The Work of a Business that Works

The Work of a Business that Works

All businesses that thrive and grow to maturity must take into consideration both the tactical and strategic work that will be required. The tactical work is what happens in the business day-to-day and involves, for example, the actual delivery of products and services to customers, or the actual performance of administrative duties, etc. But the strategic work is what shapes the tactical work; it is the work that is done ON the business and involves things like planning, forecasting, and working out the most effective ways to do the necessary work of the business. The strategic work shapes the business processes and provides the purpose behind every action that is taken, and it is the kind of work that is most often overlooked and neglected in small business.

Every business will need to have positions that are accountable for doing either the strategic work ON the business, the tactical work IN the business, or a combination of the two.

Organize the Work of Your Business

In order to be successful, business owners must find a way to put the work of their business into context so that they truly understand the business and all the things that need to happen in order for it to work the way it is supposed to. At E-Myth Worldwide, we help our clients do this by leading them through the process of developing an Organizational Strategy. If you are a business owner who has struggled with trying to figure out what hats to wear or how to wear several different hats in your business effectively, there is a proven path that can lead you to greater clarity, organization and effectiveness:

• Get in touch with your Primary Aim in life, what you want your life to look and feel like on a daily basis. This will help you envision a business that can truly serve your life instead of a business that will dominate it!

• Affirm your Strategic Objective for your business, and be sure you have a clear picture of what your business has to become and how it has to operate to serve you and everyone else it touches. This will help define the work that will need to be done.

• Create an Organizational Chart for your business that reflects all the positions that will be needed to accomplish the necessary work of the business if it is to achieve the Strategic Objective. Think of your business as a corporation, regardless of whether it is actually a corporation or is a partnership or sole-proprietorship, because that allows you to be more objective and design the chart around the necessary positions rather than personalities. Be sure to account for the positions that will be accountable for the strategic work as well as the tactical work. This should clarify all the different hats that need to be worn in the business.

• Create Position Agreements for each position in your business. Be sure to specify the results, the work, and the standards each person who occupies that position will be held accountable for. These documents indicate not only the strategic purpose of each position but also the specific systems that will need to be documented and placed in that position’s operations manual. This should clarify exactly what needs to be done when this “hat” is being worn.

• Create Operations Manuals for each position in the business, so that all the most important work accountabilities for each position have a documented system that describes precisely what to do and how to do it. This helps clarify how to actually do the work no matter what different hat you may be wearing.

Five Character Qualities for Success

Five Character Qualities for Success

Passion: Passion, defined as intense emotional excitement, does beyond mere enthusiasm. A person with passion is a person who sets goals.

Determination: Without a clear purpose any obstacle will send a person in a new direction. With determination, you can establish priorities that will guide you through every challenging and unexpended circumstance.

Talent: Talent allows a person to focus. No one has talent in every area, discover where you rise to the top and focus on that. Talent is a funny thing. If you wait for the perfect conditions, it will likely never appear.

Self-Discipline: Self-Discipline predicts success. Without self-discipline others can easily sway a person.

Faith: Even when everything is lined up logically or financially, real success requires a step of faith into the unknown. Faith is the intangible ingredient that moves a person past initial planning and persistence. “Success is ultimately more art than science, more intuition than logic” Dan Miller No More Mondays

Many small business owners are feeling the economic pinch right now. We get a lot of questions from business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs about creating businesses that can weather any storm. While the specific steps your business should take will depend on your situation, there is a common denominator — one of E-Myth’s Five Core Principles — that can guide you:

How you think about business is how you do business.

Bottom line, if you think of your business as a job, it will be, and your actions will forever keep it that way. If you think about your business as an entity outside of yourself — or, as we see it, “A vehicle for your life” — you’ll approach your business with the intention of making it just such a vehicle. Everything you do will be done with that goal in mind. It’s a mind shift — a change in thinking — which can have a profound impact on how you do business.

As you shift your perspective, let’s look at three key points that will help you recession-proof your business.

