Small business owners
Firstly a few definitions:
Entrepreneur - the dreamer, always wondering if this or that can be done or made
Manager - the organizer, there are always systems and procedures to follow
Technician - the maker of things - if i make it they will come
Why the definitions
Without writing an entire book on the subject, that would be a waste of time because its already been done - the best around is "The E-Myth Revisited by Mchael Gerber", very simply the presence of the above three parties is absolutely critical to the success of a business. If anyone of them dominates or is missing the business will forever struggle along. The tragedy is that these three personalities are contradictory to one another and are always in conflict. As a solo business owner you have to have these skills or have people in your organization with the skills you lack AND who have the power and presence to influence the business and YOU with the skills you lack. Bill Gates did not get where he is on his own - he gathered a team around him who had the essential skills needed to make Microsoft the success it is.
A new venture always starts of with a technical skill and a desire to satisfy a dream - so a blend of a technician and a entrepreneur. Sometimes they are started because the person has their back against the wall due to a lay off and inability to get employment or they are just plain sick and tired of the corporate world and believe they can do it better. Whatever the reason this is how the story unfolds:
The early days are very exciting and full of action, making a great new widget, customers are happy, money is flowing and the business must grow. As the business grows and employees must be hired, the owner slowly migrates from being a maker of widgets to taking on managerial functions, hiring others to take on his job of making and shipping the widgets. These managerial functions must now include managing employees, finances, marketing, taxation issues, quality control, supplier and customer issues and so on and so on.
Slowly the customers start complaining about quality and late shipments or wrong shipments - what happened to the days when everything that was made and shipped was perfect - now it seems that everything that ships is wrong - can't anyone do their job right the owner asks himself ?
Out of desperation the owner now dives back into making widgets again - because no one else makes a widget and ships it as well as he did - right ?
If the owner is now making and shipping widgets himself who is running the business - who is steering the ship - NO ONE ITS FLOUNDERING ALONG WITHOUT ANYONE AT THE RUDDER- because the Captain is in the shop making widgets again.
So what is the moral of the story - the owner never transcended the leap from technician and entrepreneur to entrepreneur and manager - he either did not have the skill or experience to effectively delegate, train, hold people accountable, put standards of performance or quality in place, run the business by the numbers, implement systems and on and on.
What could he have done differently - how often have you been into a Macdonalds? Have you noticed that ALL of the staff are basically school kids - how often has there been a screw up - I personally have never experienced a mistake at Macdonalds. How successful are Macdonalds - they are the most succesful "small business" in the world - yes small business, every single Macdonalds is privately owned. Okay - so why is EVERY SINGLE Macdonalds successful with the lowest failure rate amongst small business, its not because they sell crappy cheap hamburgers or they are the fastest at making cheap hamburgers - it's because of the systems - no one has the discretion to make a hamburger any different to the way it is made. Every single hamburger is made to the book - the management of running a Macdonalds is the system - the system runs Macdonalds and the people run the system - thats why they are such a huge success.
The above is what you as a small business owner must strive for - establish systems and standards for your business so that there is organization and structure, so that every single person knows exactly what they must be doing and to what standard of performance.
The business does not have a heart or a mind of its own - it does only what you tell it to do - if you send it down the path of failure it WILL fail. If you set it up for success it will succeed. Its really that simple. Think about it - look around next time you are buying a Big Mac - you will see what i mean.