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Business Growth Blueprint

1 Copyright © 2013 Rich Lee


6 Powerful Strategies to Grow Your Business and Increase Your Profits

By Rich Lee



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Table of Contents

High Level Growth and Expansion………………………….pg. 4 Working With Power Players..………………………………pg. 16 Powerful Sales……………………………..…………………..pg. 24 The Art of Strategy………………………..…………………..pg. 28 Artful Automation and Seamless Operations…………….pg. 32 Creating a Powerful System of Executive Level Support…………………………………………………….…....pg. 36



Chapter 1: High Level Growth and Expansion

You want to have a billion dollar company. Good. You’re not crazy. There’s

absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be a billionaire no matter what

anyone may say. However, being a billionaire isn’t something that’s going

to happen accidentally. No one stumbles across a billion dollar enterprise.

It takes planning, preparation, the right people in your corner and a billion

dollar mindset.

No matter how wealthy a person might be or how well-funded a business

is, in order to become a billion dollar company growth has to happen.

More than half a million businesses are started every month in the United States and over 50% of

those businesses fail within the first year.

I’m sure quite a few of those business owners had billion dollar ideas. I’m

sure quite a few of them thought they would be the next big thing. While

some of them were small shops, others were well funded operations

destined for billion dollar greatness. But they failed anyway. The reasons

why will vary.

Factors like lack of experience, lack of demand for the product/service,

poor accounting practices, etc all contribute to why so many businesses fail

in the first year of operation. However, there is one prevailing factor that all



of these others directly affect-growth. If you don’t have a growth plan that

can be easily duplicated, your business will fail. If you have a growth plan

that is very complex and requires a lot of time and money that you don’t

have, your business will fail. If you have no growth plan at all, your

business will fail.

Growth is when the revenue and/or profitability of a business are increased.

You can focus on increasing revenue, which is the top line part of your

business demonstrated through sales or service income. You can focus on

increasing profitability, which is the bottom line part of your business

demonstrated through operations expenses. Whichever way you decide to

do it, you have to make sure that your company experiences growth.

74% of entrepreneurs started a company to build wealth and 68% said that

the reason behind the creation of a company was to capitalize on a

business idea. The only way to truly build wealth and capitalize on an idea

is to ensure that the company grows.

Now that we’ve established the importance of growth in building or running

a business, here are some factors to keep in mind when creating a growth

plan.

Scalability Is your idea scalable? Can your company grow to scale? Many

entrepreneurs don’t have a clear idea what scalable really means. In

the world of business, scalable means that your product or service

can be reasonably replicated exponentially over time. For example if



you start a business making pies in your kitchen, there will come a

point where the business in that model won’t be scalable. If it takes

30 minutes to prep the pie and 45 minutes to bake it, you can

reasonably make about 4 pies in 6 hours. If you sell each pie for $25

and it costs $10 to make each pie, your profit for each pie would be

$15. You would make about $60 for 6 hours of work.

While that’s not a terrible amount of money to make for 6 hours of

work, if you decided you wanted to leave your full time job to make

pies, you might find it tough to make enough money to replace your

regular income. However if you create a business model where you

can use a space and hire 3 employees that will allow you to make 40

pies in one hour and you sell those 40 pies for $25 and it costs $10 to

make each pie, you will make $600 for 6 hours of work. This model

can be scaled. You can create a growth plan where you determine

exactly how many pies each new hire can make based on the space

you currently use. If you outgrow that space, you can create a plan

based on a larger space and more employees, etc. It’s much easier

to see how that business model can be scaled than the one where

you create pies in your kitchen.

Growth is an important part of business. Scalability is an important

part of growth.

Sustainability While growth is the goal, too much or too little growth can be a bad

thing. Not only should your business be scalable, it must also be



sustainable. In business, sustainability refers to the idea that the

company can grow and is in a position to support that growth. If your

pie baking business gets a celebrity endorsement on a major

television show one day, your orders could go through the roof

overnight. While this is a wonderful thing that many businesses hope

and wish for, if you don’t have a growth plan in place, you could very

quickly end up out of business.

The same applies if your business is growing but not very quickly.

You could be moving along selling the same 40 pies a month for

several months. If you don’t have money in the bank to handle last

minute expenses like machine repairs or the advertising and

marketing costs required to get your business in front of interested

eyes, you could end up out of business.