Focus on your core competencies

You’re no doubt familiar with the whole flight or fight response. In challenging times, it’s easy to choose “flight”: chasing minor opportunities, grasping at straws, running off in multiple directions, trying to be all things to all people. Very often these panic-based responses are at the cost of what the business is set up to do best. Businesses that try to be all things for all people don’t survive.

There is always going to be another business out there that does something better than you do. If you lose your focus and stretch your resources and capabilities too thin, you’re unable to capture the attention of any particular market segment because your best target market segments can’t relate to you anymore. The trick is to not allow your core competencies to become so diluted that you lose the competitive edge that makes you unique.

Re-evaluate and be flexible

Once you turn your focus to what you do best, you may find that it’s time to innovate: to do what you do better. Seize the opportunity to strengthen your ability to deliver your product or service better than your competition. 

At the same time, you must be ready to adjust. Don’t be so rigid that you are blind to the messages that may be coming in from your target market that their needs and preferences have changed. Quantify what is selling and what is not selling. Listen to your customers. Trust your customers. I continually remind my clients that their customers know better than they do about what their needs are. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open to what they’re telling you, and be nimble enough to adjust.

As the news from Wall Street and the financial sectors in general heated up earlier this year, I found myself calmed by a group of my clients who are financial advisors. People in an industry that, I thought, would be the most panicked and reactive were tired, but also the most calm. They were spending their days reaching out to their clients — reassuring, hand-holding, making investment adjustments when needed — but more than anything else, reducing personal panic.

As we moved into the spring together, they reflected on that earlier time and begin to reevaluate what it is that they actually do for their clients — and more importantly, how they express that to them. They understood more clearly than ever before that people were not coming to them for “investment opportunities.” People became their clients because they were the whitewater guides through the shifting rapids; they’d been down this river before and knew where the rocks were. And without ever promising that they might not get wet, could assure them that they would likely not drown.

Think long term

Whatever is happening out there right now is not the way it’s going to be forever. As Heraclites, the Greek philosopher pointed out around 500 B.C.: change is the only constant. For some people, that can be really exciting, for others it’s a frightening concept; it all depends on how you react to the unknown.

The most successful business owners I work with every day are not engaging me in frantic conversations about how bad it is or how bad it’s going to be. They’re not afraid of change. In fact, they understand that in business (as in life) change is one of the only things we can count on… so we might as well welcome it!

To be positioned to take advantage of change, you need to take an objective view, or what we like to call, the “helicopter view” of your business. When you look at the long-range perspective, your current view changes. You’re no longer trapped in today’s busyness and reactionary mode, but can see your business from a higher elevation and realize that the landscape is constantly shifting.

My clients who do this are not engaged in reactive, short-term panic-induced moves. They’re focusing their attention on their employees, making them feel as secure and valued as they possibly can. They’re focused on their operations, and redoubling their efforts to weed out inefficiencies and duplicated efforts. They’re experimenting with systematizing wherever they can. And they do all of this with an eye towards not only meeting their customers’ immediate needs, but to position themselves to be the best in their fields a year from now.

Because when the turnaround comes, they want to be there. They want their vision to match their actions, to have their business so finely tuned that they have no trouble demonstrating to that anxious and willing consumer that they are the company to do business with.

I like to point out to my clients that whatever changes occur, there are some fundamentals you can count on: people are still going to desire things. And that means they’ll need to buy products and services from somebody… Why shouldn’t it be from you?

One often-ignored marketing vehicle that can help grow your business is coupons. Coupons can be powerful marketing tools if they’re used right–and you make them stand out from other marketing messages.

In 1895, C. W. Post, the cereal manufacturer, offered the first money-off coupon ever issued in the U.S. The one-cent-off coupon came with Grape Nuts cereal. By turn-of-the-century standards, this was a lot of money and a real guerrilla tactic. Other smart marketers took note, and today, consumers have saved over $4 billion with coupons since they were invented. Not bad for a little clipping and redemption.

Why are coupons so effective? Because people love saving money! And while customers see coupons as a way to save money or get something for free, businesses see them as an inexpensive marketing tool. That’s because consumers who visit your business with the express purpose of using the coupon generally end up spending more than they’d planned. This makes coupons viable marketing vehicles for increasing product sales and committing people to brands that interest them the most. Coupons are best used to create a short-term blip in traffic at a particular establishment, and they’re most effective when they’re focused on one simple product or service.

