5 Steps To Building A Business That Doesn't Need You

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Emily Donaldson De Voto PhD, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

5 Steps To Building A Business That Doesn’t Need You

Many of us want to go to sleep at night only to wake up to see our bank accounts bloated with cash. We want to make money on autopilot. We want a business that doesn’t need us to be able thrive and be profitable consistently – and we want to position our company for an eventual top dollar sale. However, there’s more to building your business well than simply having a business plan.

Step One: Scalability

The first and one of the most important factors when you want to build this type of business is scalability. By scalable, we mean you have the systems, structure, and support (people and tools) in place that will allow your business to continue to grow without your daily involvement and/or oversight. Most business owners have grown their business to a comfortable level and congratulations are due. However, growing your business to the level where it doesn’t need you takes even more strategic planning, proven implementation processes, lag time (otherwise known as patience), and persistence. But once you have the systems, structures and support in place, you are on your way to building a passive stream of income that will last for a long time. You’ve also created a valuable asset for yourself, which you will be able to sell all or part of to get some of your(“BST” – blood, sweat and tears) equity back.

Step Two: Fall In Love With Your Customers and Learn What They Need

By falling in love with your customers and taking the time to really understand their needs, wants, desires, and wounds you can become an invaluable resource and/or part of their lives. When you can make your customers lives easier, simpler, or more manageable, you’ve started the process of becoming a part of their busy, hectic life solution. Making sure your company is doing what it does really well – with serving the customer at the highest level as the number one outcome – will help you drive decisions that will have the biggest impact on growth…repeat business, upsells, and referrals.

Step Three: Have a Clearly Defined Yet Completely Adaptable Growth Plan

Creating a business that runs itself requires strategic planning and adaptability – and you have to have a plan for staying on top of both. Below are some tips for optimizing your growth plan:

Creating a limited offering of products and services makes your systems, structures and support easier to document and execute. Focus. Do what you do really well – do not try to be something to everyone.

Defining your offer funnel will help you and your team understand all the different ways your customers can enter into a buying relationship with you and where you ultimately want them to be in your customer portfolio.

Future planning your long-term vision for the company’s growth and bringing key players (in a large company) or all players into the conversation and strategy for long-term vision and goal planning.

Conducting quarterly strategy meetings to create/revisit your 6/12/18 month goals in regards to ever-changing customer needs/wants/desires/wounds as well as anticipating technical advancements, trends and possible industry/technology disruptions.

Fostering a culture of accountability and transparency is crucial to implementing a successful growth plan that you do not have be hovering over.

Want more details on these tips? Click through to the full article.

Step Four: Really Taking Care of Your People and Empowering Them to Achieve More

Your people are everything! It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, your people are going to carry the business and the imperative role of taking care of your customers. People have a natural desire to do well, contribute and feel like they are appreciated and doing a good job. Following these tenants will help ensure that your people thrive:

Empowering Your People – Your customers are going to depend on your people to help them solve the problems that you said you could solve. Empower your people at every level of your business to make as many timely decisions as possible in order to help customers either move forward in sales process easily or solve any problems they are having quickly and effectively.

Coaching Your People – Your leadership has to be helping your people be successful at every turn.
Communicating clearly defined job roles, responsibilities, and expectations has to be top priority.

Training Your People – Training is a vital part of taking care of your team…but not all training feels helpful. Your people are busy and want to do a good job for you – their time is precious and needs to be respected and considered when you plan your training schedule. Your job is to support your leadership in helping all of your people be successful.

Supporting Your People – Supporting them in their work and in their lives makes a huge difference in your people’s quality of life – therefore improving their quality of work. Making sure your compensation plan is fair(preferably more than fair) and competitive and having generous key benefits can help you find and keep really stellar team members.

Step Five: Hone Your Leadership and Your Mindset

As you grow your business to the point that doesn’t need you (in terms of time), how the business needs you shifts. Directing the course of your business will always be your responsibility – until you sell all or the majority of it. You need to be strategic in your leadership so your team buys into your mission, your vision and readily does the whatever it takes to keep you on course. Dedicating your time to the most important matters is paramount. How do you know what to focus on?

Putting The Right People In The Right Place
Cultivating a Successful Culture
Paying Attention to Your KPIs and Ensuring Systems, Structures, and Support are Being Upleveled for Continuous Growth.
Master Your Mindset.

Being a business owner is like raising a child. It’s understandable that you will be very attached and somewhat fearful of letting go of key parts of your business. No ONE will ever be able to do everything you’ve been doing at the same level – BUT – there are plenty of people out there who can do any part of the job you have been doing at a much higher level. Keeping in mind that you are not looking for one person to replace you, but a team of superstars to replace all the jobs you are doing will help ease your mind. You’re not looking for Superman, you are looking for the Avengers. Transferring power in your company is a complex process. Often business owners really benefit from a coach, mentor, and/or a mentor/mastermind group. These groups/people can help you focus on the end game and help you move through the macro and micro views of your business and what has to happen next in order to move forward successfully. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with your people. And keep moving forward!

Finally – You are Ready To Create A Funding Strategy To Exit Your Business Or To Shop for a Successor

When the structure of the business has taken shape, and everything is running smoothly in a growth trajectory, it’s time to hire your successor. When hiring a successor, check out their technical skills, experience, and leadership qualities – as well as – culture fit. Have a transition plan, don’t rush yourself out of your business, follow due diligence, and never hire because of loyalty. Hire slowly as this is a really important hire. Spending the time necessary to train your replacement is critical because you want to avoid micromanaging the business after hiring a successor. It’s important to allow your replacement a free hand, but stay in constant contact until they are truly ready to fly.