The key to maintaining sustainability is to prepare for the worst while

expecting the best. Yes, you want to go into business with the idea

that you will be hugely successful but if you don’t put a plan in place

on how you will pay the bills until that billion dollar success comes,

you won’t be around to fully experience the successful times. The flip

side to sustainability is that while you are preparing for the worst and

expecting the best, you must also plan for the best. Consider whether

your idea can successfully exist steadily for the next 3 to 5 years,

first. If you start out baking peach pies, it could be very successful

initially. However, in order to facilitate longer term growth you may

have to consider adding other products to your menu especially if

your customers start to ask for them.



It could be a very natural progression to move from making only

peach pies to also making apple and blueberry pies. However, before

you start making new pies, you have to create a plan to sustain those

new product offerings while still maintaining the quality of the initial

product offering. The profit margin on a pie might change when new

ingredients are introduced. Rather than making $15 per $25 pie, you

may only make $10 per $25 pie with blueberry pies and $11 per $25

pie with apple pies.

Now the numbers get a bit more complicated and it may not be worth

it to pursue other pie options. But if your customers have been asking

about apple pies consistently, you would have some verifiable proof

that there is a market for it. Many business owners will begin to offer

the new product without considering whether it’s a sustainable

product. While adding the new product may turn out to be successful,

it’s not a good idea to do it without taking some time to consider how

it will affect your business. Sustainability, once reached, must

consistently be considered throughout the life of your business.

Business Plan The most important tool for planning, managing and sustaining

growth is a business plan. 96% of business owners who create some

kind of business plan say that the plan was useful in successfully

building the business. However, today’s business plan no longer

looks like the business plans of the past that could be 20 plus pages

long and filled with complicated charts, graphs and projections. Those

plans are often characterized as pointless and an unnecessary waste



of time. However, depending on where you are in your business, a

plan of some kind is necessary to have.

Idea Phase

When your business is nothing more than an idea in your brain,

it’s not the best time to sit down and write a full business plan. It

doesn’t make sense to create a plan around an idea that may

not be viable in the marketplace. Your projects will be nothing

more than glorified estimates based on only empirical data and

research. While empirical data and research do have their

place in the world of business, it’s not the best time to rely on it

at this stage.

When you’re in the idea phase, what you need is real world

data. You need to get out of your office and talk to the people.

Yes, you should take some time to consider who your customer

might be but before you take any more steps, it’s important to

find out if what you think is actually true. Actual customer

research is invaluable. There are tons of good ideas but not all

of them can be sold. Not all of them can be scaled and many of

them are unsustainable. It’s a good idea to learn this BEFORE

you invest a lot of time and money into your business.

Now this is where opinions may vary. If your idea is fairly easy

to get up and running, some experts will tell you to get out there

and launch. While this isn’t a bad idea, not everyone is cut out

to learn on the fly. When you take your idea and run with it, you



have to be prepared to grow and change. Your idea may be

strong enough as it is to really take root and turn into that billion

dollar business. You may start executing the idea and realize

that it needs to be tweaked slightly or changed dramatically.

You might not have gotten this valuable insight without actually

operating the business.

However, there are other people who say that it’s way too risky

to launch a business without doing considerable research and

planning. This may be true, especially if your idea will take

considerable capital to get up and running. The down side to

the research strategy is that some people research themselves

into inaction, otherwise known as analysis paralysis. They take

years to crunch the numbers, map out the plan and research

the competition until the idea is no longer attractive or life

intervenes and starting a business is no longer feasible.

I suggest doing a combination of both. Getting out and talking

to potential customers requires research and action. You have

to realistically identify who you’ll be talking to and what

questions to ask. But once you figure that out, it’s time for some

action. Now that you’ve planned for talking to customers to gain

some perspective, make sure you do it. Preparation plus action

is what’s going to put you on the path to having a billion dollar

company.

Start-up Phase



If you’ve taken the idea and gotten started running your

business you will have some important insights and information

at your disposal. Being in the day to day trenches of your

business will teach you a lot while raising a lot of questions.

This is a great time to craft a business plan.

However, before you pull out your laptop, clear your calendar

and settle in to spend hours typing up a comprehensive

business plan, take a moment and consider the information

you’ve learned thus far. What are some of the questions you

constantly get from customers? What are some of the

questions you constantly get from potential business contacts?

