What is your most important role?

Business owners wear many hats.  We’re often the visionary, financial wizard, chief marketer, HR manager, IT person and producer of goods and services.  Early in the life of the business, we often have little choice about handling all of these functions.  But at some point in the life of the business, it makes sense to determine our most important role and focus our efforts and attention.

Figuring out how to do that can be a challenge.  Here are a few ways to approach it.

1.  What do you enjoy?  We tend to enjoy things we’re good at, and we tend to be good at things we enjoy.  (Go figure!)  If you enjoy marketing and hate finance, you’re going to choose to do more marketing than budgeting.  That doesn’t make budgeting any less important–it just gets less attention.  Know what you enjoy and think about whether or not it makes sense for you to focus your attention there.

2.  What can someone else do just as well or better than you?  Business owners can be a little controlling.  Sometimes its hard for us to believe that anyone can do things as well or better than we can, but they can, and we should take advantage of that.  Maybe the actual consulting you do is difficult to teach someone else to do, or you have particular expertise and experience that you can’t duplicate easily.  Fine, then think about those things that you can teach:  billing and financial record keeping, standard marketing activities, clerical tasks, and so on.  If someone else can learn how to do it, let them.  That will free you up for the things no one else can do as well as you.

3.  Where do you add the most value?  We each get 24 hours a day — that’s it.  If you want to maximize the value of your business, you have to spend your time on those areas where you add the most value.  If that’s selling, focus there.  If its delivering services, focus there.  Time is a perishable resource.  Every minute you spend doing something that doesn’t add significant value is a minute lost.

If you’re a small company or a one-person company, you may be thinking, “sure, I’d like to hand off some things, but who can I hand them off to?”  There are lots of options today.  Many small companies have sprung up to handle the tasks you shouldn’t.  Companies like Mattson Business Services can handle many of your administrative tasks and keep you organized.  Companies like Web Business Freedom can help manage your social media challenges.  Daniel Ratliff & Company can help with your accounting challenges.  And Altman Initiative Group can help with many of your HR challenges.

Take a little time to think about your most important role.  Your business’s future may depend on it.

The real question is “why?”

I’ve learned a lot from my business associates over the years.  One business associate, Mary Bruce with Kaleidoscope Business Options , has helped me remember one very important word–why.  Mary is a very focused business person, and she keeps her clients focused as well.  One of the most important questions I hear her ask is “why?”

As I’ve heard Mary explain, business owners are “action” people.  They tend to like to move forward, do things, make things happen.  Sometimes, they move forward before they should.  First, they should ask “why?”  “Why do we want to go in that direction?”  “Why does that make sense — or not?”  “Why is this a good idea?”  Too often we aim for the “what” before we answer the “why.” 

Focusing on the “what” gets the ball rolling, but sometimes in the wrong direction.  It can make for scattered resources, confusion and wasted effort.  Asking “why” helps us focus on doing the right things for the right reasons.  It makes us be more strategic.

Are you asking “why” enough?  Or are you too focused on “what”?

“Keywords” may be key to problems…

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I recently looked up “keywords” that business people searched most often in Google.  I was surprised at the words that didn’t land near the top.  Here are two that left me scratching my head:

Strategy – apparently not a lot of focus on strategy these days.  Maybe we’re all just hanging on, waiting for the recession to end — for real.  “How can you set a strategy when things are so uncertain,” I’ve heard people ask.  I guess my question would be “how can you NOT?”

Profit – now, I thought this was what kept businesses going, but maybe that’s just the CPA in me talking.  Maximizing profit is a key to long-term business success.  Whether it’s driven by increasing sales or decreasing expenses, the equation is one that requires attention–in every economic cycle. 

Two that DID hit the top of the list were “business loans”  and “cash flow.”  I understand that “cash is king,” but perhaps we need to spend more time and attention on the generators of cash (strategy and profit) so that we have more cash to manage.

One keyword that wasn’t a surprise at the top of the list was “business success.”  That’s what we all want, right?  At the Business Success Institute, we provide practical information to help you achieve that.  We also know the value of sharing with one another, and we hope that’s what will happen with this blog site.  Share your comments–we want to know what you’re thinking.

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