Six Steps to Build a Successful Business

By Don Clark

There are a lot of definitions of a successful business floating around out there, but this one is my favorite:

A commercial, profitable enterprise that works – without you.

And there’s the rub.  For starters, is that your goal? Or do you want to stay small, never get vacations, lose money when you are sick or not able to work (vacations, travel, guests in town), and live month to month with what is essentially a job, not a business?

If that is where you find yourself now and you are not happy about it, then you need to change.

So, how do you get say your business to the stage where it runs without you?  Here is a six step outline to follow to get there.

1.  Mastery  – Learn your business.  Get the fundamentals right so you know what you are doing.  Eliminate chaos and achieve stability.

2.  Niche – This is marketing.  Find your niche and use it to get cash flowing  through lead generation, sales, and marketing  to make the business profitable.

3.  Leverage – 80% of virtually every business is repetition. These processes need to be identified and systematized so they may be shared and taught to the employees, leading to a high level of efficiency.

4.  Team – once you have the systems in place, then it’s time to train the team and put in place proper motivation – pay scales, bonuses, etc.  Get the team working for the same goals as your business.  You also are looking for a general manager to take over for you at this stage.

5.  Synergy – Now your business is a well oiled machine.  The next step is to replicate the model you’ve built – expansion, franchising, licensing – there are lots of ways to do this.

6.  Results – this is where you reap the benefits – you have bought back your time and now spend it investing your profits.

There are a lot of strategies available to successfully complete each of these steps – which strategies to use for your business is the key to making this transition.

This formula is the one I learned from ActionCoach Business Consulting.  They are teaching me the strategies I need to know to move my way to the Results stage.  If you find this interesting, you should contact them and see what they can do for you.

 

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