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Building A Dream Business

The History of Labor Day and My Problem with It

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Labor and Work…What’s the Difference?

 

Labor Day is one of my three favorite holidays each year. Christmas being my favorite, which is no big surprise. Labor Day and New Year’s Day are tied for the second spot. These two are not typically ranked in most people’s top three.

 

My extended family celebrates both holidays in an almost identical way. They start with parades in the morning and conclude by spending the rest of the day, into the evening, playing games, eating and enjoying time with family. This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy all the other holidays, because I do. These three are just my favorites.

 

As I was looking forward to the upcoming Labor Day I began thinking about the reason behind the celebration. Labor Day was started as a way to show appreciation for the hard-working labor force in America in the late 1800s. We often forget the reasons behind holidays. We need to remember the reason for this and all holidays and not just look at it as another reason to barbeque with friends or go to the lake.

The problem I have with Labor Day comes from the perception that there is a separation between labor and management / employees and business owners.

There’s no doubt a difference in the roles of these two groups, but too often it is seen as a confrontational battle between the two. It is a mindset of our side against theirs. There certainly have been and still are situations where this is true.

It doesn’t have to be this way. This attitude is a problem for both groups. It’s a view that there is a limited amount and if I don’t get my piece of the pie, there may not be any left. This scarcity thinking in a world of abundance isn’t beneficial to either side. God will provide enough for everybody.

If we would quit viewing labor and management as two competing entities and instead look at both as on the same team working together, both would benefit.

 

Having been on both sides of the employee/owner relationship I can tell you that both work hard to achieve success. If all involved work hard together toward the same goal everybody wins. It is easy to look at other people and think they have it easy, but rarely is that the case.

The definition of labor focuses mainly on the physical while work (link) refers to both physical and mental actions. Work seems less divisive than labor. We can and should work together toward the same goal.

On the first Monday of September this year I’m going to celebrate WORK instead of labor.

The First Next Thing to Building A Better Business

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Action Is Required for Building Anything

 

It doesn’t matter if we are building a home, a business or a life…they all require physical action. Planning is critical but not enough.

At a lunch meeting with my financial assistant (my sister) earlier this week we were discussing what is needed to move closer to achieving the company’s goals. This conversation confirmed what I already knew. By nature, I am a planner, a dreamer and a recovering perfectionist. I have lots of ideas and plans, all great ones too, no doubt. 😊 But it takes more than just plans.

The necessary thing needed to build the business, just like a building, is action. You can’t live in a blueprint. The same is true for a business. You have to move beyond planning. You have to do the first next thing.

When doing a construction project, I understand the order of the process – to start, proceed and finish. I asked myself why the physical construction comes naturally but I struggle with building a business. I have come up with a few reasons for this:

  • It’s hard for me to delegate – I know that I suck at it. People who know me know that I suck at it. This leaves me with two options; do everything myself and do less or share the shovels. I listened to a Story Brand podcast a few days ago that pointed out that successful entrepreneurs don’t try to do everything by themselves.

  • I have a broken people meter – I was thinking about the discussion with my sister and came to the realization that part of the delegation problem is that my people meter is broke or maybe I just don’t have one. So, I need to incorporate the help of people who have good people meters into the process of finding the right people to delegate to.

 

  • My “to do list” is too long and I like lists – When the list of things that need to be done is too long we become overwhelmed. Being pulled in so many different directions leads to confusion and causes a lack of clarity. Trying to spin too many plates doesn’t move things forward it just makes us dizzy. Trying to do too many things causes chaos. I don’t have the time to do everything on my list. We need a plan for this but if things are going to change there needs to be some action.
 

  • Recovering perfectionist – Finding the separation between perfection and excellence is tricky. This is a very fine line. Having been a perfectionist for years it is difficult to not cross back into perfection. Perfection causes inaction. It slows down all the processes and makes it difficult to leave the planning and start the doing.

 

Moving forward with the first next step I must narrowly clarify excellent delegation.

 

Just like I can’t drive more than one nail at a time when doing physical construction, the same is true when building a business or a life. If I don’t quit trying to perfect the plans and start swinging the hammer I will never get anything built.

Delegating – The Thing I Suck at Most of All

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And What I Need to Do to Get Better at It

 

Okay, today’s confession. I really am not good at delegating. This is something that I have always struggled with. Even though I know that I need to…I don’t. I try. I come up with new ideas and plans and nothing seems to work. I just suck at delegating.

