Continuing our discussion with author and entrepreneur John Warrillow, this week we dive into the first of the 8 steps he recommends toward creating a sellable company: creating a standard service offering.

For those of you familiar with E-Myth, this one will come as no surprise… When you create a standard service offering, you find a service your clients value and that you can teach someone else to perform. In other words, you create a high value, turn-key operation with documented systems and a way of doing business that isn’t dependent on you — the owner — to run.

Podcast: Creating a Standard Service Offering

(Download MP3 / Listen to the first podcast in this series here.)

John Warrillow is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Throughout his career as an entrepreneur, John has started and exited four companies. Most recently he transformed Warrillow & Co. from a boutique consultancy into a recurring revenue model subscription business, which he sold to The Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD) in 2008. He is the author of Built to Sell and Drilling for Gold and in 2008 was recognized by BtoB magazine’s “Who’s Who” list. builttosell.com

For a limited time, get a $5.00 discount on John Warrillow's book, Built to Sell and a complimentary copy of "The Model for Selling Your Business" eBook.

In Built to Sell John shares with you:

• The 8 steps to creating a sellable company
• How to attract multiple strategic bidders for your business
• How to maximize your valuation and get the highest possible price for your business
• The secret to getting your cash upfront and avoiding a lengthy earn out

Is your business too small or too specialized to warrant the time and energy it takes to develop a brand? No! Brand building is essential for any business. A strong, positive brand is just as important for a 200-person technology company as it is for a 3-person retail shop. 

One of my clients, Sean, is a chiropractor. When Sean started his business, he knew he had two branding challenges to overcome:

1. Favorably differentiating his business from other chiropractic services
2. Strengthening the legitimacy of chiropractic healing itself; branding chiropractic products and services in general so that more people would consider going to a chiropractor (namely him) rather than going to a more traditional medical doctor for treatments

Every business has to be able to attract and satisfy customers predictably and consistently if it is going to thrive. One of the best ways to do this is to build a strong, positive brand in the minds of your target markets.

What do People Think of your Business?

When people encounter your business, your products or your services they will either think negatively or positively about it depending on your brand. Ultimately, it is your brand that determines if people actually do business with you.

A good branding strategy takes time and attention to develop and implement in your business. You need to have a very good understanding of the purchase decision needs of your target markets and how your business meets or exceeds those customer expectations. You (and everyone else in your business) need a clear idea of what brand you are trying to establish in the marketplace so that you can look for any and all opportunities to reinforce that brand when dealing with customers. Your brand building efforts should also be tracked and quantified over time so that you can keep doing the things that strengthen your brand and identify the innovations that will improve the things that aren't working.

3 Steps To Begin Developing Your Brand Strategy

There are three basic steps you can take that will allow you to start building the right branding strategy for your business:

1. Create a clear objective for your branding strategy. This should be a written document (we call it your Brand Objective Statement) that outlines the brand you hope to establish in the minds of your target market. It should be based on what your customers want and expect from your business, your products or your services. Some areas of focus to consider:
   Product Branding – This involves keeping your company somewhat anonymous but building the brand of your products or services. A business like the H.J. Heinz Corporation may take this approach to building the brand of, say, Heinz Ketchup without necessarily emphasizing the company itself or the brands of the distributors and retailers who carry the ketchup.
   Company Branding – This is something you might focus on if you were a company like the supermarket chain Safeway and are primarily focused on building the Safeway company brand. Interestingly, a company like Safeway carries a lot of “brand name” products and can use those brands to build upon the Safeway company brand to draw customers to their stores.
   Dual Branding – This is an approach that, for example, an automobile dealer might employ. Dual branding comes into play when there’s a strong product brand, like Toyota, as well as the company brand, like Donovan Motors. The Toyota brand (product brand) is developed and supported primarily by the Toyota Motor Company with is national and international advertising and public relations strategies. The Donovan Motors brand (company brand) is established locally in the company’s trading area. This is the branding strategy that Sean wanted to focus on for his Chiropractic business, since he wanted to brand his business and chiropractic health treatment in general in a positive light.
2. Integrate branding into all customer-focused activity. Make sure that everyone in your business is aware of your desired brand and is taking every opportunity to reinforce that brand at every customer touch point. This is a bigger topic than we’ll go into now, but the better everyone understands the brand direction, the better equipped they are to act on the brand building and communication systems you have in place.
3. Establish brand monitoring. This can be accomplished through interviews, surveys or focus groups that allow you to gather data regarding how your business is being perceived in the marketplace, and whether your reputation is growing in accordance with your brand strategy.

