If you want your business to grow you can’t do everything yourself.
Most entrepreneurs actually don’t like working with anyone, including their own employees!
This is the major reason why 96% of all firms have fewer than ten employees, and a vast majority have fewer than three. Therefore, the decision to grow isn’t an easy one.
Texas Doug Harrison, CEO of a nearly $200 million provider of mobility aids for the disabled called The Scooter Store, clearly recalls the shift in thinking that brought his business out of a storefront and up to speed. “I remember like it was yesterday the meeting where we decided to grow…in the Sunshine Room of the local Holiday Inn.” “We had spent several years struggling to make just our local operation work. We knew our systems weren’t ready and we knew growing the business would take us away from our families. But we also knew, once we started making a small profit, that we had a business that could grow,” says Harrison. Helping that decision was the threat that came from one of Harrison’s so-called friends who saw the same opportunities and became a potential competitor. It was time to bring on more talent.
“One of the first real management concepts that stuck in my head,” Harrison says, “was that if you can’t afford the people to run the business for you, then all you have is a job, not a business. It was like somebody turning on the light for me, because I realized that I needed to get good people in here to do this for me. I couldn’t keep hiring people at as close to minimum wage as possible.” Although friends and family were telling Harrison it was too soon to shell out big salaries for experienced sales, operations, and financial people, he did it early in his operation and never looked back. “We went from two locations to five that year, yet we felt we were in better control of the business.”
Delegation is just as crucial as the management thinkers have claimed. Harrison knew it was crazy that he was the one deciding whether bathroom towels would be plain white or blue-striped. And, as a former petroleum engineer, he couldn’t pretend to have expertise in finance or sales. Not only did he have to let go of the niggling details, he had to take the first steps toward reserving for himself the role that only the CEO/founder can play, that of leader and visionary. He needed a managerial structure in a place to let him focus on his real job of growing the company.
Do you find yourself making decisions that someone else should be making? Do you need more time to focus on your main job, running the business? Share with me in the comment box below or on Facebook and Twitter.
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