Take some time and answer those questions, thoughtfully and

thoroughly. Don’t skimp on the details because they will come

back to you later. This may be challenging to do, especially if

you’re already entrenched in building your business, but it’s

very necessary. You will essentially be building your business

plan piece by piece. Don’t over tax your brain resources by

trying to do a business plan from executive summary to

conclusion right now. Focus on thinking through the areas that

are most pressing. The overarching purpose of a business plan

is to provide a roadmap for your business. When you stop and

put some effort into putting thought into the different areas of

your business in a meaningful manner, you will be that much

more prepared for the explosive growth coming your way.



Operational Business Phase

You’ve been in business for several years. You’ve established

a customer base and your business is thriving. Ideally, you’ve

experienced your first burst of explosive growth and are still

capitalizing off of that success while looking for ways to

encourage more growth. You should have a business plan of

some kind that’s been culled together from the different plans

you created along the way, especially during the explosive

growth.

You’re much more seasoned and have some direct experience

what to expect when things go really well and when they’re not

going so well. Now is the time to take out your business plan

and truly fill in the blanks. If you haven’t done any strong

financial projections beyond the first five years, add those. If

your marketing plan was very rudimentary, flesh it out further.

Take some time to add the parts of the business plan that you

didn’t have time to address before. In case you’re unsure what

to add, below are the different sections of a traditional business

plan:

• Executive Summary

This is an overview of the entire business plan. It’s often

suggested that it be written last once all of the rest of the

business plan has been created. However, some business

owners suggest doing a one page business plan which is

essentially an executive summary. If you’ve taken the one



page business plan route, you could flesh out the rest of the

plan based on the executive summary.

• Business Description

This is an in depth explanation of exactly what your business

is and does. It explains the business’s function in the

marketplace and why it will bring value. This section will help

you really think through why you created your business and

why anyone should invest in it, patronize it or partner with it.

• Market Strategies

This is where you outline your marketing strategy and

insights based on market analysis. If you’ve been in

business for a few years, you should have some semblance

of a market strategy already. If you haven’t really had an

opportunity to dive in for a thorough analysis of the market,

now’s the time.

• Competitive Analysis

This is where you take some time to consider your

competition. You have some good empirical data about your

own company and that information will be valuable when

you’re assessing the competition.

• Design and Development

This section is most important with product based

companies. This is where you thoroughly describe the



product your business sells. You will describe its creation as

well as its growth and development over time. If you have a

service based company, you will focus largely on

organizational structure and how it will support your

business.

• Operations and Management

This is where you give some information about the person or

people running your company and how they’ll be doing it.

Not only will you provide background information on the

management team, you will outline which duties each person

handles and how it helps support the business.

• Finances

This is where the financial projections will go. When you

project how your company financials will look, make sure

you go out for several years beyond where your company

currently stands. It’s understood that other factors affect

finances but it’s important to play for the financial success

you want to have.

As you may have noticed, growth is an integral part to any successful

business but especially those billion dollar companies. It has to be

considered every step of the way as you launch, build and maintain your

business. According to a study conducted by TD Bank, 86% of small

business owners with no more than $5 million in annual sales review and

update their business plans at least once a year. Follow in the footsteps of



the companies making millions of dollars annually. Create a business plan

and keep it updated.



Chapter 2: Working with Power Players

It’s impossible to experience explosive growth in your business without

having a good support team in place. As smart, talented and capable as

you are, you cannot successfully run a company alone. However, many

businesses make the mistake of hiring people before its time. The cost of

hiring one employee can easily be up to three times that employees’ salary

or hourly pay rate. Even if you’re only paying someone $10 an hour, that

can ultimately cost your company $30 an hour overall. Before you start

recruiting and researching, you have to make some internal considerations

to ensure that once you bring on the people you can truly benefit from and

afford to pay for their expertise.

Division of Duties If you haven’t already done this, figure out the different roles that you

need filled. Take some time to outline each position and the tasks

that would fall under each one. If you’re a sole proprietor, this may be

tough since you’re probably doing everything. Do some research on

the core positions of any business. This will point you in the right

direction and help you get started. If your business has been in

operation for some time, you may have more insight and not have to

start from scratch. However, you should still take some time to plan

exactly how you your team will help you. Hiring someone and pointing

that person in the direction of a massive pile of paperwork is not the

way to start a good employee/employer relationship.