The ABC’s of Paper

Many variables must be considered when selecting the right paper for your publication such as the overall look of the printed piece, ink coverage, the shelf-life, or if it mails. Talk to your sales representative as they can provide further recommendations and options for your publication.

Paper Options

There are many different paper grades, weights and brands on the market from a variety of mills. Publishers select the type of paper that not only meets their customers’ requirements, but also works well in their machinery.

Weight

Paper is categorized by weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of paper cut to a standard size, 25″ x 38″ for text paper, 20″ x 26″ for cover weight papers. For example - 500 sheets 25″ x 38″ of 70# coated paper will weigh 70 pounds. Weight has not only an effect on the feel of the magazine (heavier paper will generally be thicker and less easy to fold) but also shipping/mailing costs of the final magazine. More weight costs more to ship/mail. Grade Specifications A grade is a way of ranking paper by certain composition and characteristics. For example, brightness is one of the characteristics used to determine a paper’s grade. A number 5 paper grade has the lowest brightness (less white and uniform texture), from 69- 73. A number 3 grade paper has a brightness from 81-84.5. Number 1 grade paper has 89-96 brightness. Most magazines run on #3-#5 grade stock.

Uncoated Offset Paper Uncoated

Paper is designed to generally run in offset presses and is a non-coated sheet of #50 or 60#. Also- return card offset stock is usually run on a 75# uncoated stock to meet postal requirements.
Freesheet Paper Freesheet paper is free of groundwood pulp and has a bit higher brightness (whiter) than groundwood paper. Freesheet starts at a number 3 grade. Magazines commonly use 50#, 60#, 70# text weight freesheet options on the interior and 80#, 100# text weight or 66# cover weight freesheet stock on cover options. Freesheet paper is more costly than Groundwood. Groundwood Paper Characteristics of groundwood paper are higher bulk, smooth feel, lower brightness (whiteness) and good printability. It is usually lower in cost than freesheet paper. Magazines commonly use 36#, 40#, 45#, 50# and 60# groundwood paper. Groundwood is available in number 4 or number 5 grade. Coated Offset Paper Coated papers are described by their finish: matte, dull, or gloss.

Gloss

The majority of magazines today use gloss paper, the property responsible for coated paper’s shiny or lustrous appearance. Gloss papers are less opaque and have less bulk and are less expensive than Dull & Matte papers.

Dull Smooth surface paper that is low in gloss. Dull coated paper falls between matte and glossy paper. Matte A non-glossy, flat looking paper. Matte papers are higher in cost and in bulk.

Paper Making: The Process Most people can tell you that paper (or stock) is made from wood, but many don’t know how a tree is transformed into a sheet of paper. The basics are pretty simple and perhaps you have made paper for a science project or craft project before. While all paper starts out as wood, the end result, be it high gloss freesheet or uncoated offset paper, is determined during the manufacturing process of the paper. Perhaps a brief overview and education of paper and the paper making process will enable you to better understand the differences in paper.

Logs are stripped of their bark, then chipped into very small and thin pieces. The small pieces of stripped logs are placed in a large cooker with chemicals and steamed under pressure until the wood fibers are removed from the lignin (the glue that holds the individual wood fibers together). The resulting pulp is then processed through several machines which will separate the fibers, remove the chemicals, and bleach to proper shade of whiteness. (See grade specifications later in the article) After the pulp has been refined and other additives added to give the finished paper the desired properties, water is added. The result is called furnish. The furnish is spread over a mesh screen which forms the paper and lets the water be extracted. The paper then travels through different processes and machines designed to remove the water from the paper. After the paper is dry, it is run between steel drums to give the desired smoothness. This process is called calendaring the paper. The more times paper is calendared the less bulk it has but the smoother it gets. To create glossy paper, uncoated paper is coated with a paint-like product and buffed by rollers under very high pressure, to create a shiny appearance. This process is called supercalendering. Coated paper is used for magazines.