3 Ways Systems Make Every Business Owner’s Life Better
You know the days where you’re constantly spinning your wheels? You start your day focused on getting unstuck from Problem 1, when Problem 2 grabs your attention, and then before you can get to the bottom of Problem 2, Problem 3 pokes its head into the door … Then your phone rings and Problem 4 has entered the chaos. By the end of the day nothing is solved, but you’re exhausted.
When your head hits the pillow at night you feel unsettled; riddled with anxiety about doing it all again tomorrow.
Your “issues” pile keeps growing as problems are coming in faster than you can find solutions.
The brute force method worked when you started your business. You were young. You were energetic. You utilized good old fashioned hard work to get things done. You swept the floors, drove the truck, answered the phones, made the sales, and processed payroll.
But two things have happened. Your business has grown and you’ve gotten older.
You cannot keep up the pace anymore. And you’ve earned the right to slow down and enjoy what you’ve built.
The answer is simple, and even a little boring – Systems.
Business Value is Closely Linked to Your Systems
How do you find the time and mental space to better systematize your business?
For many owners like you, this problem can feel insoluble.
How do you find the time and mental space to better systematize your business, when you have so many urgent needs?
You’d love to solve your problems once and for all, but it just feels overwhelming when your week is already packed with mission critical activities.
Well, to put it bluntly, this is a choice you’ll have to make. Either you continue to live in chaos, or you decide you’re going to let some things drop in order to work on cultivating order.
The good news is that if you choose the latter, you will likely find that three things go up at the same time.
3 Ways Systems Make Every Business Owner’s Life Better
Your quality of life as you reclaim control over your time.
Your business value increases as you make your business more transferable, and thus more valuable.
Your wealth, as bringing order to chaos, will help you run a more profitable business.
Implement a System to Create Order in Your Work Life
A lot of times, as business owners, we start to think of ourselves as employees more than owners. This extends to our work practices. If we are being interrupted constantly throughout the day and acting like it’s just our lot in life, we only have ourselves to blame. This is your company; do something about it!
What to do is implement an organizational structure and processes that bring order to the chaos. There are many great business books on the subjects of leadership, business processes, tips, tricks, and the like. So one approach would be to read up and build this yourself.
However, another option, and one I’ve seen work well many times first hand, would be to implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). The EOS methodology distills all of the best thinking on the management of organizations into a closed-loop system where everything has a place. It can turn chaos into order swiftly with dramatic changes taking place in a year or less.
EOS doesn’t solve your problems for you, but it creates a framework for productively and humanely finding root causes and resolving issues once-and-for-all. This is much preferable to having the same recurring issues over and over.
EOS follows a standardized two-year implementation timeline that has been implemented by thousands of companies. A best practice is to utilize the assistance of a trained EOS Implementer. The investment in time and money is substantial for most small and medium-sized companies, but the benefits are exponential.
Owner Dependence as Hindrance to Business Value
In our work, we find that a business is only as valuable as its owner’s ability to step out of it.
We have found time and again that dependence on the owner is the largest hindrance to business value. In extreme scenarios, it renders a business nontransferable at any value. Oftentimes, this is due to a lack of systems that don’t route every decision through the owner. By implementing a system like EOS, you can go a long way to addressing both your anxiety about never getting anything done, and better prepare you for the day in the future when you decide it’s time to find the next adventure.
If you’re interested to learn more about our experiences with EOS or be connected to an implementer, please reach out to us.
