Exit Planning Tools for Business Owners

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The Fifth Entrepreneurial Sin — Greed

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Few small business owners identify with the bloated income of Wall Street Tycoons. To accuse an entrepreneur of Greed brings up memories of the Gordon Gekko 1980’s, when “Greed is Good” seemed to be the motto of 30-something Boomers focused on the quest for success. in reality, most owners work very hard for a modest income, and feel that a little more would be amply justified.

(If you are reading Awake for the first time, this series on “The Seven Deadly Sins of an Entrepreneur” starts here.)

wrench and dollar signGreed in your business isn’t the quest for material success. That’s presumably why you own a business in the first place. Greed is a trait that prevents success. Greed is a foolish quest for more without knowing what more is. It’s focusing your efforts on cost and savings in the belief that you never have quite enough…of anything.

You can’t afford to raise wages because you need a little more revenue first. You can’t upgrade your equipment until you have a little more margin. You could be more competitive or expand your presence if you just had a few more good employees.

Greed shows its ugly face in a company where no expenditure is made unless it is unavoidable.

  • Technology is only replaced when it breaks, and then with the cheapest equipment that is the minimum necessary to do the job.
  • The office décor is a tribute to the durability of faux wood paneling.
  • No one gets a raise unless they demand it
  • Your website looks like it was done by a 14 year old (and perhaps it was.)
  • Maintenance and repair expenses increase every year.

Greed comes when an owner doesn’t know how to measure success. He or she can’t identify the most profitable lines of business, calculate underutilized capacity, or estimate return on investment for new equipment.

We previously mentioned that the business virtues that counter the sins of Lust and Sloth are Planning and Benchmarking. These need to be in place before you can defeat Greed, because its countering virtue is Budgeting.

Budgeting is the system by which you determine what success looks like. It starts when you define success, so build your budget from the bottom up. Begin with profit. Profit isn’t what is left over after everything else is taken care of. It’s the entire reason for your company’s existence.

From a target profit, work up through the expenses that will make it possible. How many employees will it require? How much raw material? How many transactions? What will each one cost; and what margin will it contribute?

Now you are ready to project the necessary revenues. Not the revenue you merely wish for (like “Ten percent more than last year,” with no idea  of where it will come from.) It’s the revenue you’ll need to make the profit you want, attract the best employees, and grow your business on something other than a shoestring.

Perhaps the revenue you need seems out of reach. In that case, you can make it into a two year or three year budget. The idea is to understand, in a concrete way, what will actually deliver the business and lifestyle you want. It’s understanding how that revenue will be created, ands what it will take to do it.

If all you know is that it’s more than you have right now, with no idea of how you’ll get there, you are guilty of Greed.

Do you like Awake at 2 o’clock? Please pass it on to other business owners.

 

The Fourth Entrepreneurial Sin — Wrath

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We continue the Seven Deadly Entrepreneurial Sins series that we started here. We’ve covered the two Operational Sins (Lust and Gluttony) that make you less effective as an owner. Sloth is the first of the Tactical sins; those that make your operation less effective. The second is Wrath.

wrathForget the dictionary definition of Wrath, although depending on how your employees see you, the part about “referring to divine retribution” may be appropriate. <grin> Wrath is, by anyone’s definition, created by a surplus of adrenalin.

If you are the founder of your business, adrenalin probably got you through long hours and late nights. It helped take your game to another level when failure wasn’t an option. It still comes in handy when you walk into the business tired or preoccupied, and find that you have to immediately launch into firefighting mode. But Wrath, depending on adrenalin to deal with problems, has no place in a well-run company.

Steven Covey said that the more time you spend in his urgent/important quadrant of task rankings, the less time you have for real CEO activities. Eventually you will only have time for urgent/important, moving from crisis to crisis with barely enough time to catch your breath in between.

When there are delays, or a flood of work that strains capacity, is your standard answer that everyone just has to buckle down and work harder? Do you worry about taking vacation because your employees will slack off without you there to drive them? Are you frustrated by their lack of urgency? Are you a willing listener when employees complain about each other?

