Back to: Business Architecture for Kingdom Ambassadors Level 1
Level 1 Part 1 Module 1 The technical and Professional Builder
0:01
Welcome to the first course in a series of courses that will equip you with knowledge that very few business founders have. You’ll be equipped with the skills needed to successfully lead and manage the operations and people of your major business. In this module, you’ll learn the difference in perspectives that some business owners have, and you’ll know which perspective will serve you best. You’ll understand the importance of carefully choosing how you spend your valuable time. So we are going to contrast a technical professional with the business builder. And we’ll do this by looking at a little case study with limited information of course, but it’s going to give you an idea of what happens when people actually go into business. It happens a lot.
1:01
Rashid was an excellent Baker. He’s been baking all his life. And he’s baking from home. And he has lots of customers and he decides, I just can’t do this from home anymore. I think I’m going to open up a shop. So he opened up a shop. And of course, he was very successful and very busy. He worked seven days a week. So he said, I can’t continue to do this. I’m going to hire somebody to help me. So he thought about it. And he said, Well, what I will do is hire some of my friends and maybe some family members to come in and do little things like answered the phone and help me clean up. So he did exactly that. But this didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to. The people he hired didn’t do the things the way he wanted them done. And of course, they spent a lot of time socializing. And he decided, well, Hmm, this isn’t working. So what I’ll do is just hire somebody who really knows the business. So he called a friend of his Mark. And Mark came in, and he was very good at display. So he said, now Mark is going to help me here. I know. And this will be a big help. But it didn’t work out that way either. When Mark got there, he found out that he and Mark had different ideas about everything. And they had arguments all the time. So he finally ended up firing Mark, and losing a good friend and decided, I just can’t do this. I need to go back home and just bake from home like I’ve been doing for years, and just make what money I can that way. This situation happens too many times. Many entrepreneurs jump into building a business thinking they’ll be able to intuitively handle what comes up. In rare cases they do, but in most of the situations, they don’t. They find themselves burned out and then they just give up. But in the beginning, when we visualize a new business, all we see is nothing but success. Particularly if we have a great skill that we know our customers are going to need, we are filled with excitement and just can’t wait to get started. We’ve all been there, and some of us are there now. And of course, this is good, because we need a fired up motivation to get things done. But the truth is that many of us launch out without all the tools we need to create sustained success.
The Small Business Administration completes a report on the status of small business in our country periodically. They presented a 2017 report that was recognized as an improvement in small business health. They say it’s an improvement because recent year reports Show lower rates of one year successes. But now Really? Can you say that one year in business is a success? I don’t know about that one. But anyway, here’s the report. Let’s look at the statistics reported by the SBA. This chart shows the survival rate for 406,000 new businesses in 2017. This is the most recent report from the Small Business Administration. And in this report, they say that 79.9% of companies launched have succeeded in the first year of operations.
4:45
And that’s good. I like that. But what happened to the other 21% that didn’t even make it a year. But they say this is up about 10% over the previous year’s report, and they say it’s because of the availability of knowledge and I’m sure that has some bearing. But this is still too many failures, who takes the time to go into business, go through all the trouble and spend all that energy for just one year. Nobody. And we’ll look at the 51% that survived for five years. That’s good too. But 28% fell by the wayside. And then 33% lasted 10 years. Hooray for them. So we want to know what helped them last for 10 years? What did they do different? What’s going on here? And so you’re gonna have many questions. I know I do. I’m concerned. I want to know, why did only 79.9% succeeded after just one year in business? What was happening? Could it be no market fit? No marketing strategy, not enough money. What caused this and then why did only 51% succeed for five years in business. Did they get tired? Did they just burn because of the market change? Did a competitor beat them out? What happened? And then we want to know about success. What made some of these businesses successful? Why did only 33% of the businesses survive 14 years? And the others didn’t? Did they have a great market fit? Did they have adequate funds? What actually was their secret? Answers to these problems would be extremely helpful to a business Founder.