Sean worked through the three-step process outlined above and quickly started seeing the difference as his chiropractic business began to grow and gain a reputation. Through his research, he was able to articulate that people in his target market ultimately wanted quality health care and treatment that immediately helped them experience more functionality, a better quality of life, and less pain or side effects. He used that to create and document a Brand Objective Statement using a Dual Branding Strategy approach that pinpointed how his company specifically (and chiropractic medicine in general) would appeal to his target markets.

He then set about integrating his branding strategy into all of his business systems from advertising through sales and client fulfillment. After six months of operating with this new brand awareness he had quantifiable results that his efforts had paid off. He sent out a customer survey which helped confirm positive customer perceptions of his business. His internal meetings with staff helped confirm they were getting consistently positive feedback from customers. He measured a rise in clientele and client retention.

Additionally, he noticed that, since his brand was strong, his customers gave his business the benefit of the doubt when something did go wrong. His customers viewed mistakes and inconsistencies as merely temporary aberrations that the business would recover from quickly.

Interestingly, Toyota (as mentioned in point one above) is facing some brand setbacks right now. They’re experiencing a high volume of recalls for safety defects in certain vehicles. Do you think that this is going to permanently tarnish the Toyota brand? Do you think the company will be able to recover? Newsweek posted an interesting article on the topic that you might want to read.

flickr photo credit: planetc1

Almost every business owner wants more leads for their business. In fact, for many owners the need for a constant inflow of qualified leads often dominates their thinking. There are, however, many challenges to ensuring and maintaining that supply. And, in addition to the needs of today, growth objectives and profit goals will require increased revenue which must come from increased sales—which means more leads. So are there really “sure-fire” methods of lead generation? And, if so, what are they?

Start With Your Plan

Truly successful lead generation must always be an integrated part of your marketing strategy. And this rests on having a comprehensive plan that takes into account the demographics and psychographics of your target market, as well as your positioning—the perception of your business and your product/services held by that target market. In other words, your lead generation efforts must be guided by who it is you are ideally trying to attract to your business and what it is you’re promising them.

A mistake many business owners make with lead generation activities is to simply try different things with no real thought about who their ideal customers are, where they are, and how to best reach them. Random acts of lead generation produce random results—and a very questionable ROI.

Assuming you have effectively put together a strategic marketing plan and you know your ideal target market customer, what can you do right now to generate some solid, qualified leads?

5 Ways to Get Them to Bite

Here are some tried-and-true methods for getting good leads quickly:

• Team up: Many businesses can find ways to share resources with other non-competing businesses that targets similar customers. One of our clients who specialize in dent removal teamed up with an auto detailing facility to exchange customer lists and trade discount coupons to promote each other’s services. Clients who had a dent removed from their car received a coupon for detailing and the detailer did the same for our client. Not only did each of them enlarge their potential customer database by sharing information, they also opened the doors for co-branding opportunities, to boot!
• Referrals: Time, experience and much research has concluded that nothing brings a qualified lead to your door better than the recommendation of a friend or colleague. Having a structured and intentional system, or program, in place to elicit referrals is not only a sure-fire way to generate qualified leads, but it is highly cost-effective as well. 
• Word-of-Mouth: According to Wikipedia, word-of-mouth marketing “encompasses a variety of subcategories, including buzz, blog, viral, grassroots, cause influencers and social media marketing.” People tend to act on what they hear in this way because of the added layer of integrity perceived in it. In other words, getting people to talk about your company, your products or services, who you are and what you do, is an effective means of moving people to come to your business. We often say that your best salespeople are satisfied customers.
• Give it away: Give your product or service for free on a limited or one-time basis. This is especially effective if you’re a restaurant, a spa, or any service-oriented business. Make it a random weekday for just one hour, for example. The restaurant chain Macaroni Grill did this when they first opened with the idea of building mid-week traffic and it was incredibly effective. The old saying that “samples sell” holds a great deal of truth. And lead potential!
• Surprise them: Never underestimate the power of surprise, of the unexpected. Reach out and “touch base” with your pool of past or current customers, but do something spontaneous or out of the ordinary when contacting them. If you can find ways to surprise and delight current or past customers you can then leverage the power of that moment to generate a new sale. Although you may not always think of them as potential leads, these folks are almost always a great source of qualified leads and can be a far more cost-effective source. The added bonus is that your lead conversion, or sales process is often shorter and easier with repeat business.