As much as I see and hear about this and was able to find on the internet, it is evident that I’m not the only person with this issue. So, the question is, what am I going to do about it?

I have been searching to see if I can figure out what I’m doing wrong. The conclusion that I’ve reached is that I expect excellence from myself, so subsequently I expect it from everyone else. I don’t think this is asking too much from people who are doing work that I am responsible for. The problem is that I assume everyone already knows what that level of quality looks like without any explanation or training. While visiting with one of my sub-contractors recently and he thought that it was expecting too much for other people to perform at that level. I don’t believe that.

I do believe that even though I may not have been born with the delegating gene, I can still acquire it. I need a delegation transfusion. To get better I must learn more, practice more and do more.

 

The importance of delegation is supported biblically and by professional leaders. It’s just common-sense that a team of people can do more than one person. My understanding of the need for delegation is nothing new. I know that for me to achieve the things that I’ve been put here for, I’m going to need help. The key to delegating is in the leadership. I need to be a better leader.

 

There are a lot of things that I need to do to be a better delegator, but starting out I’m going to focus on these things:

  • Explanation – to everybody that I give responsibility to. This includes assistants, coordinators, managers, contract labor, sub-contractors, suppliers, associates, anybody that I expect to do anything. This needs to involve big picture overview clear down to the smallest detail. If I’m going to expect excellence I need to explain what that looks like. This doesn’t mean that my way of doing it is the only way. It just means that the expectations need to be set and explained clearly.
  • Hiring – the right people for the right positions. This is one of those things that to be done right takes some intentional planning and will be an extensive, time consuming process. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that it’s just quicker if I do it myself. This is a very short-sighted attitude and one that I have used too much. When I’m busily trying to get everything done I fall into this narrow-minded trap. A good example of hiring is found at Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeaders’ Best Hiring Practices.
  • Training – the process of asking and answering questions. I’ve never been a great teacher. Not only is this bad for long-term plans, it isn’t fair to those people whom I’ve delegated to. One of the things that I came across while researching delegating was the benefit to those being trained. The possibility to grow and expand. It occurred to me that this is an opportunity for me to serve them.

Being overwhelmed is a common and self-inflicted state of existence. Trying to keep all those plates spinning can make us dizzy.

 

Share your best or worst delegating examples or delegating questions in the comment section below.

Who Should I Blame for Being Too Busy?

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Too Much to Do Is, “Self-Inflicted Pain”

 

I have too much to do and not enough time to do it.

We had all heard someone say this or said it ourselves and for sure we have all felt it. Just over the last few days there have been numerous times in a variety of situations that I have heard it.

One of the discussions about this had to do with someone who was self-employed. This person’s family couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do some additional things around the house. They had extra time because, after all, they were self-employed. Another conversation was with a business owner. They said they hoped they wouldn’t need to work on the upcoming Father’s Day, because they had already worked the last fourteen days. Then he said, “but if that’s what it takes, I guess I will”.

This struggle is nothing new. I would venture to say this has been a problem since Adam. Can you imagine how overwhelmed he felt when God brought all the animals of the earth to him and he named them all. (Genesis 2, 19-20)

I know this is SELF-INFLICTED. It’s 8:30 PM on a Friday evening as I’m writing this. It will still be another hour or two before I get this finished and posted.

WHY?

We all know that there is a fixed amount of time so why is it that we’re always over filling it? Even less ambitious and less driven people complain about not having enough time to do everything they want to.

This brawl we’re in, trying to do more and more and running out of time is internal. It is SELF-INFLICTED. If this is the case, then we are the only ones that can do anything about it.

The first thing that we must do is understand who’s responsible for this situation. Next, decide if we want things to change. If so, then we need to evaluate the things that are filling up that time and decide what to keep and what to eliminate. Then there’s the hard one…learning to SAY NO. Ouch, that’s gonna hurt.

There is something about self-driven people. They’re always over filling their time with more than they can get done. If we don’t want this battle to continue then we are going to have to start practicing some self-control, self-restraint and self-discipline.

We have the power within our-SELF to take control of this.

Here’s an acronym to help you remember that if the problem is SELF-INFLICTED you can find the Solution, be Empowered and Live Fully without being overwhelmed.

Solution

Empowered

Living

Fully

A Look in My Tool Box at the Tool I Use to Save Money

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Having the Right Tool and Knowing How to Use It Can Make Life Much Better

Over the last couple of weeks, we have discussed why it’s critical to save money for those big irregular expenses and unexpected emergencies. Next, we began the process needed to start building a “Rainy Day” fund by determining how much and for what. The Savings Transfer Sheet is like any other tool, it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t use it.

