By Wayne Mates
Having had the experience of building both a new house and a new business, it is clear to me the process to complete each of these projects is pretty much identical. The vision of a new business to its completion mirrors the building and moving into a new house. Today, I will take a quick look at some of the similarities.
Imagine you are standing on a piece of land with a great view of mountains or lakes. Or, it just happens to be quiet and peaceful. As you walk the land, you envision a house placed in the perfect spot. You soon “see” a certain style, certain colors and features of this house and imagine it completed with you as the proud owner.
Business ideas are the same. An idea pops into your head and you start to envision the type of business and your product or service. As you fixate on this idea more detailed scenarios begin to take shape. You begin to see a how your business can thrive. Maybe you envision a product you can produce at a better quality and price than a potential competitor. Perhaps there are services you can provide better than anyone else.
Regardless, you have an idea that has begun to grow. With a house you hire an architect to turn your ideas into a blueprint. As you answer the architects’ questions about what you want to put into your house, your vision becomes clearer. Maybe you change the style, the size or number of rooms or even the location on the land. Modifications are captured in the final blueprint. Just imagine how the house would look if you didn’t have a plan.
For your business vision, the business plan is your blueprint. As you cannot build a house without a plan, you cannot build a business without a plan. As you research your ideas you gather expertise from others. Perhaps, you consult with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), the Small Business Association (SBA), bankers, lawyers and accountants. All will ask you pointed questions. Your answers will further refine your business plan. Some of your assumptions and ideas will change. If done correctly, you will have a plan to build a viable, thriving business.
Next comes construction. With a house, you start with a solid foundation capable of supporting your dream house. Without the foundation, your house might sink or tilt.
You need a strong foundation for your business as well. You need the right partners, advisors, and the right amount of money to support your dream. Starting out without the appropriate resources will only lead to a misguided failure. Start right or don’t start at all.
Now that you have your foundation, you are ready to add rooms. Your house begins to take shape. As you walk through the structure, you may modify your house. As you change things, the house takes a slightly different look.
You do the same with your business even before you begin operations. As the structure of your business takes shape by adding sales or finance departments, you may tweak your business plan.
Consider that each room in the house is a department in your company. You add sales, finance, legal, human resources, operations, technology, or manufacturing until you have the final structure of your company. Initially all the departmental functions may be handled by you or outsourced to trusted associates. Over time you will determine if these functions remain outsourced or are brought in house depending on your business model.
When you built your house, you added heating and cooling in an HVAC system. When it’s chilly outside, you turn on the heat. When it gets hot and humid, you turn on the air conditioning.
When you wrote your business plan you should also have added a business heating and cooling system. The state of the economy is similar to the weather, highly unpredictable. Your business needs to take this into consideration. When the economy is heated you should not be getting sucked into believing that the upside trend will last forever. It will not. Cool your business just a bit so that when the economy tanks, you will have a soft landing. Conversely, when the economy cools, turn up the heat on your competition or those that have fallen. Buy up some assets or a failing company and prepare to move your business along fast when the economy rises.
I have covered a lot here and could add more on how a roof supplies needed protection of assets, a garage for storage, etc. The point is you cannot have a fully viable business without a well thought out business plan. The plan needs to have flexibility to adapt to changes in the marketplace or even your narcissist whims. But, have one!
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Filed under News, Start Up by on Jan 23rd, 2012. Comment. 
By Wayne Mates
Make no mistake; the people who work with you everyday are vital to your success. These are the people you rely on to help you meet your company goals. Without them, there would be no success for you. It is always in your best interest to keep them motivated, to keep them productive. If you want to keep them that way, do not do any of the following:
- Set unrealistic expectations – This does not mean you can’t work with them to set challenging goals, goals that allow them to learn, grow and excel. Goals that allow them personal fulfillment are good challenges. What is not good is handing someone a list of objectives and goals for which they had no input. It is terrible you think so little of them that you need to dictate their objectives. Also, setting goals very high as to be unattainable creates an environment for de-motivation. People know what is doable and unless you have a whole new proven way of doing things, your employees are not going to buy in to your scheme.
- Waste their time – How many meetings, conference calls, reports are your employees attending or creating that add little or no value? How many people do you add to meetings or calls that are important just because you think they should be there? Reality may dictate that some of these folks are much better served by not attending. Maybe they can be productive instead. I have seen far too many “bosses” create unnecessary meetings and calls so they can pontificate to an audience. If you want to pontificate give your talk to your mirror, but don’t waste valuable time.
- Create constant fire drills – Take a look at the last several months of your activity. How many times have you sent out requests for information or reports where you need the information today? Every time you do that, your staff drops vital tasks to respond to your requests. By the time they finish acting upon your needs, they have forgotten what it was they were working on that was important. Oh, you say you need the information for an important client? Shouldn’t you develop the skills to set the appropriate expectation with that customer? They will respect you for it. Yes, there are occasions when a “fire drill” is necessary, but keep them to a minimum.
- Treat them as expendable resources –Especially in today’s economy, it is easy to look at unemployment numbers and conclude that you can replace anyone in the company. The truth is you probably could. But, the expense of training new people is high, not to mention the costs of recruiting new folks. I have had a senior manager state in a meeting that nothing needed to be done to keep staff incented because staff had no other options. What a load of BS. Your best staff always has options. If word gets out employees are expendable, you may be looking at losing your most highly skilled people.
- Don’t share the wealth – Want to keep your company in business and creating new ideas which can lead to more revenue and profit, create an incentive plan that rewards profitable ideas. Give people an opportunity to be creative AND to share in the profitability of an idea and you will have a multitude of new ideas to work with. Create an environment where people see you taking all the profit and living a rich life and they will not excel for you.
If you recognize yourself doing any of these things, it is time to stop and reassess how you manage your company. This goes not only for company owners but for management as well. Just take the last 6 months or a year, look at your actions and how they may have been detrimental to your success. Then, more importantly, promise yourself you will change how you manage your business.
Filed under Hiring and Managing People, News by on Jan 17th, 2012. 1 Comment.
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