Where There’s a Way There’s a Lead

The real key to generating more leads is how well you know your most probable customers—your target market. This is why making lead generation a systemic part of your marketing is so important. However, even though continual research and quantification of data on your target market is essential, it’s also critical to avoid getting stalled by too much analysis and not enough action! It was the American General and military strategist George S. Patton, who said: “A good plan, violently executed today, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” A good strategy supported by some effective tactics will result in the leads you need.

Share Your Story

What lead generation activities do you rely on? What's worked for you in the past? Post a comment and tell us about it.

Further Reading

Advertising is Not Marketing
Tips to Drum Up Sales Now
Stop, Ask and Listen: Exploring the Links between Marketing and Client Fulfillment

We define business frustrations as a series of specific recurring events in your business over which you feel you have little or no control.

Every business has frustrations. From small "hiccups" that hinder the flow of work, to fatal flaws that can have a devastating impact on the bottom line, and everything in between.

As it is with every challenge you face, the question is really about how you deal with it. You can ignore the frustration all together; you can abdicate and hope that somebody else will take care of it; you can apply a quick band-aid fix… But all of those options would be doing yourself, your team, and your business a great disservice.

I'd like to share this story about Michelle who owns a printing and design business. Michelle was having trouble finding the time to develop systems and processes because of constant interruptions from clients. She was getting so many project status requests that she couldn’t focus on the strategic work she wanted to do. Michelle told me that she was feeling frustrated by the fact that her customers weren’t relying on her support staff. She hadn’t taken any proactive steps toward fixing this situation because she was afraid that her clients had gotten used to working with her and she didn't want to jeopardize the level of service they'd come to expect.

There are three ways people typically perceive business frustrations like the one Michelle was experiencing.

1. Self-Directed: I am the cause. “I make my clients rely on me too much.”
2. Outer-Directed: Someone or something else is the cause. “My customers aren’t utilizing my support staff.”
3. System-Directed: The lack of an effective system is the cause "There's no system in place for proper project communication."

For Michelle, her first inclination was Outer-Directed. And that's typical, we all have a tendency to blame other people. But if you ask the right questions you can move through the blame game and focus instead on the system solution.

Finding the solution to a frustration begins by asking the right questions. The questions that will enable you to discover what the true, underlying business conditions are.

• First explore the big picture. What is the real impact this frustration has on you, your employees, your customers and your business?
• Then quantify anything and everything that might be a result of this situation. Whether it's lost time, productivity, lost revenue... every frustration is ultimately costing you money.
• Finally, keeping the first two steps in mind, observe the frustration objectively. Avoid blaming people, instead focus on the systems. Walk step-by-step through the sequence of events until you're able to dissect what’s really going on. You'll probably identify areas that can be improved with system implementation right away.

For Michelle, it boiled down to the fact that her clients went to her for answers because they were never told to do otherwise and her support staff did not have the systems in place to regularly contact clients. In short, there was no customer communication system in place.

With a System-Directed frustration identified, you have the clues you need to begin understanding the underlying business condition that is the cause of your frustration.This will eventually lead you to the solution—a system solution. What Michelle needed to do was work with her support staff to create the appropriate communication system for clients.

Now her clients receive introduction emails from their assigned Customer Service Representative at the beginning of each project along with regular status updates until the project is completed. They improved their email signatures and website contact information so that clients can be clear about who to contact for what.

The result? Michelle estimated that establishing this client communication process freed two hours of her time each day. Imagine that! Two hours she can now put to very good use working on her business. Her support staff now has clearly defined steps to take to ensure clients have an exceptional experience on each project. The positive results from this system implementation just keep coming. And it was all born from a frustration Michelle couldn’t see a solution to before!

This process, the Key Frustrations Process, is a client favorite and is really about the essential skill of systemic thinking. It helps you look at problems and frustrations strategically to pinpoint gaps in your systems and processes that a new system or set of systems can solve. When you engage in this process with your team (you should include them!) you end up creating a powerful culture of strategic thinkers looking for ways to solve problems and improve business operations instead of an endless cycle of blame and discouragement.

Share Your Story

How have you turned business frustrations into opportunities for systems development or improvement?

The importance of effective communication for managers and business owners can’t be overemphasized. Clear and effective communication from management increases efficiency, satisfies customers and improves quality throughout the organization.

What is Effective?

Let’s define what we mean by “effective” from both the employee & management perspective.  Our interest here is in how information, ideas and caring flow from management to employee and also how employee concerns are transmitted from employee to manager. Remember communication must be a two-way street to truly be effective. 