You should have a set of guidelines as it relates to how your business

is run. If you haven’t taken the time to do that, now’s the time. You

need to be able to fully explain how to do something in the way that

you want so when you’re not there it’s being done to your satisfaction.

You can’t expect anyone, no matter how experienced or smart, to be

able to come in and do the job exactly the way you want without

guidelines.

Employee or contract worker When you’re completely inundated with work with a to do list that is

several pages long, it’s easy to think that you need a full time

employee to come in and help out. This may not be the case. You

might benefit more from hiring a contract worker to handle very

specific tasks. Plus, it’s much cheaper to hire someone that is paid on

assignment rather than a full time employee. Full time employees

require a salary as well as health benefits, both of which can get

expensive pretty quickly. The average small business spends $7646

per employee staying in line with government regulations. When you

hire a full or part time employee, the government is automatically a

silent business partner. Contract workers make it possible for you to

get the help you need without the added paperwork and fees.

On the flip side, an employee is someone who has committed to

working with your company. Whether that person is available 40

hours a week or 20 hours a week, that’s time where you know for a

fact that you have help. This can be comforting, especially when

business picks up and administrative and operational tasks become



just as important as providing the business product or service your

company offers.

Space Do you have an office? Are you comfortable with employees

telecommuting? These are questions you have to competently

answer BEFORE you post that first job posting. You need to have a

plan in place for how you will interact with your team, whether you go

for an employee or a contract worker. Some companies that hire

contract workers require that they come into the office to do the work.

It’s not an odd request for a business to make.

If you have a home office, you may be hesitant to bring a stranger

into your home to work but it’s still a viable option. Even if the person

you hire doesn’t come to the office every day, spending some time

together in the same space can benefit both you and the people

you’re working with.

Telecommuting, while cheaper in some ways can pose other

challenges for both the employee and the company. Some workers

aren’t as productive when working from home and the urgency of

deadlines set while in an office setting can decrease while at home.

In a company where client contact is an important aspect of business,

telecommuting can be tough to sustain effectively. If your work

environment thrives on consistent collaboration, telecommuting can

negatively affect that as well. It can be tough for workers to find a

realistic way to collaborate remotely.



Regardless of what you ultimately decide, you should have a clear

plan on how your team will be housed when working with your

company. This isn’t a decision that should be discussed after hiring

has begun. It’s up to your company to set and maintain this policy.

Whether you work for a small start-up that is considering whether to hire its

first employee or intern or you work for a large corporation that needs to

expand the workforce, preparation is required before the recruitment

process can begin. It will ultimately cost your company more money if there

is no foresight put into what is needed before bringing on new talent.

Now that you’ve taken the time to put some standards in place for how your

team will help you, it’s time to find talent. This can be the most challenging

part of the whole process. It can be tough to bring on another person and

hand over important responsibilities. This can be especially tough for small

business owners who have been toiling to build a business from the ground

up and are very invested in its success. The first inclination may be to seek

to find the “perfect” candidate that can come in and help with the work while

believing wholeheartedly in the mission of the business.

Yes that person may exist, but you may not have the time or resources to

find him/her. However, it is possible to find good people that will

compliment your business.

Create a specific set of duties Once you’ve taken the time to determine the division of duties for

your business, you should have an idea of the positions that you



need filled and what you need each position to do. This is going to be

a part of your job posting. It’s also going to be what entices people

seeking employment to contact you. If you make it too specific, you

won’t get many candidates. While this can be easier to manage, it will

put you in a quandary when it comes time to decide. Sometimes it

helps to have more people than you expected than less.

Create a specific set of personality traits You could do an ideal employee profile. Write it up like a biographical

story or a list. The purpose is to get some personality traits that you

deem important for someone to be successful within your company.

Every company isn’t for every personality type. If you own the above

mentioned pie company, you definitely want someone that is a good

baker but you may also want someone who’s a creative thinker and

can help make up new pie recipes. If you have an event planning

company, you definitely want someone who is well organized but you

may also want someone who’s full of personality and likeable since

your business is very customer focused. While you may have these

things in mind, it will help to write them down. When the hiring

process begins, it can get overwhelming and you want to ensure that

your search is as thorough as possible.