If you had these answers, you would know exactly what to avoid and save yourself a whole lot of trouble. We’ll answer these questions in detail as we go throughout the training. Business is full of complexities and all kinds of variables. It’s not just having a great skill. You’ve got to be able to do a lot of other things. The reality is that 67% went out of business after five years of hard work. That’s over 272,000 businesses. You can just imagine how broke down and worn out and discouraged they were after putting so much valuable time, energy and money into these businesses. There really is no reason this has to continue to happen this way.
7:31
Michael Gerber, author of the E myth, one of my best resources, and it’s in the resource list, told us what to do more than 25 years ago. We will continue to fail until we listen to the advice he and other experts give. It’s all a matter of the perspective that the founder is taking. The E myth is a book written by Michael Gerber more than 25 years ago as I have said, but its revelations are so profound that it seems like it was written just yesterday. The E myth or Entrepreneurial myth is the belief that you could run a business just because you’re good with particular skills, such as baking, auto mechanics, computer programming, app development, and a myriad of other skills. And it’s true, you must have a strong desire to share your skills with your customers. But running a successful business is a lot more than that. Most of the time, we’re working in the business not on the business. Notice the difference here. We’re working in the business, not on the business. We’re working in the business as frontline workers. People exceptionally good in business are so because of the insatiable need to know more. They understand that continuous learning is really the key to their success. And that’s it. That’s the bottom line. We need a learning attitude throughout your business, even after you’ve gained millions of dollars. You will still need a learning attitude.
9:18
So it’s best to just go ahead and love learning right now. Understanding the technical work of a business doesn’t mean that you understand the business that does that technical work. So what do we do? Change your perspective,
9:39
If you don’t already have a business builder perspective, we’re going to contrast them now. Okay, let’s look at the technical professional.
9:52
His or her view is, I just need to stay in business. It’s all on us. It’s all on me. Is up to me. I started this business, I’ve gotta make it work. So I need to work hard to stay in business. We also think, I just don’t have time to sit down and think. It gets in the way of getting things done.
10:12
In other words, what’s going to happen to my customers, if I start sitting down thinking, I’ve got to work, I must work harder and harder. Another concern of the technical professional, is how can I make production and delivery economical for me and my customers? He or she is always thinking about how they can cut corners or how they can save money, and still give the same quality of service that they’ve been giving their customers. This is an on going thought. Another thing they’re always thinking about is who’s going to give me deferred billing. Who will give me deferred billing? They might be thinking well If I can defer some of these bills for 30 days, 60 days or even 90 days, there’s a chance that the money will be in to pay by then. And there’s always that anxious feeling of not knowing whether or not the money is even going to be there if you do deferred building. So there’s a lot of anxiety that goes along with that technical professional thought.
11:33
They’re also thinking, should I apply for a loan or venture capital? Now, this can work several ways. It could be helpful in some instances, but then you’re concerned about the debt. And if you go the venture capital way, you’re going to be concerned about losing control of your business because you’re probably giving 25% 50% 75% of your business for the money that you get to run the business, and then you’re accountable to these other people for everything you do, and that’s adding some more pressure, so you’re gonna have to give that a lot of extra thought. Another thing the technical owner is thinking about is, I know I need to advertise, but it costs so much and more than likely they put off advertising or do just minimal advertising like flyers or just asking people to tell others about it, you know, just basic things and trying to wait until they get some money so that they can advertise. And, you know, that’s not a good thing to do, because people need to know that you’re there. The big problem is hiring people. Businesses cannot grow without the people there to run it. And almost every small business owner I know has had problems with hiring people. They have hired people and they didn’t work out and they just say it’s just so hard to get good people. And I know, this is probably one of the thoughts that’s going through Rashid’s head. It’s just hard to get good people. So I just have to do everything myself. On the other hand, let’s look at how the business builder thinks, how does the business builder think? Consider this quote.
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“If you think then you will be prepared. If you prepare, then you will have no worries.”
13:39
The logic of this is so real. If you prepare first, and then go to war, you know what to do when you get there. And that’s the same about anything, business or sports. You hear them tell people to visualize in your head winning this race, and the athletes do this. And that helps them when they actually get to the race. So it’s the same thing with building a business. If you think and get a plan laid out, then when you open the doors you know exactly what to do, and the order to do them in. It’s pure logic. The business builder perspective gives you a context for business decisions. You’ve already thought through your organization, your systems, the type of personnel you’re going to need, the way you’re going to handle special projects. You’ve already thought through these things. You have a plan that you can follow like a recipe. You do first things first, and then when you get to another section, you do that. So if you have that business builder perspective, you’re going to look at things in context, in a large context, so that you can make business decisions within that context, and for us, it is going to be within that business architecture.