As owners and managers we must communicate the company vision and objectives to each employee, along with our expectations for their particular position and role in reaching our vision. In the E-Myth management model, we do this through the strategic objective, organizational strategy and position contracts. For important agreements, getting it down in writing is often the difference between effective communication and communication that misses the mark between the person delivering the message and the receiver. Don’t shy away from the written word. The E-Myth system of management along with effective delegation and regulation, relies on written interchanges to make certain that both parties understand what is being communicated.

Effective communication is most easily achieved in an organization that has a clear structure and systematic ways to communicate. Again, let me re-emphasize, don’t be afraid of implementing written systems when they provide the most effective method of making certain both the sender and receiver acknowledge the same message or agreement. Nothing puts the team, or a manager and employee, on the same page as a written statement.  

Consistent communication between an employee and their manager is fundamental to establishing an open, trusting culture. Company meetings, department meetings, and one-on-one employee development meetings all serve this end. While “management-by-walking-around” has its place and advantages, there really is no better way to ensure effective communication than scheduling regular meetings between managers and individual employees. This regular meeting is a commitment management makes to always address any issue that arises and it gives the employee the opportunity to ask questions, express concerns or seek mentoring and support.  

Communication one can rely on with regularity along with a commitment to transparency is the kind of communication that builds trust between manager and employee.  Transparent communication is open, honest and objective and allows for disagreement. Being a good manager requires that you balance the individual employee’s concerns and requirements with the overall needs of the business, and sometimes means making tough decisions. Transparency when the seas are rough is even more important than when there is clear sailing.

Effective communication has two phases; the transmission phase and the feedback phase. The transmission is the sending of a message, either verbally or written, phone, in person, e-mail or letter; and the second is the feedback phase or the acknowledgment that the original message was received and understood, or a restatement of the original message to make sure that it was correctly interpreted, or a request for more information. Getting this acknowledgment back is an important part of communication since we can’t consider it effective unless we know it’s been received and understood.

I Hear You

Individual perceptions play a large part in the understanding of our communications. Body language plays an important role in getting our point across. Our body language may either be congruent or incongruent with the verbal message; something we want to be aware of during our face-to-face interchanges.

When asked to define communication, most of us say talking, writing or body language.  But listening is equally important; especially when confronting difficult issues. Recognizing the importance of listening and making it a part of your culture improves communication considerably. Everyone can learn the art of active listening. The key to listening effectively is relaxed attention. Listen with your whole body, maintain eye contact and give verbal and non-verbal cues that you’re right with the speaker. Do your best not to interrupt.

If half of the equation in communication is active listening, the other half is expressing what you think, feel, or want in a true and non-defensive way. Be clear about what you want and what you are willing to give. Use “I statements.”

Communication is Money

Employee surveys consistently demonstrate that ineffective communication results in poor employee morale which causes increased turnover and absenteeism, dissatisfied customers from poor customer service, higher product defect rates, lack of focus on business objectives, and stifled innovation.

Employees will put in that extra effort to create a high performance environment when they are kept informed openly and honestly on all aspects of their job and the business and they feel that they are being listened to with empathy.

A culture that places an emphasis on effective communication instills its value in each employee and provides tools and training to elevate everyone’s abilities. Fostering two-way communication gives employees adequate opportunity to ask questions, discuss and express their own ideas. Feedback loops, sharing best practices and having an open channel for ideas, innovations and suggestion for improvement ensure that employees and managers work together to achieve success. Effective communication is like cash in the bank and it helps grow your business like compound interest.

Further Reading

The Managerial Perspective
Accountability: Defining Work Relationships that Work
The Best Employee Retention System

Share Your Story

What communication challenges have you faced in your business? How have you overcome them? Post a comment and tell us about it.

Great leadership requires the ability to control what is in your power to control, to give people clarity, direction, and a sense of security, to chart a course and set goals your employees believe are attainable. As we begin a new year, it is your job as the business leader to set and communicate expectations for the year ahead. From strategic initiatives to marketing campaigns, from new positions to new product lines, your company is waiting for you to clearly set the goals for the new year.

It also falls on your shoulders right now to make sure that your financial house is in order, that you understand thoroughly where you are today, how you got there, and have a plan moving forward.