The next question is where you can find the talent. If you have a sizeable

hiring budget, you may want to hire a headhunting firm. These types of

firms are like matchmakers for companies and workers. They hire

specialists who go out and find the people that would be the best fit for your

company. You still have to be specific in what you need and the type of



person you want, but you can hand the process over to an expert. This is

definitely an ideal situation but it’s not a low cost option. Most recruiters

receive a commission of 20 to 35 percent of the first year salary of the

candidate.

If your budget is already limited and you’re not in a position to pay a

recruiter, there are some other options to consider.

Referrals Finding a good person to work with your company isn’t unlike finding

a suitable mate. Some of the best employee referrals can come from

family and friends. You can also tap into your business connections

and contacts. This way you’re able to get some candid feedback

about the person before you bring him/her in for an interview.

Employment Agencies With an employment agency you get some of the perks of hiring a

recruiter but at a lower cost. However, there is still a cost.

Employment agencies will charge anywhere from 10-15 percent of

the candidate’s salary. The good thing about employment agencies is

that they handle the regulatory aspect of hiring the people. Essentially

the person works for the agency and you are a client. This is good

and bad. It’s good because you don’t have to worry about making

sure you stay in compliance with the government and paying the fees

associated with it. It’s bad because the people that work for you may

not have anything invested in really doing a good job for your

company. Quality control is another possible issue because you have



no way of knowing how the employment agency is treating the people

that they send your way. But if you can afford it and want to be able

to get additional help without having to go through the hiring process,

this is a good way to go.

Employment Search Websites In today’s age of the internet and social media, the job search market

online has blossomed. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of job

search websites. Some of them are very general and can be used for

a variety of postings and others are specific to certain industries.

These can work by getting your job posting in front of a lot of eyes at

one time. Plus, some of these sites also have a strong social media

presence and use that to expand the search.

Ideally, you should look for employment search websites that are

specialized to your industry first. These sites will do more to bring you

the types of candidates that would work for your business. However,

it’s not a bad idea to post the employment ad on one or two of the

larger websites like Monster.com. You may be inundated with

resumes that aren’t a good fit but your ad will get in front of a lot of

eyeballs. The plus side to many of the smaller, more specific

websites is that they are either free or very low cost to use. The larger

websites will have a more substantial fee but it’s still one of the less

expensive recruiting options overall.

Ultimately, any business that wants to encourage and sustain growth has to

expand its team. No matter how smart and capable you are as the



business owner or head of the department, it is impossible for you to do

everything well. Expanding the team is about finding the best people to fill

in the areas that you don’t excel in and empowering them to excel. But

hiring a team takes time and is a process that shouldn’t be rushed. The

average rate of business turnover is 15 percent, however 80 percent of that

turnover is due to hiring mistakes. Do your best to ensure that you are

thorough in your hiring process. Don’t be intimidated by it or hesitant to let

someone else make decisions about your business. Success isn’t about

proving you can do everything for everyone in every way. It’s about proving

that you are excellent at implementing an idea and finding the right people

to make that idea a success.



Chapter 3: Powerful Sales

Many people do not enjoy the act of selling. It often elicits visions of the

sleazy car salesman lying about the lemon of a car just to make a sale. If

you have a business, you will have to sell. You have to sell your idea to

potential investors. You have to sell your vision to your team members. You

may even have to sell your reason for starting a business to your family

and loved ones. Even if you ultimately hire a sales team to sell your

products or services, selling is an integral part of building, running and

growing a business.

The fear of selling is a complex one, however if you were to ask a group of

business owners the main reason for the fear, a few commonalities will

present themselves.

1. The fear of rejection

No one likes to be rejected. Rejection means that you or your idea

wasn’t accepted and acceptance is one of those innate human

needs. It can be said that the need for acceptance goes back to

ancient times when people traveled in tribes for survival. If someone

was rejected from the tribe, that person would be left to fend for

him/herself and would ultimately perish. When you are selling

something, you are ultimately seeking acceptance. If you take the

time to sell yourself or your product and the answer is no, it can be

devastating. Or can it? Most fears behind selling are largely in your



head. If someone tells you no, your world won’t self-destruct. You will

survive. However, there is a key to overcoming a no. Ask why.