Your adrenal glands (you have two) have a species-survival purpose. When faced with a “fight or flight” decision (“Uh oh, big animal, do I try to kill it or is it going to kill me?”), an adrenaline surge increases you heart rate and floods blood to the brain. You think faster, feel stronger, and are less conscious of pain.

This is a business, rather than a medical column,  so I’ll go lightly on the effects of Adrenal Fatigue; but it is a real syndrome, and I’ve seen may business owners suffer from it. Just like any other organ, adrenal glands can be pressed to maximum performance for only so long before they start to deteriorate. Once you reach the “burnout” stage of continuous exhaustion, and start having difficulty in making decisions, it usually takes six months or more to recover.

The Business Virtue that counters Wrath is Planning. We aren’t talking about high-level Strategic Planning. While that is advisable, no strategic plan can anticipate the day-to-day issues of running the company. That’s why Wrath is a Tactical Sin.

Any amount of planning will lower your adrenalin abuse. What would happen if your thought was; “I hear a noise around the next turn in the trail. It might be a big animal. If it is a deer, I’ll kill it for dinner. If it is a lion, I’ll run.”

Do you feel the difference in your reaction, even to this hypothetical problem? You are still ready to use your fight-or-flight mechanisms to react, but that little bit of preparation increases your feeling of control, and reduces the adrenaline surge.

I once had a manager who insisted on meeting me in the parking lot each morning with his problem of the day. I told him repeatedly that if he didn’t at least wait until I had a cup of coffee and got into my office, I would fire him. He never could get that. He thought his problem was the most important thing on the planet, and he had to tell me about it as soon as possible. So I fired him.

Planning starts with today. Consider a huddle in the morning with your key people to discuss their plan for the day’s activities. If most of your crises are passed upwards to you, have your direct reports start planning tomorrow’s activities. Once you get them in the habit of planning for a day or two, start them on planning for the next week. Most importantly, don’t fall back on Wrath when they are slow to get it.

I have a client who has built a number of successful locations for his retail business. He recently told me, “I worry that I’ve lost my appetite for risk. Years ago I would drive past a location I liked, and within a few months we’d have a new store there. Now I go through so much research and debate about traffic, demographics, return on improvements and lease negotiations. Have I lost my nerve?”

I pointed out that his increased reliance on planning likely came from some of his experience with the results of not planning. He agreed, and that made him feel better.

 

Thanks for reading Awake at 2 o’clock? Please share it with other business owners.

The Second Entrepreneurial Sin – Gluttony

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This is the third in our series about The Seven Deadly Entrepreneurial Sins. You can start from the beginning here.

Gluttony is the second of the Operational Sins; those that reduce your personal effectiveness as an owner and the leader of your company. There are a number of indicators that you might be guilty of Gluttony.

  • You are the first person to arrive every morning
  • You’re the last one to leave at night
  • You work weekends, but your employees don’t
  • Your “to do” list can’t fit on one sheet of paper
  • Even when you use columns
  • You only work on the next deadline
  • All of the above

do everything notesThe glutton entrepreneur takes pride in being able to do every job in the company better than anyone else. His or her answer to problems and delays is “Never mind, I’ll just do it myself.”

The worst sign is when you cringe at a big new sale, because it only means more work for you.

The Entrepreneurs “Catch-22” goes something like this:

“I could make this company take off if only I had one more really good employee, but good people cost more than we can afford right now, so I can’t make that key hire until we grow just a bit more, but I can’t see how we are going to grow, because I’m working as hard as I can right now, and I can’t accomplish any more until I have one more good employee.”

If this sounds like you, then it’s a good bet that your employees have been trained to delegate up. Delegation is the business virtue that counters entrepreneurial Gluttony.

My thanks to Ken Blanchard and William Oncken Jr. For their book The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary of publication, it’s still one of the best “how to” guides on delegation. (and remains in Amazon’s top 10,000 sellers.)

