Many SME’s have huge potential to grow into a big business. However the majority never achieve more than average results in the small business environment. Whilst the quality of the product or service and the skills of the founder are important, what makes the biggest difference is the ability of the owner to think like a large enterprise. The most fundamental way this is expressed is in the owner’s ability, and often discipline, to stop working ‘in’ the business and start working ‘on’ the business.
Most small business owners are like politicians. They have some grand scheme of the world (their business) and they do not take the time to consider what their business would look like without them in it day by day.
Whether by design or by default, all too often the founders of small businesses make themselves irreplaceable. The reality is though if they were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, the business would most likely fail. This is singularly where most (new) entrepreneurs go wrong and it is without doubt the largest obstacle to growing a business from small to medium and ultimately a large enterprise.
Most small business owners make the huge mistake of treating their business like a job. Understandable to some degree because that is what they have given themselves. If you want a company with massive growth potential you need to turn it into a saleable asset that will be attractive to potential buyers. The business of being in business is the business!
If you are one of the 70% of small business owners hoping to use the proceeds from the sale of your business to finance your retirement you may have a problem. But it is one that can be rectified. What you need to do can’t be covered in a single blog article, so there will be more articles to cover the various topics.
What you can start doing is looking at your business as a series of processes. Define each one and once defined, become more granular and define it in even more detail, i.e. break it down into more sub-processes. Document all of this in a workflow and discuss it with someone competent to understand your business. From this you will be able to start to create systems around your products, services, and back office/internal procedures.
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