The Being Smarter team has a lot on its plate at the moment and we would all love to read more, but fail dismally. There’s one book however that the whole team has read – it’s almost like our induction course and it’s called the E-Myth. If you are starting or running a small business – it’s a must read.
Today, I wanted to pull one of the key concepts from that book and show how it really can work. It features as #26 in the popular 51 lessons learnt in year 1 as an entrepreneur post.
The book addresses the age old problem of going from startup to 50 person company. How do you as an entrepreneur keep the ethos and style of the business alive whilst expanding? How do you as an entrepreneur let go of responsibility and trust others? How do you as an entrepreneur ensure that letting go does not affect quality of the final output?
Michael E Gerber is a bit of a genius. He’s been there and bought the t-shirt. One of the many excellent tips I’ve taken from this book, which has stayed with me is to create an org chart from the outset. That’s exactly what I’ve done as the founder of Being Smarter Ltd which now has two other businesses under it’s umbrella – The 8.45 Club and TargetstoProspects. I have a very clear idea of how the organisation needs to look and with a £0.5m worth of investment I could fill every position tomorrow and move the company on at great speed, but…
Clearly that’s not a practical solution – and so the second part of his advice is to put YOURSELF into every position in that org chart. Write the manual for every job – document everything – and become expert in every position. Pin it on your wall and stare at it every day.
Your key to success then is slowly back filling those positions using smart recruitment techniques once the cash starts to flow and you can afford to employ people.
At the moment, I’ve got three people on my org chart and about 15 positions with my name on it. That would explain why I don’t sleep a lot – but at least I can see a way forward. Can you?
Related articles
- Few things as exciting as starting a business (sabusinessplans.co.za)
- How to Stop Mourning Your Startup Failure (startupprofessionals.com)
- What’s on your Enterprise 2.0 bookshelf? (sharingatwork.com)
- Know your numbers (startupcfo.ca)
