What to do to be a successful business owner
The first thing to know about being a successful business owner or entrepreneur is that you should be enjoying life. Business is there to give you what you want or need in your personal life. If your business does not enhance your life, you are not successful, however many zeros you have on your balance sheet.
That being said, money allows you to have choices in life. So, number one on my list is going to be around money:
Know your numbers!
A successful business owner will know how their business is performing in every aspect of the enterprise. Each department or area will have its own critical numbers which indicate success or failure. For example, Marketing is tasked with getting people to know you exist, what you do and how you can add value, so their critical numbers would be around exposure. Sales is about moving people who know about you to a customer who pays you money, the critical numbers here would be around conversion and turnover, repeat business etc.
The mission of the whole business will be different but mostly it is around profit and building value in the business, so the business owner needs to understand the financial reports, especially the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet. Finally, Cash is the lifeblood of any organisation so understanding your cash position is vital.
Number two on my list explores this mission which will differ across organisations.
Know why you’re in business
As Simon Sinek says “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. A successful business will be comfortable with its mission and vision and know what the greater aim of the business is. Every person from the MD to the tea-boy should know what the ultimate aim is.
During a visit to the NASA Space Centre in 1962, President Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said: “Hi, I'm Jack Kennedy, what are you doing?” The janitor responded: “I'm helping put a man on the moon, Mr President.” This popular tale tells us two things, one that everyone was aware of the ultimate mission of the Space Centre, and two that even the janitor knew that the part he was playing was crucial to the success of that mission.
I personally prefer the story of the stonemasons highlighted by Simon Sinek – but that is because I have a thing about old churches.
Consider the story of two stonemasons. You walk up to the first stonemason and ask, “Do you like your job?” He looks up at you and replies, “I’ve been building this wall for as long as I can remember. The work is monotonous. I work in the scorching hot sun all day. The stones are heavy and lifting them day after day can be backbreaking. I’m not even sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But it’s a job. It pays the bills.” You thank him for his time and walk on.
About thirty feet away, you walk up to a second stonemason. You ask him the same question, “Do you like your job?” He looks up and replies, “I love my job. I’m building a cathedral. Sure, I’ve been working on this wall for as long as I can remember, and yes, the work is sometimes monotonous. I work in the scorching hot sun all day. The stones are heavy and lifting them day after day can be backbreaking. I’m not even sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But I’m building a cathedral.”
How much better would your cathedral be if everyone loved coming to work and understood how their contribution, large or small, was helping to build something special. As leader of the business, it is the successful entrepreneur or businessperson who crafts the vision, mission, and goals of the business.
It took hundreds of years to build the cathedrals we see across the UK and Europe, most business owners don’t have that sort of time, so our next point explores this.
Manage your time
A successful business owner acknowledges that there are only so many hours in a day, days in a week and weeks in a year. You can not buy more time, and no-one has more time than anyone else. But successful people know that time management is all about choices. Taking time to plan your time means that you use that time more efficiently and wisely. Knowing what you are trying to achieve in your business will enable you to plan your weeks and days better.
This habit starts at the top, if you as the leader, plan your time and coach your team to do likewise the skills will become second nature and part of the culture of the company. Making the most of the time the team has in the business by planning the day and choosing the most important tasks to be achieved every day will increase productivity and leave time for fun.
The leader of any organization has a large part to play in creating the culture of an organization, from time management to attitudes to others and priorities.
Build the Culture and team you need
What sort of place do you want to work in? Do you enjoy going to work, do your team enjoy being there or can they not wait to leave? A successful business owner will encourage the creation of the right environment to fulfil his vision.
An engaged employee is a productive employee so ensure that you are hiring people to fit your culture. Marcus Buckingham reminds us in his book Love + Work that successful people don’t enjoy everything they do, but if they look for enough “red threads” of the tasks that energise and satisfy them in their work, they will be more engaged, resilient, and included. Building an environment that embraces teamwork and works with the individual strengths within a team will help you to build your cathedral quicker – not everyone can build a straight wall or carve a gargoyle. Acknowledging the individual uniqueness within the team and utilizing their strengths, whilst using other members to mitigate the weaknesses, will enable the business owner to be successful.
