The Business Brickyard

One of the most popular concepts from my book...

Ever notice how great things happen every time you peel yourself away from your desk/office and meet with clients, prospects or partners but how rarely you feel able to do it?

All too often, Our offices become a place to push paper and, more often than not, get in the way of people doing their day to day jobs. So unless you generate revenue/income from pushing paper (and lets hope you don't from getting in peoples way) consider for a moment that your time is not best spent in the office.

More as a goal than a rule, what if you spent half your time out of the office? Sound scary, unrealistic or disconnected? Good start.

In order for that to become real a few things have to be in place.

Each one improves the strength of your business:

1) Have truly great people in their best places: Entrepreneurs are not built to focus on the details of paperwork and day to day tasks. Fortunately, there are plenty of people that have those qualities and derive tremendous satisfaction about doing it. Find that person (or persons) who is best at "watching the store and cash register." If your purpose is set right they will know "what you would do" and will make sure everything is taken care of. If you do not have that person, then the best thing you can do for yourself is find him/her. Soon. A great place to start learning what each person that works for you is best at is to take the Kolbe test (www.kolbe.com). When you put people into the jobs they instinctively are great at and love doing you immediately unlock a lot of power within your organization.

2) Get your processes set right: You need to have processes in place so you know that all the perfect basics of your day to day operations (including, of course, paying fast and getting paid even faster) are happening whether you are there to watch over them or not. If your goal for the next 12 months was to do nothing else but make that a reality you will have changed the growth potential of your business exponentially. The more efficiently your business runs perfectly without you watching over it all the faster it will grow.

3) Create your daily scorecard/dashboard: Most business owners I meet are either overloaded with reports, have the wrong ones or have very little. You need information systems in place that allow you get a daily snapshot on the business that fits on the front of a single 8.5x11 piece of paper. At the end of every day you should be able to scan one piece of paper and know exactly how the business is doing. A few years ago I had the pleasure or hearing Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, speak. He spends at least half of his time with his customers and when asked how he keeps track of one of the largest companies in the world he replied: "I can go back to my hotel tonight and see how the entire company performed from 1 screen. If anything is outside the norms I set I can inquire further but I always know how we are doing around the globe from that 1 screen." Think he spends a lot of time at his desk. Hardly ever.

Now it is time to commit to leaving you desk behind. Nobody can spot opportunities or make decisions on the fly when you are with a customer like a business owner can. Nobody else has the "edge" of being the owner, president or CEO at a meeting other than you. The best way to lose your story is to hear the truth straight from the customers and prospects in your market.

Working at your desk connects to that ugly feeling of working IN your business instead of ON it. Connecting with customers face to face is invaluable and what business owners do instinctively at the start until they get pulled into the gravity that growth and complexity generates.