

Success Level = how well the business functions – [without] the entrepreneur.

The take away for me, and hopefully for you too, is to at least devote some energy each day working on the business systems level…with an eye towards being able to walk away from it all and have the business continue to improve in my absence.

You may just be surprised, if you’re like me,and find that it is just as enjoyable and rewarding to work on the business as it is to work on the products.

Jon Symons

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