What I want for entrepreneurs is to be free to spend more time with their families. I want them to be able to expand their businesses beyond their current capability. Small business entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of our economy and our society. All large businesses started as small businesses, and they got there because entrepreneurs are the masters at chipping away task by task to attain their goals.
I do not want small business owners to be constrained by limits. They should not be forced to decline orders and customers as a result of such limits. I do not want them to be forced to hold prices flat when there is a pressing need to raise them. I do not want them to feel stressed and trapped, and I most certainly do not want them to defer their retirement.
It feels like swimming upstream to break through these barriers, but the entrepreneurial spirit is all about finding ways to tackle the adversities. So let’s turn all these barriers into goals: Our goals for Becoming a Liberated Entrepreneur should be the following:
• For the business:
› Expanded production and service delivery capacities
› Accepting larger numbers of orders and new customers
› Raising prices or reducing costs to maintain or expand margins
• For the owner:
› Recapturing your freedom of time
› Retiring or exiting on a planned timeline
All these goals are reachable. Becoming a Liberated Entrepreneur means overcoming the obstacles that are in the way of achieving these goals.
At its core, Becoming a Liberated Entrepreneur is a system based on these five principles:
1. Clarity
2. Learning
3. Assignment
4. Growth
5. Adoption
Let’s delve briefly into each of these principles.
Clarity
Clarity is the principle of getting a deeper understanding of what you do. All that you do at work can be separated into either Functional or Vital activities. Identifying what is Functional and what is Vital is the first crucial step, and with it you can find the functional tasks that can be proceduralized and delegated.
Learning
Before you can delegate a non-trivial task, a procedure is necessary. With a good procedure, you have the ability to simply hand the procedure over to the employee, ask them to read through it, then regroup later to ensure they understand it. So it is essential for you to learn to write great procedures, and your staff to learn and follow these procedures.
Assignment
Assigning the right tasks to the right people is a skill that just takes practice. If you have not done much of it, you will quickly catch on. The basics are that the skills required to handle the task should match the employees abilities. And the level of importance of the task should match their level or responsibility. If there is nobody who can do the task, then you need to hire someone.
Growth
As you delegate, you spend more time doing Vital tasks. This is where you grow personally and grow your business. If you consider that you normally spend only a few hours a month on activities that are highly revenue generating, imagine the impact if you can quadruple that time spent on those vital tasks. That is how growth happens.
Adoption
Totally embracing the systematization that comes with mentoring and delegation will create a regenerative growth cycle. When vital tasks get repetitive, delegate them. When employees find their repetitive tasks get mundane, you can automate them, or you can promote the staff and hire more junior staff. Keep reviewing activities for delegation opportunities, and keep your time free.
The End In Mind
When you are operating in this way, continuously growing by mentoring and delegating, your time remains free for vital tasks. You could contemplate and plan acquisitions, not just organic growth. With your business less dependent on you, you have come to a point where the value of the business is elevated as a result of you unlinking yourself from it. It does not require your continuous attention to function. That is your opportunity to retire or exit, and realize a wealth event.
About the Author
Walid Costandi has a mission: To liberate entrepreneurs from the confinement of their business!
I am looking to partner with business owners who are ready to realize a liquidity event. Together we can identify an exit plan.
I would love to hear your comments and suggestions. Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/walidc/ or via email at walid.costandi@comrecogroup.com.
Caveats
The above reading is from the author’s knowledge and experience. The reader should use good judgment in deciding what to teach and assign, while evaluating the risks involved.