It’s just that simple. Most people will give you a reason. Then it’s up

to you to take that reason and use it to your benefit. If you’re a quick

thinker, you can turn that why into another opportunity for a pitch in

the moment. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, you can say

thank you and end the conversation. However, make a note of the

why and use it in your next sales pitch. Either way, you walked away

from that conversation with something. If you don’t get the sale, you

gain some knowledge.

2. The fear of not being able to deliver

When you’re in a sales meeting, you are expected to outline what

you’re offering. Once you make the sale you will be expected to

deliver what you promised. Some people make the mistake of making

promises that are tough or impossible to reasonably keep. Don’t do

this. If you follow the idea of under promising and over delivering, you

will not only keep getting business from that customer, your name will

be golden and the referrals will come pouring in.

3. The fear of lack of experience

Many business owners who have to sell have never done it before.

Most people don’t start a business because they want to be sales

people. However, it’s a necessity whether you know how to do it or

not. The best way to get over the lack of experience is to practice and

sell. Create a sales script and a series of rebuttals and ask a friend or



family member to role play with you. Then get out there and do it.

This is an ideal place to fake it until you make it. Pretend that you’re

confident and capable and eventually you’ll believe it. Then you’ll be

it.

The prevailing reason people start a business is freedom. Starting a

business gives you the freedom to choose your own destiny, follow your

dreams, chart your own path and create your own financial success. None

of those reasons include selling but if you don’t sell your business, none of

those freedoms will become your reality. However, the main key to

becoming a good sales person is to figure out why your business matters.

Tap into the emotion behind why you were inspired to create and launch

your business.

Many people frown on mixing emotion with business but I’m not talking

about the uncontrolled aspect of emotion where people may overact and

make poor decisions. I’m talking about tapping into the emotion that fuels

your desire for success and sharing it with the people you’re selling to,

otherwise known as emotional intelligence. This is a strategic use of

emotion rather than a reckless one. A study by the Hay/McBer firm in

Boston of Fortune 500 companies like AT&T and IBM found that the top 10

percent of the sales force, which totaled nearly $6.7 million in sales, rated

very high in emotional intelligence.

Using emotion purposefully and intelligently, can help make your business

money. When you are able to tap into your emotion and channel it into the

sales pitch, you can connect with people on a deeper level. Yes, logic and



knowledge is very necessary and valuable in business but so is strategic

use of emotion. Since we’re human beings and not robots, emotions are a

major part of who we are. A good business person figures out a way to use

all aspects of life to build and grow a business. Emotions aren’t going

anywhere. We might as well use them to succeed.



Chapter 4: The Art of Strategy

Sun Tzu is an ancient Chinese military general from the Zhou Dynasty. His

simple but profound book, The Art of War provides strategies and tactics

for succeeding on the battlefield while at war. Many people liken starting a

business to getting on the battlefield. However, not everyone is adept at

crafting and executing strategy that will actually work. Unfortunately, often

those people use that as an excuse to be overly aggressive with tactics and

strategies. That’s not always the best route to take. Yes, business owners

must have some level of aggressiveness in how strategies and tactics are

executed but finesse and calculation are also very important. Strategies are

the plans that you implement to move your business forward. Tactics are

the tasks that fall within those plans. Without effective strategies and strong

tactics, your business will fail or flounder.

Business is best when approached in a calculated manner with a sense of

finesse underscored by a touch of aggression. Many people don’t respond

well to overt aggression but can appreciate it in small doses. The key to a

great strategy is good old fashioned preparation and research. However,

there is a trick to the type of preparation and research you should do to

make the most advantageous strategic actions.

Industry Trends Just because you have a brilliant business idea doesn’t mean you

have the ability to build your business in a vacuum. You have to plug

in to the industry you’re now an active part of and stay current in it.



Many business owners get so caught up in the day to day activities of

running a business that the world around them melts away. As the

owner of a business, you can’t afford to do that. You have to dive in

and become an expert on the industry surrounding your brilliant idea.

With the increased popularity of web publications, blogs and web

shows, it’s easier than ever to stay plugged in without having to

commit hours of the day to it. Make sure you are subscribed to at

least one industry trade publication whether it’s through an online

publication or an offline one. Sign up for at least one email list of an

industry expert. It’s important to keep your ear to the streets even

when you’re fully immersed in running your business.