Employees will delegate to you if you let them. It’s not like they say “Boss, I’m assigning this to you.” Instead, they appeal to your ego as chief problem-solver and decision-maker.

“Hey Boss, we’ve run into a problem,” “They still haven’t gotten back to me.” “I’m not sure what to do next.” “You know more about this than I do.” Rest assured, your employees have learned the code that makes you stop what you are doing and dash to the nearest phone booth (good luck with that!) to put on your Superman cape.

Blanchard and Oncken describe four simple steps for effective delegation.

Develop a straddle reflex, and define the next step. Be especially careful of the word “we.” If you didn’t have the problem before this conversation, why should it be yours when it’s over? Employees who aren’t accustomed to problem-solving can’t think through every iteration of possible outcomes. Start by getting them to determine the next step, so that the action required seems more manageable.

Assign responsibility. Sometimes it really is your problem. If not, get the employee’s acknowledgement that he or she is the one who will make the next (clearly defined) move.

Insure the risk. The outcome of every decision has implications. If the risk is low, tell the employee to act and then inform you of the results. If the risk is high, make sure you OK the next move before it is implemented.

Schedule the follow up. The employee should understand clearly that the next move has a specific time frame for action. Put a follow up meeting on the calendar (and stick to it.) If you feel the employee is procrastinating, move the meeting forward.

You have to take smaller steps at the beginning. As your employees learn that you won’t take the problems off their hands, they will bring fewer of them to you. As they learn to tackle issues in steps, they will be able to go longer between follow ups.

Building a system for teaching others to work without your constant input frees you focus on the things that will move your Personal Vision forward. Tackle Lust first, then Gluttony. You can only tackle broader challenges in your business after you’ve dealt with your personal effectiveness.

Next week we’ll start the Tactical Sins; Sloth, Wrath and Greed.

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The First Entrepreneurial Sin – Lust

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Last week we described the Seven Deadly Sins of an Entrepreneur. This week, we’ll delve into the first Operational Sin; Lust.

The Operational Sins reduce your personal effectiveness as a business owner. They prevent you from being as operationally effective, on a day-to-day basis, as you could or should be. If you aren’t efficient in your leadership role, it cascades down through your whole organization.

lust handLust is the sin that springs from a lack of self-control. As an owner, few people in your business (if any at all) say no to you. They ask, “Boss, did you do that really important thing you were supposed to do yesterday?” You respond, “No, because something more important came up.”

What does your employee say? It’s probably something like “Oh…Okay. Please let me know when you get around to it, so I can move forward on my job.” They don’t take you to task, so if you don’t manage yourself they just have to live with it.

Lust is defined as a passionate desire, an overwhelming enthusiasm. If we don’t have it, we can’t inspire others to accomplish great things. So what are signs that your Lust has gotten out of control?

Projects never get finished. Long-time customers “disappear” because you had other things on your radar. You get nasty surprises from your financials or operating results because you were paying attention to something else. You find yourself telling employees, “I’m the owner. That doesn’t apply to me!”

Lust results in business planning driven by “Whim du Jour.” A customer requests a new product or service. Because you think you can sell something, you commit the company’s resources to creating it without considering the implications to other parts of the business. “Hey, it doesn’t look that difficult. Let’s do it!”

You can’t enunciate a clear-cut vision for yourself, and therefore for the business. “I just want to make a decent living,” or “I don’t want to work too hard,” are your only yardsticks for the future.

You trust to luck when trying new things. “Let’s just give it a try,” becomes “Why didn’t we see that coming?”

The business virtue that counters Lust is a Personal Vision. What do you want and expect from your company? You are in business for a reason; the company is supposed to provide you with certain things in life. Are you clear on what those are, and how you will get them?

