What business education do I need?
In his best-selling book “The E-myth” Michael E Gerber said that 96% of all start-up companies fail. The real question isn’t how many fail. But WHY do so many fail and what business education do they need?
Think of it like this. How long does a trainee hairdresser spend learning how to cut hair? On average it’s around 3 years.
If she get’s really good, she might build up a client bank. Then she could take the big brave step of going solo and opening her own business. Now she has a new profession, she’s no longer a hairdresser is she? She’s a business owner now.
So how many years does she spend studying her new profession of business ownership?
0.
That’s why 96% fail. Because a great hairdresser doesn’t always run a great business. There’s a distinct lack of business education.
You can be the best hairdresser in your county and still end up with a failing business.
What business education do I need?
The answer to solving it all is business education.
This brings us nicely to the next question. What business education do you need?
To find out exactly what education you need you can either watch the video here or below. Or you can read on below the video.
Reading the information below or watching the video above will really help you understand whether your business is suitable for coaching and whether you need a business education.
The first area we cover when teaching business owners is Destination Mastery.
Destination Mastery
If you don’t know where you want to be in 5 years’ time, where are you likely to be? About where you are now. It would be a mistake to presume that business owners don’t work hard. They work very hard. But how can some people work hard all their lives and still wind up with a business that’s tiny?
Because they didn’t have a goal, or a plan to grow.
A goal gives you direction. That’s why having a “north star” or an ultimate goal is so important. From there it’s about working backward and reverse engineering where you need to be in 12 months to hit that goal. Then work backward again and see where you’ll need to be in 90 days to hit the annual goal.
Knowing where you are going gives you, and the team, clarity.
Time Mastery
Too often business owners get caught up in “busy mode”. When the business owner is too busy cutting hair to make time to work ON the business instead of in it. The business will struggle to grow.
When a business owner gets caught up on tasks that are both “not important” and “not urgent” we call that DISTRACTION. Those tasks should be eliminated as you can see in the bottom right of this picture.
If they get stuck in tasks that are “not important” but seem urgent, we call that delusion. You don’t have to do it all as the business owner (as seen in the bottom left of the picture), so it’s time to DELEGATE.
What about the tasks that ARE important, and they are ALSO urgent? Well, they put a demand on you and the business. They simply must be done. This is things like sales calls or dealing with active “A grade” customers. You can also delegate these if you have a team big enough.
Finally, there’s the area most likely to result in growth. The “not urgent” but “very, very important” box. The top right in the picture is our classification of working ON the business. This is where you start planning, you give the company direction and you come up with the strategies that will actually make a difference, rather than keep you busy simply cutting hair.
When working on the business, you’re really working on the goals that you set in destination mastery. That’s where the real magic happens.
Delivery Mastery
What other pieces of business education do you need? Learning how to create raving fans could be critical. Most people think they do a great job here because they are “nice” and do the work that’s expected.
That won’t help create raving fans in a world where you’re competing against the service your customers have had from companies like Disney or Apple.
So what is a raving fan? Ken Blanchard came up with the phrase in his book. He said a raving fan is a customer who is so overwhelmed and floored by the customer service they’ve received that they can’t stop telling everyone about it.
2 ways to go about nailing your delivery and creating raving fans.
- Have a system to follow. A great system means that every customer gets an incredible experience. Rather than just delivering when your team is in a good mood.
- Making sure everyone in the business has the mindset to create raving fans. They must have the attitude to deliver. There’s no point in having the best system to create fans if the team doesn’t have the right attitude.
When you have a flock of raving fans, they do the marketing for you.
Finance Mastery
If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know what’s going on in the business. And if you don’t know what’s truly going on in the business, every decision you make could be costing you.
This is one of the most important areas of business. Get this wrong, and you’re out of business.
And the scary thing is, most business owners don’t ever get strong in this department.
They just go to their accountant once a year and wait for them to complete the tax return.
What’s scarier still is that most accountants complete the year-end, 9 months after the financial year has finished.
That’s like a football manager making decisions for the team based on the matches they played last season.
You can’t try to make financial decisions 9 months after the year has finished. It just doesn’t make sense. The numbers are no longer relevant.
So getting on top of your finance, understanding how to read them, and taking actions based on those learnings is all it takes. It might sound straightforward (and it is when you know how) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the most important part of the business.
Marketing
This is another area that lots of companies neglect. The reason? A lack of understanding or knowledge in the area. When that’s the case, they often outsource it without knowing whether the marketing they’ve outsourced is working or not.
It’s too important to neglect. After all, you could have the best business in the world, but if no one knows about it, what’s the point?
That’s like winking at someone in a bar when it’s pitch black. There’s only you that knows you did it.
Getting your marketing right is critical. And when you get the marketing right it becomes predictable. Because after all, marketing is maths.
Sales
In this area, we see the exact opposite problem. This is the area that every person that has ever participated in, claims to be great at.
But think about it, when I say “salesman” what’s the first word that you think of?
Pushy? Sleazy? Arrogant?
Those come up every time. But all of those things are what a bad salesman looks like.
A great salesperson has 3 (among other) defining qualities.
- They ask great questions – They want to find out exactly what you want and why you want it.
- They really listen – Not just listen to respond, but listen to understand. Great salespeople seek to understand.
- They care – Why do they ask questions as mentioned above? Because they care about you and they care about getting it right.
If you haven’t had sales training from some of the best in the world, you might have missed this and many other great messages that will help you improve your conversion and sell/help more.
Systems
Here’s a really powerful phrase.
Your systems run the business.
Your team runs the system.
You lead the team.
That really is all it takes in business. Having great systems, checklists and workflows make everything so much easier.
More often than not though, small companies don’t bother with systems. They keep everything in their head. And that’s where the problems start.
MacDonalds have great systems. They deliver systemically anywhere in the world, with incredibly young staff. How? Because they have great systems. When a newbie starts, all the management has to do is teach them the system and then make sure they follow it. It’s that simple.
Team
Running a great team starts with great recruitment. If you don’t hire A players, it’s much tougher trying to win the trophy.
If you have a strong recruitment system, manage and lead the team well, and hold them accountable, life in business can be pretty great.
But you have to put some effort into running a great team and delivering. The beautiful part is, as your business and team grow, you aren’t required to “cut as much hair” meaning you’ll have the time and energy to invest in your people. And sooner or later, as you continue to scale, you can hire other people to do that too.
Synergy
Once you’ve got a management team and a GM or Managing Director, the business is ready to work without you. Now it’s time to really scale, or just enjoy your business passively. You can take a passive income or continue to grow it and make some life-changing money.
The choice is yours. That’s what synergy is all about.
Choice.
Going to work is now a choice.
Selling, collecting a passive income, or working for a living is now a choice.
And it feels great to be free.
Results
Once you’ve generated life-changing wealth you can stop trading time for money and start trading money for more money. Here we look at building lifelong wealth. Whether that’s with property, stocks, bonds, or by buying and selling other companies. The options really are limitless.
And that is exactly what business education you need, and every other business owner on the planet needs too.
With lots of business education, and a great attitude, which means you are ready to implement all the learnings. The world really is your oyster.
If you want to learn more about how you can improve your business education you can either contact us here or you can come along to our Members Days by clicking here.
