Step 1 – What do you want?

We all have different reasons for being an entrepreneur. Before I can help you build a better company, I need to know what “better” means to you. I’ve had clients whose goal is to earn a decent living and play golf 3 times a week. I’ve had clients who want to grow a $5M company into a $150M one. But it’s more than just money. It’s what do you love to do, when do you want to work (and when do you need to be away), and how much time do you want for other things, and what’s next for you and your legacy?

This step produces a blueprint of how you want to build the company and a list of what we’ll measure to gauge progress.

Step 2 – The Business and the Business Model

The business model is how you make money in this business. Wal-Mart does it by lowering the price. Ferrari does not do it that way. Some companies make more money by serving more customers faster. Some by serving a small number more intensely. We’ll develop a model that works for your business: your market, your company’s core competencies, and your specific goals.

Then we’ll take a look at how your business stacks up against the ideal model. There are about 50 different systems every business uses to success. You need to do them at the right level of detail for your current situation, and adapt them as your company grows. The good news is you’re probably doing most of them pretty well without even knowing it. But if you want to grow according to the blueprint we developed above, then we need to know how each one is doing.

I like to use the analogy of the CEO as an orchestra conductor with each system being an instrument. We’ll write the musical score detailing what each instrument should sound like.

This step produces a description of the model, an analysis of each system and a priority of which systems we need to work on first.

Step 3 – Improvement and Growth

Based on what we learned in the previous steps (where you are and where you want to go) we can start working on the company system by system. We’ll start with the ones that are in crisis first, then deal with the ones that need improvement so we get the best return on the effort. Finally we’ll take a proactive look at which systems are fine for now, but need to be upgraded as your company grows. We’ll deal with those before they become a problem.