Many of you have heard me say the words “Business is not a template” many times. We believe the issues we have are unique to us and to a degree they are. The best way of solving these issues is by getting expert advice and help from someone who has been where we are. We are not going to solve them ourselves because we created them, and we cannot solve them with the same mindset that created them. So we need expert help.
As I write this article, we are effectively just about to start week 20 since everything changed for pretty much everyone in the world. Things won’t be the same again. We are all going through massive change in the way we live our lives and the way we run our businesses, so no template is going to solve this. I am not saying templates do not work, as obviously they do and there are some great ones out there but I always used the services of experts – people who had the experience, people who had been or were where I wanted to be, as they knew what it took to get there. They had the experience and if we want someone on our team who has the experience that can help us, we cannot get this for free, but we know we need it. So, we have to look at this as an investment in our business and not a cost. We need someone who can pretty much hold our hand through the process and make sure we stay on track. We need someone who can help us build a BETTER business. If we have a better business, then we can build a bigger business but if we are building a business with obvious flaws, we will only have a flawed business no matter what size it is. Let’s make it better first and let’s use expert help to get there.
I may look at business different from some people, and I use my experience and the conversations I have had over the last 33 years of owning and running a business to help other business owners. I remember a conversation I had with someone at a networking event many years ago. After we had introduced ourselves to each other, I asked him what he did, and he told me he was a business coach. I asked him how long he had been doing it and he told me it was his first week, so I asked him what he did last week. He said he was in IT. So, then I thought to myself, “What qualifies you to be a business coach?”. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there like this – in every sector, and this damages the reputation of those who are good, and I know a number of very good life and business coaches, so I am not picking on that sector and am just using it as an example. You cannot just read a book or buy a franchise and then think you have everything to be able to help people.
I always say to anyone I speak with that we need to check the credentials of those we do business with, in the same way as we would check references for prospective employees – or at least we should. How do we know if someone has the experience or credentials to help us if we don’t check.
Franchises are templated and there are some very good franchises out there, but there are also some bad ones. Franchises are built on a templated model and for a franchisor to franchise a business it needs to be templated, as it’s the only way to build a duplicatable business. So this shows that templated models do work but are not always good and will not always give us what we need. However, we should build our business as if we were going to franchise it, and good franchises have the best systems, and it is invariably a system that is the strength behind any business. “The E Myth revisited” by Michael Gerber is a great business book to read.
If you want any no nonsense experienced advise on how to move your business from where it is to where you want it to be, I would happily give you a FREE no obligation one hour zoom meeting. Just message me or email richard@lionheartmanagement.co.uk
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 02/08/2020