Three areas of financial focus for Quarter One

We’re all eagerly anticipating good things from the year ahead. But hoping is one thing, preparing is another. Here are three financial objectives you really need to have in order to start the first quarter off right:

1. Set Your Budget - Your budget is the financial plan for managing and controlling revenue and expenses over a period of time. Budgeting is a core business practice and a fundamental management tool that keeps you and your employees on course, and provides the radar to tell you when you're off course. It's fairly short-range radar — most budgets look ahead month by month for one year. It's operationally oriented to help you and your employees manage the business on a daily basis.

   A budget is developed from past trends and future predictions, and is a forecast of your income statement. It emphasizes profit and the path you intend to take to generate that profit. In addition to planning how you will operate in the near future, your budget is also a control device. It helps assure that proper measurement and evaluation procedures are established throughout the company. It provides a plan so that everyone knows where the business is going and what you expect by way of performance. It also gives you a way to measure that performance.

   Need help developing a budget? The E-Myth Online program has extensive information, worksheets and examples that will help you with budgeting and much more.

2. Determine Your Financial Goals - A big part of your budgeting process revolves around the financial goals you’ve set for the year ahead. Where do you want and need your business to be at the end of the year?

   The main purpose of creating a budget is to plan the monetary results you're going to achieve during the coming year, and then ensure that you realize those results. Rather than wait until the end of the year to see what happened, track your progress monthly and make adjustments as the year progresses. This dramatically increases the likelihood that you will, indeed, accomplish what you've set out to do.

   If you haven’t already, it’s time to set annual goals (either revenue/profit or both). You can then break these goals into a series of twelve monthly goals for short-term strategy and monitoring. Remember that these are first-pass goals that will be refined as you grow your business.

3. Communicate to your Team - At E-Myth, we talk a lot about the importance of creating your Company Culture, or “the way we do it here” and communication is the key. You need to make sure that your employees understand the idea behind the work they’re being asked to do. The most effective strategy is to broadcast and reinforce your vision and goals at every opportunity. This includes your financial goals. You may do this in a special meeting or incorporate it into your regular team meetings, what’s important is that you share your goals so your team can help you get there. Ultimately, you need your team to be working toward the same goal—financial success.

   Some business owners are leery of sharing financial information with their employees while others believe in total transparency. Ultimately, how much you share is a personal decision. It’s up to you to decide what you’re comfortable with. At the very least, we recommend you share enough information so that your employees understand the overall financial health of the business.

   One way to do this is to make sure that everyone in your business is aware of the financial implications of their respective positions. People who have no financial information can’t be held accountable for managing financial performance. They have to know the financial dynamics of the positions they hold before they can make positive changes. This can be a tricky topic, and we have an entire process in our Mastery Impact! coaching program dedicated to bringing financial awareness and accountability to employees at all levels of your organization. The bottom line is that the more that managers and workers become aware of their impact beyond their own positions, the greater their appreciation of their roles within the business and the greater their positive impact can be.

How your business does in Quarter 1 sets the tempo for the entire year. Make sure that you set the right tempo for the year ahead with clear direction, a realistic budget and the support of your team. Here's to your success!

Share Your Story

Have you set your financial goals and budget for Q1 and beyond? Post a comment below and tell us about your challenges and triumphs.

Further Reading

Practicing Financial Leadership
Company Culture: A Game Worth Playing
Your Cash Management System

Six Steps to Maximize Cash Flow

Need help controlling the cash flow in your business? At our Six Steps to Maximize Cash Flow virtual seminar, an E-Myth Business Coach will help you identify and maximize the cash in your business. We’ll offer tips you’ve probably never even considered…

Learn more

Not paying your bills on time … 100% of the time

You misplaced your credit card bill and sent in payment a few days late. It happens to the best of us, right? Maybe so … but as an entrepreneur, you can’t afford even a single late payment.

Your credit file is a complete history of your credit activity. Not paying your bills on time can ruin your credit file.  A single delinquency can be held against you for years and be used to constrict the extension of existing credit or deny new credit – which can make or break your ability to finance the launch, operation or growth of your company.

There are two things you should do to protect yourself from this critical mistake. The first, obviously, is to ensure that you pay your bills promptly. Second, keep your personal credit separate from your corporate credit.  That way, problems with your personal credit history will have no bearing on your corporate credit. But if you do not take all the necessary steps to separate your corporate and personal credit, problems with your personal credit file could directly affect your ability to build your corporate credit and your business.

The System for Building Business Credit

If you need help incorporating or building good business credit, click here for a complimentary business credit consultation and to obtain our free e-Book, "Unlimited Business Financing – Without a Personal Guarantee” – a step-by-step process for building a business credit asset.

