Nine Habits for a Successful Business - Part 3

“Sow an act, and you reap a habit.

Sow a habit, and you reap a character."

Charles Reade (1814-1884)

Golden Mailer has found these nine habits to be very useful in developing our business model they have proven very beneficial in achieving a sustaining our place in a very competitive market. As a brief review here are the 9 habits have found to be the most useful in building our business:

1. Know Your Market & What Your Customer Wants
2. Develop a Mission Statement and Business Plan
3. Create a Repeatable, Scalable Business Organization
4. Develop a Culture of Discipline
5. Be Professional
6. Be Consistent & Follow Through
7. Stay on Top of Profits & Cash Flow
8. Keep Your Employees Involved
9. Adapt to Changes

Part Three focuses on creating a repeatable, scalable business organization, that is, “habit” Number Three.

Create a Repeatable, Scalable Business Organization

The way you organize your business operation will go a long way in determining your survivability. Too often, a new business owner will not have the management skills to design and structure a company to meet the needs of customers, employees, suppliers, or lenders. So, first things first, make sure you have a sufficient understanding of finance, purchasing, selling, production, hiring and managing employees. Knowing what you do well and seeking help in those areas you are lacking sufficient skills will go a long way in determining your level of success.

We found that structuring our business in relationship to our level of skills, resources, energy, and staffing levels was critical to our ability to manage the company. By this we mean operate “a repeatable, scalable business organization”, which implies you only take on as much as you can handle and keep your operation simple. Another way to consider this approach is to remember: we all make mistakes. The challenge for you is to structure your business to allow for recovery from your potential mistakes. This is far more difficult than it might seem at first. So, constantly, hold to a routine for every function required to operate your business from the smallest detail, like how and when you order supplies to how you write-up a sales slip or monitor staff performance. Each aspect of your business should be performed the same way each time, i.e., repeatable operations. Further, you should never grow too fast or exceed your capacity to deliver products or services, i.e., scalable operations.

The most significant challenge you will face, in organizing and managing your business, involves the designing and controlling the growth of your company. By endeavoring to overcome the desire to expand to rapidly or create loosely control staff, but seek habits that avoid these problems, you will a better chance at securing a prosperous future.

Speaking of a repeatable, scalable business organization:

• How have you structured your business to survive the current economic conditions in your community?
• How have you controlled the growth or downsizing of your business during this market cycle?