Examine your Business (BB rule #8)

It is obviously difficult to live in a society that is permeated with the idea that only total and absolute disaster can be the catalyst of necessary and long over due change. That may be the case for most of us, but we have the choice to be a fish that slips through the net or canned tuna. Many, many businesses and organizations find themselves too far along to take any type of corrective action that will make a difference. They flop around on the deck in vain protesting to be thrown back into the sea. The sad part is, that as the net of this recent economical environment sweeps up more and more businesses…I mean fish, how many will really be missed in the commotion?

So a show of hands for everyone that would prefer to sabotage their own business by being reactive rather than proactive…anyone? Great!

Now, lets not make this complicated shall we? It takes more courage than anything to put ourselves underneath the microscope. I’ll give you 7 easy steps to giving your business a self diagnostic and we know that checkups should be done regularly so your first time should not be your last.

• Step 1: Why am I in business for myself?

Never stop asking this question as the answer can change over time. The current answer will be the direction that you drive your business in and the ultimate goal of all your work. If you don’t clearly know, you will be like a ship lost at sea with no bearings. Totally subject to the forces around you and utterly powerless to determine your own destiny.

• Step 2: What is my role in the business?

There are no right or wrong answers here just honest realizations.  Are your a front-line type of leader or more of a hands-off delegate type? Perhaps you don’t need to lead your business at all and it would be best lead by another person accountable to you.  It could simply be that you best serve the business by managing the financial aspects rather than the day to day. Decide and stick with that decision.

• Step 3: How do I rate my business?

On a scale from one to five, rate exactly how you believe your business performs in four separate areas. Five being excellent, three being fair, and one being poor. Not sure what a five looks like, that’s where step four comes in.  This step is to make sure you calibrate what you believe to be good performance.

• Marketing
• Operations
• Training
• Customer Service

• Step 4: Do I have a second opinion?

If the President needs an adviser then so do you. Some solicit the counsel of other business owners that they may know or have met through an organization of business owners. Others opt to enlist that aid of a consultant, personally this is an instance where the more really is the merrier. Let your adviser or advisers rate your business on the same scale and see what they have to say. At the end of the day the decisions are still yours to make. If others can help you see your situation from every angle would you not be able to make a better informed decision?

• Step 5: Compare/Identify/Plan

Take everything you know and everything that has been said by your adviser or advisers and lay it all out together. Give it all equal amounts of consideration, if it doesn’t work (even if its your idea) then it hits the cutting room floor? It helps at this point to remember step one. Keep what works and what has never been used. From these things create your business plan. This can be an overall business plan or one to tackle an area of your business that needs improvement.

• Step 6: The right players in the right positions

Before you start leading employees out to the gallows lets give this a second look. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses, and in order to use an employee to their fullest you must know what those are. As loyalty is hard to come by, before you replace someone determine if there is another position on the team that makes good use of their talents. If not then the decision is clear. Always use a diagram on this step. It helps to make sure that you pair who you have and what they can do, with what you need done.

• Step 7: Commitment and Accountability

Alright coach, now you should know your role, know where you are, have a goal, have what your need done, and who you need to do it. Great! Now it’s time to get everyone on board. This may require one large meeting or several small ones. Lead as many as dictated by the role you play in your business. Just remember that most of all they need to know why they are there (why they work for you ), where they stand in performance (just the facts), what function they have, and what needs to be done next. Lastly give them your reasonable expectations to be accomplished in a reasonable time frame and who will be holding them accountable to these expectations and why.

Wondering who is going to hold you accountable? Each time you perform this seven step check up have your previous one handy. Commitment and accountability should begin and end with you regardless of your role. Even though no business fails in a day, and no business corrects itself in a day, there is only one time to begin change and that time for you can be today.

This entry was posted on 16. December 2009 at 14:50 and is filed under Creating the Culture, Being the Boss, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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