Sometimes we get into ruts. We get used to doing business “our way” and we close ourselves off to the possibility that there might be another way. Maybe even… a better way.  We repeat the same patterns and produce the same results and our business coasts along but never grows or evolves.  

Take for example, a contractor client of ours who attended one of our Leadership Intensive Seminars. He’d been in the business for more than 15 years and he’d never – not once – left the business behind. On the few vacations he had taken in that time, he’d always called to check in. He even cut a trip short once because he felt he couldn’t leave a situation to somebody else on his staff to handle. He was extremely proud of the company he’d built and he felt he was the only person who could run it.

Then somebody gave him The E-Myth Revisited on CD and he listened to it in his truck while driving to and from jobs. And then suddenly it dawned on him. After 15 years, he realized that he’d hit a wall. That the business wasn’t growing. That his revenues were flat. That the business was running...but not efficiently. He told us about the moment this realization struck him. He pulled over and banged his hands on the wheel of his truck. It was his “ah-ha” moment.

“Ah-ha” moments happen at different times for different people. But inspiration usually strikes at some point. Something happens to make you think that maybe there is a better way. Perhaps you have a truly rewarding experience with a client, or an employee goes above and beyond in a way that makes you rethink how things are being done. Maybe you attend a lecture or read a book. Like our contractor client, you may have felt that way when you read our book, The E-Myth Revisited. A lot of people read it, identify with it, and enjoy a few minutes of enthusiastic determination. And then life gets in the way. Monday comes around and the day-to-day work of running your business begins to make it feel like Groundhog Day.

But let’s face it; Groundhog Day is no place to live. Stay in a rut too long and you could begin to lose interest in your work, feel defeated, and when that happens to a business owner the impact can be devastating. So what’s a business owner to do?

3 Tips to Get You on the Right Track

Here are three things you can do right now to break out of that “doing it, doing it, doing it” cycle. Three things to get you back in touch with the entrepreneur who started your business in the first place.

1. Delegate – Bottom line, you’ve got to let other people do their jobs. It sounds simple, but it can be a very difficult thing for people who are used to running things themselves. But remember, one of the hallmarks of great leadership is effective delegation. You need to make a point of regularly giving responsibility and authority to an employee to complete a task. Doing so develops people who are ultimately more fulfilled and productive. And for the manager or business owner, delegating frees you to attend to the important strategic work of business. You can read more about delegating the right way in our article Delegation vs. Abdication.
2. Rejuvenate – Sometimes the best thing you can do for you and your business is walk away. Get away from your business, from the office, from the same four walls  It’s important you make the time and space to allow yourself the opportunity to see the big picture.
   Why not pack up and head to a hotel for a day? A coffee shop? Your local library? Anywhere that will give you a fresh perspective and allow you some breathing room. Get away from your business to work on your business. Don't check your e-mail, don't even turn on your cell phone. Make this time away from your business an opportunity to really think.  (I had one client who spent 13 hours "bow hunting" one day.  I use quotes, because it was really just an excuse to get away from the business and sit alone and think all day.  He said that after the first hour or two, the ideas just started to flow, and when he got back to the office, he spent a month implementing the myriad of ideas he had had that one day.) 
   Another way you can find a new perspective is to attend our popular Leadership Intensive Seminar in California. It’s a refreshing and rejuvenating two days, and a true test of how well your business runs without you.
3. Create – The starting point of designing, or redesigning, a business to be something exceptional, vital, and profitable is to develop a clear vision of what the business will look, feel, and act like. Creating the vision, or what we at E-Myth refer to as the "Strategic Objective," is an entrepreneurial exercise that forces the leader to describe with clarity and conviction what their business is all about.
   As the leader of the organization, you must be clear about where you are going, and what the destination will be like.  To quote the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland:  "If you don't know where you are going, then it doesn't matter which road you take, does it?" Customers, investors, partners, and employees require this level of clarity if they are going to commit to going there with you. And an inspiring Strategic Objective will get everyone behind you and on board with your vision. If you can create it, others can help you build it. Read more about your Strategic Objective.

As a leader of your business, it’s important to recognize the needs you have to uphold the level of passion, integrity, motivation and drive you have for your business.  Especially during this time of year, take a time out to Delegate, Rejuvenate, and Create the business which means something to you and your team. Giving yourself the gift of time to be in the entrepreneurial head space is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself – and your business.

After all, aren’t you ready for a new year?