It is good to be able to use the strengths and weaknesses of your team, but to be successful, you must first start with yourself.
Know yourself
If you are running a business, you must have some enormous strengths, and they enabled you to get this far, but what do you need to be to move to the next level. An entrepreneur is not necessary going to be a good Managing Director of a sustainable business, as the skills required to start a business may not be the same as those needed to move the business to the next level.
Examine the gaps in your skills, knowledge, and beliefs. What is the best way to fill the gaps? Do you need to learn something, delegate something or work on changing something in the way you think or respond? Your business can only grow to the limit of your learnings and vision, so what is missing?
If self-introspection is not your thing, there are a number of online assessments you can take to help guide you, including Disc assessment, Wealth Dynamics and Strengths finder.
It is not only the technical skills you need to master for your chosen career, but you will also need to look at your mindset, and your soft skills such as communication and persuasion.
The essential traits of a leader include, courage, tenacity, resilience, patience and a willingness to listen and to learn.
Keep Learning
What is it that you need to get good at to become a great Business Owner? What are the gaps in your technical or soft skills that you can plug with a little learning or two?
Don’t skimp on your learning or you will be out flanked by someone who has studied harder, we have a world of resources available to us now and there are so many ways to learn, with books, audio books, YouTube videos, and free (or paid for) webinars.
There are three main types of learning styles and we each respond differently to them, these are Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic. Understanding which you are will make it easier to choose the material that would help you the most. I am a mainly Visual learner, but need to be doing as well, so I learn best by looking or watching and making notes as I go. I switch off if the learning is purely Auditory. If you have had trouble learning a subject before, it may be that you were trying to use the wrong form of lesson.
Be Consistent / Be Creative
If you have always done what you have always done, you will always get what you always got. Successful business owners are creative people, they are always looking for better ways to do something and new ways to serve their clients, creating new environments for their team and new opportunities for business. However, to be successful in business, you also need to be consistent. People don’t necessarily embrace change and successful sustainable businesses are often those who have consistently been improving what they do well rather than constantly reinventing their businesses. Getting this balance right is tricky, so give some thought to what needs to be changed and what needs to be improved.
Answer to someone
Successful people do what they say they are going to do. This is not always easy. Things get in the way, shiny objects appear as if by magic to confuse and divert, squirrels need chasing. Sometimes it is our thought patterns that stop us, or our beliefs about our capabilities, or we delude ourselves that that task was not that important anyway. A goal is just a dream unless it is written down and a plan is worthless unless it is shared. Sharing your plans mean that they are more likely to become reality. Sharing them with someone you really don’t want to let down provides an even bigger incentive. Imagine telling your children that if you reach a certain profit level, you will take them to Disneyland (other destinations are available)! Won’t they be asking you every week (or day) whether you have reached that figure? How would you feel if you let them down? Would that not be the added incentive you need to push that little bit harder? Now work out who the appropriate person is to share your plans with and ask them to hold you to account. If you must verbalise your excuses to someone you esteem, you will be making sure those excuses are valid.
Take care of your whole self – Rest, nutrition, and exercise
A 2014 study from Stanford found that a person’s productivity declines when his or her workweek exceeds 50 hours and plummets after 55 hours, so working 70 hours a week is counterproductive. An athlete will build rest into their training programme as a way of ensuring that they are at their best for the challenges to come. Businesspeople need to do the same, so, step away from the screen, desk or tools. Rest and recharge, engage in those hobbies you used to have; spend time with friends and family; exercise your body and eat healthy
Which brings me back to the very first point. Being in business should give you more life, not suck the life from you. If you are not enjoying your life, then you are not successful.
