Are You a Prisoner of Your Business?

True Story: “Life’s not much fun these days” said the businessman to his accountant surveying his latest annual figures. The accountant tried to sympathise as he focussed on the profit figure, which exceeded £200,000. “I haven’t got time to do anything here and our social life is non-existent”. His wife scowled across their half-decorated living room.

Makes you weep doesn’t it? But it is actually very typical even if the profits for a small owner-managed business are exceptional. The first few years are hard, much of the profit stays in to help grow the working capital and then finally things start to take off. And they all lived happily ever after….

Well no they don’t actually. They drive a much better car and their wife shops in a better class of clothes shop but their stress levels have gone through the roof. They can never find good staff, customers are far more demanding these days and there seems to far more red tape and bureaucracy around than there ever was when they started.

But there is a solution and it can be summed up in one word. Systems. Of course you have them, every business does but half the staff don’t follow them and they don’t have the common-sense to deal with the unusual things that crop up. Back to the true story: The accountant coughed and decided to discuss the lack of documented systems in the business. “You really ought to start getting your systems and procedures documented, you know. Not everything in one go, just start with the things that go wrong.” “That is everything then” replied the businessman.

So where do you start? Well first you need to be able to stand back from your business and identify the critical processes. What are the systems that make things tick? More importantly, what tasks are being done because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”?

It’s not easy and increasingly external advisers are being brought in to take a fresh look at some of the problems. So should you bring in outsiders for your business or should you do it yourself? The answer is probably both. You are almost certainly too close to see things clearly but without your input the solutions won’t be relevant. One of the reasons you went in to business was to have more freedom. It’s time to make it happen.