Systemise your Business

Better Business by Design

Level 1
237 Queen St
Richmond
Ph +64 3 544-1294
Fax +64 3 544-1286
www.b3d.co.nz
P O Box 3421
Richmond
Nelson, NZ
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Strategic Marketing delivers
sustainable growth
Systematise your Business
Most small businesses are started by "technicians", that is people who are skilled at something and who enjoy doing that thing. (A technician can be anything from a computer programmer to plumber to a dog groomer to a musician or lawyer.)
When these technicians strike out on their own, they tend to continue doing the work they are skilled at, and ignore the overarching aspects of business. Without clear goals and quantification benchmarks, they soon find themselves overworked, understaffed, and eventually broke.
Worst of all, they may come to hate the work they do. Rather than owning a business, they own a job, and they find themselves working for managers who are completely clueless about how to run a business- -themselves.
The solution is for every business owner, especially the technician-owners, to balance their business personalities. Every business owner needs to simultaneously be an entrepreneur and a manager as well as a technician.
The technician is the worker-bee, the one who produces the product. The manager makes sure operations and finances run smoothly and consistently. The entrepreneur formulates the goals, and steers the business in the direction needed to reach those goals.
Of these three personalities, the entrepreneur is key- -without it, the technician will work himself or herself to death or bankruptcy. As the business grows, the business owner will need to draw away from the technician work and manager work and delegate this work, rather than abdicate this, to others.
There are well-known failure-rate statistics for small business: 40% fail in 1 year. Of those who survive 1year, 80% fail in 5 years, and of those who survive 5 years, another 80% fail. Small business owners who fail often share a number of characteristics, while those who succeed do so not by luck, brains, or perseverance, but by taking a different approach.
We are not necessarily suggesting that you buy a franchise but, in comparison to the dismal rate of ordinary small-business start-ups, 75% of franchises succeed at 5 years. The reason they succeed is that they are set up so that any unskilled person off the street could walk in, buy a franchise, run all operations in the franchise, and have a fairly good chance of success.
Better Business by Design Ltd Page 2 of 2
P O Box 3421, Richmond Nelson, New Zealand
Ph: +64 3 544-1294, Fax: +64 3 544-1286
In order to meet this level of success, you need clear operations manuals, procedures, consistent sales approaches -every detail of running the business is specified down to dress codes and wall paper.
Imagine that you want to sell your business within a finite period of time. If so, what will you need to do regarding your business plan and management in order to meet this goal? That is, if you were going to make your business fool-proof so that any unskilled person could take over as owner after a few years and succeed with it, what will you need to do?
We would love to talk to you about it. By taking this different approach – by systematising your business - you can dramatically increase your success. Call Craig or Shireen at Better Business by Design and let us show you how to get started.