As is the case with everything that’s worth doing, starting is the hard part. Saving money is no different. It’s like digging a hole.

What if there’s an underground water line leaking in your back yard. You can see that spot where the grass is green in an otherwise brown lawn. The water bill is more than ever before and getting bigger each month. That doesn’t matter, the prospect of getting your shovel out of the tool shed and digging is more than you can bear to think about. So, you put it off and pretend that it’s not a problem.

The green spot in the yard keeps getting bigger and greener. The water bill keeps getting bigger too. You decide to cover the spot in the back yard with an above ground swimming pool. That took care of it…no more green spot. You know what they say. Out of sight out of mind.

Then one day you get a water bill that is so big you decide that you’ve got to do something. So, you drain the pool, get a shovel and start digging. Then before you know it, you’ve uncovered the pipe, found the leak, made the repair and filled the hole.

That wasn’t near as bad as you thought it was going to be. Once again you are aware that this is one of those times when the overwhelming dread was way worse than the actual process. The next water bill is back where it used to be, and you wonder why you weren’t more proactive.

A shovel is a simple tool that’s easy to use. It can fix a problem before it gets too big, but only if you use it. If you don’t the outcome can be devastating.

The same thing is true about the Savings Transfer Sheet. If you will take the time to get it out of the tool box, spend some time learning how to use it and use it regularly, it will make a significant difference in stopping your financial leaks.

Wouldn’t you like to have your money filling up the pool rather than leak under it.

 

Here are links to the Savings Transfer Sheet template and the Savings Transfer Procedure, free for your use. (expected to be active week of 5/21/18)

How to Build A “Rainy Day” Fund for Your Business (part 1)

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The Nuts and Bolts for Saving Money

 

Last week I wrote about the importance of having a savings, both individually and in business and the high percentage of people who don’t. This tendency to spend everything you have is a problem when the unexpected happens. This isn’t to say that you should put all your money, after paying the bills, in a savings account hoping to retire someday on that savings. What I’m talking about is having money ready for big planned purchases or unexpected emergencies. This way you can use your own money and don’t have to pay someone else to borrow theirs.

Last week I told you about the tool that I use for this, the “Savings Transfer Sheet”. This spreadsheet is easy to use and makes saving simple. What it doesn’t do, is force you save. Maybe I should figure out a way to hook peoples’ deposit tickets up to electricity so that they would get a shock when depositing money without saving.

The biggest problem with saving money is not having a plan to do so. It can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how much should be saved when depositing revenue. One of the things that makes it hard is inconsistent amounts. If every day or week you deposited the same exact amount, you could decide once and always put aside a set amount for savings.

It’s rare in business that every job or every customer pays you the same amount every time you do business with them. There are some businesses like lawn mowing, hair cutting, pet boarding, etc. that a preset recurring price has been established, even so the number of recurrences each day or week is going to vary.

The purpose of this spreadsheet is to provide a simple accurate way to know how much money the right amount to save is, regardless of the amount being deposited. The most difficult part is the initial set up. This part requires some research, thought and time.

First – look back through your financial records of the last several years. The more research you do the more accurate your understanding will be of your financial history. Even if you’ve only been in business for a short time it will give you a place to start. This will let you see areas of unexpected expenses as well as dollar amounts.

 

Second – determine what things or areas that need to be saved for. Some examples of what these could be are:

Repairing and/or replacing equipment

Equipment increases or upgrades

Repairing or replacing vehicles

Large building repairs or maintenance items (HVAC, new roof, etc.)

Building or facility upgrades, expansions or purchases

Taxes (income, property, sales, etc.)

Irregular payments (bi-monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.)

Retained earnings (emergency fund because they are going to happen)

 

Third – take the dollar amounts for the different areas that you have determined to be above or outside your normal operating costs and figure the percentage each one is of your net revenue. This will give you a place to start when setting up the “Savings Transfer Sheet” for the first time.

Building a “Rainy Day” savings is critical to the foundation of your business. It is one of the solid cornerstones that will help your business weather the storms of life.

Next week we will go into the “Savings Transfer Sheet” deeper still and see how the information we gathered fits in to it.

 

Why It’s Critical to Save Money in Business and How to Do It

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Setting Up a “Rainy Day Fund” for Your Business

 

Currently it is common for people to spend everything they earn and not save anything for future investments or emergencies. For the most part, as a society here in America we have become comfortable. We have forgotten how important it is to save money.