Standard Operating Procedure It’s important to take the time to create processes for every aspect of

your business that require it. Standard operating procedure (SOP)

helps to provide stability for your business by identifying how things

should be done. This can be helpful in a few ways:

1. An SOP will give you the ability to think through

integral business operations and fix any holes.

2. An SOP will provide a firm guideline to be used when

training new staff.

3. An SOP will provide a guideline on how to handle

tough decisions within the company.

Yes, you need an SOP for your overall business but there are other

elements of your business that require procedure as well. Let’s use



the pie business as an example. It stands to reason that there will be

an SOP for how to make the pies but there will also be an SOP for

how to handle the expenditures when purchases have to be made.

There will be an SOP for how a new pie is created and introduced to

the customers and so on.

Many business owners don’t stop to take the time to create an SOP

for the different elements of their business and it can hinder the

effective creation and implementation of strategies and tactics. If you

take the time to thoroughly think through different pieces of your

business, you will truly know the ins and outs of how your company

runs and be able to make strategic decisions very quickly and nimbly.

If you don’t know where to begin, start with the different products

and/or services that you offer. Create an SOP for how those products

and/or services are delivered. Start from the beginning when a

customer contacts you to purchase something and step through the

entire process until the customer is no longer in your care. This can

be tedious but if you take the time to do it once, you’ll be amazed at

how much deeper your knowledge of your business will go.

Industry Events It is important to take time out of your schedule to attend and actively

participate in events that are related to your specific industry. Industry

events can be anything from networking events to conferences and

seminars. You should get out and mix with people who have similar

professional interests to you. Not only will it make you a visible



participant, which could lead to new customers or beneficial business

partnerships, it will also keep you in the loop about what’s happening

industry wide.

Overall, if you want to be a good strategist that can make an impact on the

battlefield of business, you have to be willing to do the work. Preparation

and research coupled with your own knowledge of the industry will make

you a strategic force to be reckoned with. To quote Sun Tzu,

“Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but a few

calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to a victory and few calculations to defeat.”

Don’t be the business person that doesn’t take the time to make those

calculations.



Chapter 5: Artful Automation and Seamless Operations

One of the biggest mistakes many business owners make is creating a

workflow where they are the center of operations. Every decision has to

go through the owner of the company before any move can be made.

This is necessary in the beginning because you, as the business owner,

will handle many of the important tasks. With 46 percent of business

owners filling the jobs of up to 4 employees a day, it can be easy to

become the center of business operations. Many business owners run

the risk of burning themselves out or slowing down business growth

when this happens. It’s important to get help before burnout happens.

But before you start writing that job posting, it’s possible to take some

tasks off of your shoulders, automate them and put them in the hands of

others without hiring a new staff member. Starting off small is a great

practice in giving up control, even if it’s over a small aspect of your

business. Not wanting to let someone else take control is often the

prevailing reason why business owners make themselves the center of

operations. Automation puts some simple decisions and tasks in the

hands of others and can save a lot of time.

Automated Communications Email is a great mode of communication. It’s not as time consuming

as an in person meeting or a phone call and it allows business

owners to handle communication as a dedicated portion of their day.

Some elements of email communication can be easily automated by



setting up an auto-responder. Auto-responders are great because

whenever someone sends you an email a message will be sent back

immediately. Once it’s set up, it doesn’t require any extra effort from

you and it can help with ensuring that customers, potential

customers, business associates and other interested parties receive

a prompt reply.

Another great thing about auto-responders is that they can be created

to say whatever you feel is best. If you get a lot of the same types of

questions, the auto-responder can act as an FAQ where those

questions and the subsequent answers are addressed. This could

help to reduce a lot of email back and forth. Auto-responders can also

be created to communicate when the person who emailed can be

expecting a response. In this case, it ensures that you are able to

respond to all emails really quickly while informing the person on the

other end that you have received the message and are working on it.

Many business owners take most advantage of auto-responders

when they’re on vacation or away from the office but it’s a valuable

tool that can serve a variety of purposes.

Virtual Assistants In recent years, individuals who enjoy doing administrative work have

created virtual assistant companies where they offer general

administrative tasks to businesses virtually. This is a very valuable

asset for a business owner who may not have a budget or need to

hire someone full time or even temporarily. Virtual assistants provide



services like bookkeeping, research, database management, email

management, social media updates and meeting scheduling.

