Turn Off the Noise

First things first – this month, I’m not spending a single sentence in any of my communications to discuss who won the election, why they won, or if it was a “good” election or a “bad” election. 

The news is going to be filled with that for the next month, so spending time rehashing it is wasting time I could be sharing REAL things with you. 

He won, he’ll be president.  It’s that simple. 

Now, on to bigger and better things!

Last month, we looked at how entrepreneurs MUST stay focused on the dream, vision, purpose, and mission they opened their businesses to fulfill, but this month, I wanted to spend some time addressing businesses that are already open and “doing well…”

What’s the best process to easily and continuously manage that business? 

Well, in my own experience, most small businesses and start ups begin to fail because their owners never took the time to simply develop a process to manage anything UNLESS they were personally involved. 

You’ll never scale it that way, but the good news is you can adopt a simple, four-step process to begin to create a management strategy that works, over and over again. 

The first step? 

Innovating.  Now, that may be too much of a word for you, but it’s really the perfect one.  If it’s scary to you, use “creating” to make it easier. 

Let me put it simply:  create the systems you’re missing. 

Here’s an example…

Think about one thing you can’t seem to let go of at your company.  The process for opening the store each day, or documenting sales and customers each week.  You might do this without thinking, and now, I’m asking you to think about it. 

What is the exact process you do as you do a given daily task? 

If you can document it, you can create it, and if you create it, you can teach someone else to do it. 

So let’s get started!  Think of one, or two, or half a dozen tasks you have never been able to offload, and today (or at least this week), document how you do them and teach somebody to do them! 

One word of warning, though, don’t do this as an “on the job” training process, do this within a written or digitally documented system.  Video software like UseLoom, software like Excel, or even just a bulleted list with screenshots attached can all be the start of the training process, and more importantly, allow you to recapture the essence of your job – being the leader and the entrepreneur who created the business.

Take this time to create and innovate these small pieces, because five minutes saved here and there lead to hours – and then days.