Your first reaction to this might be something like, “Shut up, Jon! I understand that I run a business now, I’m not stupid.”
And I know you do.
I know you’re not stupid, too.
However…
I guarantee you harbour mindsets that helped you get this far but that won’t help you take your business to the next level – that lovely place where work and money and profit flow freely and everyone does their job, happy and supported by you and the systems you’ve built.
Ahh.
Remember, when you started you did everything yourself, you were cheap, you controlled everything.
Now you’re a bit bigger, you find yourself thinking or saying things like:
- I need to be there or bad things will happen.
- Nobody will do as good a job as me
- My customers expect me to there – I’m what they’ve bought.
- I might as well do it myself – it’ll be quicker.
- I can’t charge too much, my customers won’t stand for it (you don’t understand, Jon, my part of the industry isn’t the same as all the others).
- If I make money of other people doing the trade work (the real work) I’m somehow cheating.
- I feel guilty if I’m not on-site or on the tools.
Remember, your role has to change as this business of yours grows.
When you’re small you’re doing everything and you’re focused on doing good work.
As your business grows it becomes less about you.
Other people do things. Other people are on jobs doing the work and other people are in the office doing that work.
Your role changes from being the person that does work to being the person that runs the business that does the work.
You don’t make this shift all at once, of course, but you need to make it or your business will be stuck and it won’t grow like you want it to.
Here are some mindsets that will help you to grow.
- I need to work on building my business (all those systems that Jon talks about) – that’s AS IMPORTANT as doing my trade.
- It’s not cheating if someone else does I want.
- If someone else won’t do it as well as I would, I should fix that.
- My job is to help my team do their jobs.
- I need to drive this thing.
- I need to make things happen.
- I need to be the person who builds this.
- My job is to build this business and make it work.
Do you see the shift?
I hope so. It’s important.
It’s possible.
Other people have successfully done it.
You can too.
There’s one more.
I should get some help – make it easier and more certain.
Go on. Do it.