15:17
So the business builder will have thoughts like this, I’m going to be a leader in my industry. I will be a leader in my industry, which means that the business builder has taken time to explore the industry. With all the knowledge available to us, it’s easy to look up various businesses, see who the leaders are, determine what their processes are, look at what’s making them successful and compare that to what you want to do.
15:50
You’re also thinking, I will watch trends and stay ahead. So you’re going to be looking at market research. See what the trends say, so that when you open your business, you won’t be behind the curve, you’ll be ahead of it.
16:08
You’re also thinking, after considering the business environment, I think I’ll create a niche that’s different. Once you look at what’s out there, what’s being offered to the world in general, or just to your little community, it’ll be easy to come up with something that nobody else is offering. We need so many services. So you’re saying after considering the business environment, I think I’ll create a niche that’s different. You’re also thinking, I’ve checked my major competitors and see, they’re not offering what I want to offer. This is good. Because the business builder has looked around and determined that niche that we talked about before and they can see how that’s going to be successful because nobody else is doing it. The business builder is also thinking, I want this business to grow. I need a talented team of people to help me. So you’re thinking about the type of people that you need, the type of skills that may be needed. The type of personality or characteristics or values these people need to have, if they’re going to work with you. You think about things like that about the people that will make up the teams in your business before you open your door. You have an idea of what you want. I’m predicting five to 10 years down the road. I see my business contributing for years to come. Often, people will Project 15 to 20 years down the road.
17:55
They see themselves having several businesses in this country, or even in other countries, so they have a long projection to work toward. And this is excellent for implementing visions, the longer the projection you have, the better perspective you’re going to have as you grow in your business, so it helps to have a long range perspective. And we’ll talk about that in depth as we get into the course. Another thought is I’m using my planning time to document the process for getting to the targets, with timelines. Now, we know that when you actually get to work, things are going to happen. But it’s a great idea to have this written down, so that you will know what to react to and of course, you will have to change your targets and you’ll have to change your timelines, but at least you have something to begin with. And often what you have written down is what you will actually accomplish as you go along. So it’s just excellent to have some targets, and timelines projected. And finally, the business builder is asking him or herself about standardized systems.
19:26
They’ll say standardized systems will help me offer excellent quality to my customers consistently. Growing big businesses work on systems.
19:39
People work the systems, but the systems grow the business, which means that no matter what worker is working in the system, it’s going to work the same if the person is trained in the correct way to operate in the system. The system grows the business and workers work the systems. So that means that your business will not be dependent on one or two good people. It is dependent on the systems and you can get other peopleto work the systems if the ones that you have don’t work out.
20:21
So we’ll conclude with this. Chika Onyeani, one of my other favorite authors, says that you must understand it takes the same amount of time to create a small business as it takes to create a major one. And that’s true. It really boils down to what you do with your time. That’s the key thing right here. What you do with your time. Will you make time for planning and projecting and preparing rather than just working, working, working all the time. If you make time for planning, projecting, and preparing, you can grow a major business. So just go ahead and see yourself as a multimillionaire of a major business. This course will help you get there.
21:22
In summary, if you plan to be a business founder, you must think like a CEO, not a frontline worker. A founder always puts aside time to plan and project.
21:39
The real difference between a small business developer and a major business developer is what they do with their time.
“And they shall rebuild the old ruins. They shall raise up the former desolations of many generations.” Isaiah 61:4
Summary
Level I Part 1 Module 1
Technical vs Business Builder
If you plan to be a business Founder, you must think like a CEO, not a front line worker.
A Founder always puts aside time to plan and project.
The real difference between a small business Founder and a major business Founder is that the major developer consistently plans.
Application Exercises (write your answers)
Write the answers .
- Check your habits against the perspective of the Technical Professional or the Business building founder. Which one describes you?
- What habits do you need to acquire?
- How does a Business Builder use his/her time?
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