In my years of owning and working with businesses I’ve had many valuable lessons about what it takes to run and grow a healthy business.

I was blessed to have a partner (my talented husband) that not only had great experience but also had skills and talents in areas I didn’t. This was my first big lesson. When you own and operate a business, you will at some point, not be able to—nor should you—do all the things. That means letting things go and I know it can be uncomfortable. But consider this truth by Gino Wickman creator of EOS (Entrepreneur Operating System) and author of the book Traction.

“To grow you must change your belief that you are your business and let your business become its own entity.”

When you open a small business, you pour your heart and soul into making it successful. It’s your baby, I get it. That brings me to the first component:

Vision

Successful business owners have a compelling vision for their business and they are able to convey that vision with passion and clarity.

If you have a vision for your business but it’s wrapped up in your brain, you'll be spending your days directing everyone and going behind them putting out fires. I’m guessing that’s not the way you prefer to spend your days.

A vision statement hanging on the wall does little to impact your company, your employees, or your customers. Your vision must be represented in every department and process of your company to be truly impactful. Take a look at some vision statements from successful businesses:

• Sony: To be a company that inspires and fulfills your curiosity.

• Tesla: to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

• Whole Foods: to nourish people and the planet.

• Google: To provide access to the world’s information in one click.

• Instagram: Capture and share the world’s moments.

Notice how these vision statements are intentional and have purpose. They speak to the values of the company and the people that are behind it—when executed well.

My vision for Creative Business Solutions is simple, I call it the three P’s. To help small business owners connect with their purpose, execute with passion, and impact their people.

I do this because I believe not everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit. As entrepreneurs, we are visionaries. But I also know that running a business can take the wind out of our sails, steal our passion, and make us forget our purpose. That brings me to my second component.

People

Running a business at its core is relational. Business is the exchange of goods or services at an agreed upon price between people. It takes people with particular skills to make any business work. The better the relationships, the stronger the business.

When we bring people on our team, it’s imperative that they believe and also have a passion for your vision. Some will be more passionate than others about the vision but what we find is that those that aren’t, typically eliminate themselves from the organization.

If you asked each of your employees individually what the company’s vision was, you’re likely to get very different answers. Your ability to sincerely convey that vision to potential and existing employees is important. Because your leadership team needs to parent everyone (including customers) to the greatness of your vision. Think of them as ambassadors.

You want to build a team that has the passion to execute your vision with you. It’s your job as the visionary/owner to ensure that vision stays top of mind which is why we integrate it into our next component.

Process

Because I work primarily with small businesses, I find that this component is perhaps the most neglected. A process is merely the documentation and communication of the way a particular job or role is executed. It’s an overlooked and powerful tool for living out our vision and creating simplicity, scalability, efficiency, and profitability within any company.

How frustrating, expensive, and resource draining is it for you when you go through three new office assistants in a month? Typically it isn’t because there are no good office assistants out there applying. It’s because there is no clear process, expectation, and resources in place for the role. The confusion causes issues for the whole company.

In one of our restaurants for example, we created a process for our servers that communicated our vision of “exceed customer expectations" by using a script outline for sharing the history of the restaurant, our unique process, and always anticipating a need before the customer had to ask for something.

Every staff member was extensively trained and we looked for people that had a servant heart, took pride in the job, and exemplified hospitality. This wasn’t the place for those just looking for a paycheck. We not only became an “employer of choice” we won best Italian restaurant several years running.

Data

While processes help us run an efficient and simplified business, data can be considered our course corrector. Identifying and tracking a handful of core metrics from each department that helps us stay on track to achieve our vision is our 4th core component.

However, like processes, this component can often be neglected because owners and teams are unclear on what numbers to track to make an impact. Marketing metrics is one that often send clients into panic attacks because there is too much to choose from and the data mining is too time consuming. I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way.

We chose data to track based on our vision and what success of our vision looks like. When we are very clear on this and have it written out, our next steps begins to appear. For example, let’s take Tesla’s vision statement above and imagine it’s a small business. If we want to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy how can we measure success in that? In the finance department a metric might be 1. the company’s own reduction of carbon emission by 10% year over year and 2. Increase domestic sales by 8% each quarter and international sales by 10% each quarter. In the marketing department metrics might include increase advertising dollars spent in under represented areas by $10K. These are just examples of how we tie those metrics to our vision to ensure we are working in a unified way toward a unified goal of the company.

When we can target and simplify the data in our business, we no longer have to suffer that uneasy feeling of not quite knowing what’s going on in our business. That’s never a good feeling.

Issues

Issues are another one of those nagging components of every business that gives us that uneasy feeling. Note that I said it is a component of EVERY business. What I often find is that those businesses with which I work that openly (without judgement) acknowledge their issues and work together to create solutions around them, are more profitable and grow faster. Those that pretend they don’t have issues or it’s always someone else’s fault or out of their control, are the ones that stay stuck. They typically have a culture of either strife or disengagement, and they are not growing.

Issues are obstacles that must be faced to realize our vision. Identifying, discussing, and creating solutions around those obstacles are a normal part of doing business. It should be a regular exercise of doing business. No one goes through life without issues and it’s no different for businesses.

The key is often how we see issues. We see them as mistakes or a measure of worth either as a person or a business. This is not true. Throw that out the window. When we look at issues as clues or indicators we can then assess the information that the obstacle is providing. My friend and coach, Lynn Carnes likes to say, “That’s when we get curious.” We ask questions, What is causing this issue? Where does the issue originate in the pipeline? What needs to happen to create a different result? Based on the result we want, how can we work backward to create a new path?

Growth

When we manage well the prior 5 components of our business, the result is component number 6; Growth. We start to see traction from our efforts, we are present and on top of what is going on in our business, we are serving our people well, we are focused and staying true to our vision. We are building stronger relationships both inside and outside of our business.

Think of the components as the foundational building blocks of a business. Paying attention to these areas will eliminate a lot of stress, create efficiency, reduce issues, establish simplicity, and increase profitability.

Conclusion

If you are not happy with the current state of your business you have three options:

1. You can live with it.

2. You can leave it.

3. You can change it.

If the first two aren’t realistic, it’s time to admit you don’t want to live this way any longer. Reach out and let’s talk about how I can help you create the change you crave in your business.

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