Start with the material things that would indicate your success as an owner. It can be a simple list, such as:

  • Work an average 35 hours a week
  • Own a house at the lake worth $350,000
  • Travel to Europe every two years
  • Put my daughter through medical school
  • Help lead a community agency dedicated to providing decent food for the poor
  • Teach a high school class in entrepreneurship

Be specific. Your goals should be solid enough to allow measurement of your progress. Once you have it nailed down, your Personal Vision starts to become a vision for your business.

How much revenue is needed to generate your target income? How many employees will it take to accomplish that goal? What growth rate is needed to get there by your target date?

Write it down, with all the specifics. Every coach and motivational author says to WRITE IT DOWN! Keep it in front of you, and refer to it often. Then start paying close attention to your daily activities as an owner.

How much of your time is spent moving the company forward? How many distractions are really necessary? Could you be doing things to realize your vision if someone else did what you are doing this moment? Is the business moving in a direction that will fulfill your Personal Vision, or is it holding you back?

A strong, written Personal Vision will help you prioritize your activities, set natural limits on interruptions, and keep your eye on the ball.

Defeating Lust is the first step towards success. As Cheshire Cat famously said; “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

Thanks for reading Awake at 2 o’clock. Please share it with another business owner.

Not Just Workers…Qualified Workers

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A few weeks ago I attended one of Trinity University’s Policy Maker breakfasts. Although living in a large city has its drawbacks, it is great for access to events such as these. It takes substantial ticket sales to justify top-rank speakers, and Trinity’s series brings the best.

The speaker was Richard W. Fisher, immediate past President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as well as almost 11 years on the Federal Open Market Committee, where he voted on monetary policy under Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen.

In Q&A time, I had the opportunity to ask how he could project robust growth over the next 20 years with the large number of Baby Boomers leaving the workforce and scaling back their consumerism.

Mr. Fisher had already warned the audience that he had no intention of making controversial or otherwise newsworthy statements, so his answer surprised me a bit.

He said that he remained confident that productivity gains through technology could offset much of the drop in workforce growth. The real problem, he said, was the failure of our educational system to prepare a generation of workers with the skills they need to succeed.

I’ve written previously about how small businesses are being saddled with the job of teaching young workers basic job skills. Just getting them to understand that cutting class doesn’t carry over into cutting work, that there are no unlimited extra credit assignments to make up for lack of effort, and that everyone doesn’t always get a passing grade, can be a real challenge.

Some years ago I employed a young Dutch woman who had come to the USA as a student in a top university. She also apparently had sufficient financial support that dropping out and taking a part-time job with me wasn’t a hardship. Eventually, more out of boredom than need, she enrolled again in the local state university.

She came to me one day to coordinate her class schedule with work for the semester. (I think it was her second half of sophomore year.) These were her courses:

  • Great Women in Architecture
  • Diversity in Art
  • The Sociology of Class Distinction
  • World Geography

I asked why she bothered going back to college if she wasn’t going to study anything that prepared her for a career. She laughed, and informed me that she was just catching up on the core courses required before she could declare any liberal arts major.

I’m sure each of those topics were interesting, and contributed to a well-rounded world view. What they contributed as far as preparation for the workplace, however, remains a mystery to me.

A recent survey of college students found 21% believe that the First Amendment to the Constitution should be modified to exclude free speech that is offensive.

A widely circulated essay on Vox.com expresses a liberal professor’s fear of violating the “safe place” of university learning by teaching offensive literature such as the writings of Mark Twain.

bright studentUniversities now publish their 6-year graduation rates (fewer than half graduate a majority of students in 4 years.) Students with failing grades receive almost daily emails as final exams loom, reminding them that they can drop classes without penalty (except, of course to their parents’ wallets — refunds aren’t offered.)

It may be helicopter parents, politically correct coursework or just a general corruption in the education system driven by billions in student loans that require no accountability. Whatever the cause or causes, a college education no longer seems to carry with it an assumption of career-readiness.

There are certainly many good colleges, and an excellent education is still a great beginning for a successful career. As an employer, however, I’ve long since stopped assuming that a six-figure degree is, by itself, any sort of qualification for a job.