These are tasks that are important and must be handled

professionally but can take a lot of time out of your day that can be

better spent. Virtual assistants tend to manage multiple clients and

are able to offer these services at a reasonable rate. Administrative

work is one of the tasks that business owners enjoy least because

although it’s vital to the business, it’s not why the business was

started. Out of all of the roles that business owners enjoy filling the

least, 23 percent chose administrative work which came behind

accounting and sales. Hiring a virtual assistant to take over these

tasks will ultimately make running the business more enjoyable.

Call Center If your business is very call heavy, it might be a good idea to enlist

the help of a call center. There are companies that provide call center

services for other organizations. A call center can fulfill different

duties depending on what you need and the type of center you hire.

You can bring on a call center to do sales and marketing for your

company. You can also bring on a call center to do tech support and

customer service.

The key to taking full advantage of a call center is to determine

exactly what role you need them to fill and for how long you need

them to fill it. Then you have to create a process for how the workers

at the center handle the tasks that you assign. This is a place where



letting go of control is paramount. Call centers need to know how far

to take a situation before it should be escalated to you. The more

empowered the call center is to make decisions the more effectively

your business will be handled.

In order to fully benefit from explosive growth, it’s important not to have

any bottle necks in your business. Oftentimes the business owner is the

tightest bottle neck to a variety of operations. While it may be thrilling to

work 50 to 60 hour work weeks in the beginning, that will eventually wear

on you and severely reduce your quality of life. No business owner starts

a business to have a reduced quality of life. And with 50 percent of

business owners stating that not having enough time as one of the most

difficult aspects of running a business, it’s best to look for ways to free up

time sooner rather than later. Start identifying areas that can be easily

automated or handed off to someone right away. Don’t wait until you are

one step away from burnout to do it. The longer you wait to automate,

the harder it will be to do it.



Chapter 6: Creating a Powerful System of Executive Level Support

Yes, it’s important to build a great team to support you in the running of

your business but it’s also very important to build a great team to support

you as a business owner. Mentors, coaches and training programs are

vital in the success of a growing business. While you may truly be smart

and capable, no man or woman is an island. Plus there are always

people who have successfully done what you’re working to do. There’s

no need to try to reinvent the wheel. Learn from someone who has

knowledge you don’t have.

Mentors As a business owner, you will have a wealth of talent and knowledge

to help propel your business forward, but there will come a time when

you won’t have all of the answers. Having a mentor to help guide you

can be an invaluable asset to successfully creating and implementing

strategy that will help your business succeed. The key to choosing a

good mentor is to find someone who has knowledge that you don’t

have as well as an understanding of your current situation. Your

mentor needs to be empathetic to you while being able to offer

valuable and viable insights.

Coaches Business coaches can be valuable for business owners that need

someone to provide insight and wisdom but to also give them a kick



when necessary. Business coaches aren’t unlike sports coaches.

They help with strategies and tactics to win but they also motivate

you to make decisions you may not make on your own.

Training Programs Training programs are created by individuals who are experts in their

fields and they want to share that expertise with others. They often

provide step by step instruction on how to be successful and can be

very beneficial when you are charting your own path as a business

owner. If you need help moving forward or don’t know where to start,

a good training program can give you the specific steps to get going.

Typically a training program is modeled after a real world process that

was created and successfully implemented by someone else. When

you know you want to start a business and need some help deciding

where to go, participating in a training program can give you the

guidance necessary to get going.

Having and running a business can be one of the most empowering things

a person can do. It can also be one of the most challenging. It’s not a good

idea to make a go of it alone. Finding a good support team is important and

must happen to push your business ahead. If you are able to find a strong

mentor, business coach or training program you will benefit from a very

valuable extra level of support to you and your business. If you come

across a training program that provides not only instruction but coaching

and mentoring concurrently, you’ve hit the jackpot. Ideally, you will need

someone to show you the ropes, help you get over those ropes and tell you

which rope to climb next.



No matter how confident you feel about your own knowledge and

capability, you will only benefit from surrounding yourself with a good

support team. Starting a business is great. However, there are over half a

million people who start a business a month in the United States. The real

work comes in growing that business and turning it into a successful

enterprise. About half of those people who start a business aren’t able to

grow it into a successful enterprise. Don’t be one of those 250,000. Push

through the masses and do what inspired you to start the business in the

first place, separate yourself from the pack and control your destiny.

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