What Is The Small Business Trap?

Many service businesses are founded and built around the skills, knowledge and experience of the founder

Unfortunately, as the business grows, the business becomes increasingly reliant on selling the founder as the product. The moment the founder stops networking, quoting, selling, dealing with customers, doing admin and delivering results, so does everything else, including the cash flow.

Despite having others working in the business it still operates much like a sole enterprise because the workload is not easily shared. This is evident as soon as a team member is unavailable and everything falls back on the founder to complete.

The risks, effort and hours are all high, yet the reward is lower than being an employee

Work continues by brute force, reliant on the founder investing more and more of their time. They find themselves working 50 – 60 hours per week, working “on the tools” during business hours and then doing, managing or following up all the other jobs that need to be done in their own time.

Eventually, growth slows and the business plateaus, limited by the number of hours the founder can work. The business is unable to bring in new work or may have to turn work down. Failure to do so can result in quality issues and reputational damage.

Whilst the founder remains the product they remain the bottleneck which keeps them maxed out just delivering the current workload that nobody else can do. This is why despite a growing team, it still feels like hard work for the founder and cash flow doesn’t improve.

Before long, the founder is so caught up in the day to day, winning and delivering work, focused on just getting through each day, that they lose sight of the bigger picture, the reason why they started this business in the first place. They spend less time doing what’s most important to them because they are so busy just keeping the wheel spinning.

This is where anger, resentment and frustration starts to creep in or businesses fail because the founder can no longer sustain the hours, workload or stress.

Key Person Risk - if you or one of your team members couldn’t work because of an emergency, what would happen to your business and revenue?

This Problem Is Not Unique To Your Business

In order for a business to outgrow its owner, the business must become the product, which is a totally different new of operating.

The transition from complete dependence on the founder to a scalable and (one day) saleable business is possible. Every business, corporation or franchise that you admire started out exactly where you are today.

Our courses and memberships are designed to help business owner/founders to get through this transition as quickly and easily as possible.

“Productising” your business by creating the right systems and structure means that your business:

Has improved and consistent profit
Can start paying the founder/owner a better income
Has a high energy and performance culture
Is focused on the bigger picture
Can (one day) be easily sold for a higher valuation

This is the most fun place to be in business!

The Solution Is Closer Than You Think

“If your business depends on you, you don't own a business—you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic!”

Michael E Gerber, Emyth

Following my personal experience relocating internationally, I founded an international relocation agency that helped other families going through the same transition. I became a victim of my business success because I was always on call to respond and manage every small detail.

"I wish I had access to this when I was running and growing to a seven figure business because it became an all-consuming endeavour that heavily relied on my constant input. I was able to successfully sell my business as an asset."

"Systemising my operational and financial system means that I've removed a lot of my admin headaches freeing me up to focus on what I enjoy doing most in my business.

I'm generating quotes without the guesswork then getting paid faster and in full, and taxes are easy because all of my bookkeeping is now in one place. I have been able to run more projects than ever because I can trust the systems to handle the time-consuming admin".

"Alex is one of the most innovative, conscientious, diligent, organised, switched on and courageous, coaching clients that I have had the privilege to work with over the past two years. His insight, vision and passion to work with businesses has lead him to create an incredibly effective, practical and profitable program that will have a major impact in every business that uses it. I hold Alex in the highest esteem and highly recommend him!"

"As I grew my business I was approached by an established company in my industry about a potential partnership. I was able to make an informed decision about the right commercial arrangements for my business that worked as a win/win."

I want to learn more through your email series

What is the hidden cost?

Constantly be on the phone answering questions or following up?
Answer the same questions over and over?
Re-do work because it wasn't done properly the first time?
Repeat the same tasks over and over?
Micromanage employees?
Sitting in endless hours of meetings or updates to ensure it's done right, answer questions or give directions (because without you nothing would get done around here)?
Not keeping up with IR4.0, change etc. can quickly make your business uncompetitive?

How much time, money, blood, sweat, tears, heartache, frustration could you save if you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel?

How many opportunities are you missing? Important time with kids, family and friends? What if you start or grow your family and have to soon dramatically reduce your hours?

Do you have a life, interests or hobbies or have they all disappeared? How’s your physical and mental health trending when you find yourself working crazy hours each week just to try to keep the wheel turning?

We help business owners create systems and structure in their organisation so that they can take time away from their work without losing clients, revenue or sacrificing quality.

“[Success] comes to the visionary companies not so much as the end goal, but as a residual result of relentlessly asking the question ‘How can we improve ourselves to do better tomorrow than we did today?”

Built to Last by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

What Is The Small Business Trap?

This Problem Is Not Unique To Your Business

The Solution Is Closer Than You Think

What is the hidden cost?

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