As an entrepreneur, you have developed a mindset of unequivocal dedication to your business. You will spend long hours, forego family and social life, forget to take your vitamins, skip your meals, ignore health appointments, and run at full speed for days, months, even years to build up a new business.
OR… YOU WON’T.
Instead, you will spend focused and strategic hours. You will balance your family and social life. You will make a routine of taking your vitamins, and you will plan your meals, so they fit in with your workday. You will not skip health appointments – because if your health fails, so does your business. And you will not run around erratically because you will have a PLAN… a business blueprint to refer to and build on. With the right mindset also comes the right planning, and the right execution. And it will be worth it – for the autonomy you gain and the results you achieve. You can live your dream.
Many entrepreneurs are incredibly busy and known for being workaholics – but they are seldom productive. You may need to devote a lot of time to your business, but if you are spending your whole life living and breathing it, you are doing something very wrong. Feeling that calls only get returned if you remind your staff or do it yourself? Emails get answered as fast as you can type (or dictate) them? New clients only get signed up when you close the deal yourself? Mistakes only get corrected when you spot them yourself? Do you find your company’s output is only as good as the energy you have on that day? If you went away from your business for a month – what would happen? Three months? Six? Would your clients be getting the same awesome service if you were not around?
If you define your self-worth and level of success as an entrepreneur by how busy you are, working 18-hour days, then you did not choose the right lifestyle. The goal should be to make yourself the least important person in your business. Hard work is no longer enough. You work hard, you work smart, but the real issue is that you are still “working” inside the business. It is the owner-operator syndrome that works when it is a small local business, but the moment you want to scale – you cannot be both anymore. The never-ending list of tasks keeps you busy, but you lose the idea of being free to build your empire. If you want to truly succeed as an empire-building entrepreneur, you must accomplish results daily that matter for you, for your team, and for your overall business. Stand back for a moment and think of your business as a self-sustaining entity powered by an effective set of systems built from a blueprint, not just sheer determination.
An Empire Is Not Built in a Day. It is built EVERY day.
First, by taking the time to create systems and processes you will already increase your chances of survival regardless of what stage you are at in your business. Your systems should solve problems before your team even encounters them. Your processes should result in correct work without any questions – not because we do not want questions, but because everything has been addressed in the everyday processes that have been put into place. This cannot be done overnight, but you must start somewhere with a business blueprint, so your team knows how to start building the empire. You can improve your processes and make tweaks to your blueprint as you go. But if you do not have systems and processes in place, then all you have is blind hope and you are relying on horseshoes.
When building a home, one builder usually does not do it all… they subcontract architects, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, masons – experts in their respective fields. They do so because it saves time trying to figure it out on their own, and ensures the expertise applied secures a well-done job for the buyer. They build a team to create their empire.
This means that it is equally important to align your employees to implement the strategic plan. You need their input – it is invaluable. Make sure you have a rockstar team supporting you. But they will not just come out of nowhere. You must attract them with the right business structure that makes them feel safe and secure but also motivated and hungry.
To build an empire – your empire – you need to be passionate and savvy, but you also need to be prepared, to work smart, and to be backed by a team that can keep you on the right track as you grow. You need to identify your values and ensure they not only align with your processes but that they are conveyed to your staff, so they have goals and objectives clearly defined. Taking the time to create a blueprint for your business helps identify what needs to be accomplished when, what resources are needed, and the processes to ensure your business stays on track. Having forecasts provides you with a means to compare actual results to the forecast so you can correct your business strategy as needed. It gives you a road map – so you are not just driving aimlessly hoping to find the ocean.
Contact us at The Osborne Group to help you create your Business Blueprint or to refine your existing plan so that it works for you. We are confident that with all the businesses we have been involved in, we are ready to help you build your empire!
