Essential steps from a Technician to Business Man. Business should be Profitable, Repeatable and Effortless.
I bought this book with the sole purpose of helping a friend out. He was letting go of his second-hand books, which I'd gladly pay.
I wish had read it sooner.
This book is insightful and beautifully written. Would love to read it again.
Three types of mindset, Technician, Manager and Entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur – Dreams
Manager – Frets
Technician – Ruminates
Most people can't grow their business because they are stuck with a technician mindset. We are focused on how it should be done, not what needs to be done.
As a result, we focus on building the product, not selling the business.
Busy working on the Product ≠ Working on Business.
Infancy – The owner does everything. It ends when the owner realizes the business can't continue to run when they're always in the way.
To make the product better, efficient and sort.
"Move a side, here's how we do it."
Adolescence – Management by Abdication. Giving responsibility for the sake of it. It ends when Owners can fully the entire department.
Maturity – Gerber gave McDonald's, how it's run without Ray Croc at every restaurant and flipping burgers without the need to micro-manage.
It should work like clockwork. Everyone has their own tasks. And work tirelessly to fulfil those duties.
The System runs the Business. The People run the Systems.
Ideally, run the business with a checklist. You don't need highly technical people to do it unless it's a professional field. Which in turn creates the system.
Your business is not your life.
It should run even without you in it. It should be able to cater to customer needs and deliver value without your supervision.
Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people, but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Innovation – How to do it differently, effortlessly and deliver results. His example, wearing a Brown suit vs a Blue suit. Blue suits get more sales orders than Brown. Simple and easy way to do things differently.
Quantification – Measure those innovations. Take notes of every single turn of events.
Orchestrate – Employ the strategy businesswide.
My web design business is very broad. We can build all sorts of websites, forums, user-generated content and such. However, being good at everything means we are good at nothing. Therefore we've pivoted.
Because we were solving every single customer problem with loads of variety, bells and whistles, we were trapping ourselves. We can't find the right people to fit the job because it's too darn exhaustive.
What value do I want to bring to the table?
That was the main question I asked myself, which forces me to choose a single value instead of many things to do.
We had to forgo our corporate ways and just focus on a single goal, to help clients get richer.