There have been times through out history when things weren’t good financially, i.e. the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Enough time has passed since then, that for most people it’s become a distant memory. If you have ever talked with someone who went through the depression or a similar experience, saving money was more than something that needed to be done, it often was the difference between life and death.

As reported in a Market Watch post* from December 2015, approximately 62% of Americans personally have less than $1000 saved and 21% don’t have any savings. Businesses aren’t doing any better and it’s every bit as important. Part of a good business financial plan includes saving money for those irregular and unexpected expenses.

Just like in our personal lives, in business we get busy with the process of daily living. We work hard at the normal operation of the business and we neglect to intentionally plan for those “rainy days”. Things like; equipment maintenance and repairs, building maintenance and repairs, quarterly and annual taxes, irregular payments, etc.

When I started doing construction work I learned the skill of building from some of the best craftsmen. When later I went into business for myself I thought I knew everything that I needed to be successful. The problem is that while they taught me how to build a solid, well built structure, they neglected to teach me how to build a business that way.

Early on in my business career one of those business building lessons learned the hard way, was the importance of saving money.

I was working hard to keep construction moving forward. The material figured, ordered, and suppliers paid. The subcontractors and employees organized, having what they needed and paid. Things were going well and there was even some money left over. So, naturally I spent it. Then it happened…the accountant showed me how good my year was by telling me how much I owed in taxes. How was I going to pay them? I didn’t have that kind of money. What was I going to do? I was going to have to make payments. Just so you know, tuition to Hard Knocks University is high.

That’s why over the last 35 years of learning lessons the hard way I designed and developed a system to help me avoid pitfalls. I needed to find a way to separate money that would be needed later. How was I going to do it? Several years ago, my wife and I found out about Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace Program**. It is a program that teaches you to, “Live like no one else, so that later you can live like no one else.” The very first lesson he teaches is “Super Saving”. It is a common-sense approach to saving money and the reasons it is important to do so. This was great for my personal finances but wasn’t an exact fit for my business.

So, using the basic principles of Dave’s plan for personal savings I began working on a way to do the same thing in my business. The “Savings Transfer Sheet” is the result and a small piece of the bigger Business Blueprint puzzle. The “Savings Transfer Sheet” is a simple spreadsheet that with a few basic entries will give you the dollar amount that needs to be separated from any received gross dollar amount. That separated money can then be put into a different account or turned into cash and put in a safe. This way that saved money won’t accidentally be spent on the wrong thing.

After talking with a lot of different business owners I realized that every business could use a solution like this. That’s why in the next few weeks we will be making available a free downloadable “Savings Transfer Sheet” including instructions.

 

Next week I will go into more detail about the “Savings Transfer Sheet” and how it can help you solve your business money problems.

 

*https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-have-less-than-1000-in-savings-2015-10-06

**https://www.daveramsey.com/

How to Determine If a Business Size Fits “Just Right”

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The Goldilocks Method for Deciding What Size Is the Right Size

 

You’re probably asking yourself, what does “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” have to do with business. Let me see if I can explain. As we work on expanding our business to add coaching and consulting to the construction, I have been thinking a lot about what size is “just right”. I have experienced too small and too big. I know how uncomfortable either of these can be. So how do we determine what size is “just right”?

In the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, a little girl named Goldilocks, has been walking through the forest when she comes across a house. She knocks, but no one answers. She smells the warm porridge and realizes the walk has made her hungry, so she goes in. Inside she finds three different sized bowls of warm cereal. She tasted the big one and it was too hot. Then, she tried the next one, but it was too cold. The small bowl was just the right temperature, so she ate it.

After she finishes eating, she finds herself getting tired. So, she goes into the living room and finds three different sized chairs. She tried the big and middle-sized chairs, but they were both too big. She found the small one to be a good fit, so she sat down. Just as she began to doze off, it broke.

Now she really needed a nap. She found three beds, all different sizes. The big one was too hard, the middle one was too soft. The small one was just right. So, she lay down and went to sleep.

While she was sleeping the bears came home to find that someone had been eating their porridge, sitting in their chairs and sleeping in their beds. Just then Goldilocks woke up and ran screaming from the house.

There are several business lessons to be learned from this story. First is Goldilocks skipping through life without a plan. Second is Goldilocks having helped herself to the bear’s things (this is a business lesson for a different blog). The one I want to focus on today is the bears having figured out what temperature, size and mattress support was the best fit each of them.

I have done business when I was the only one. I did everything; sales, marketing, admin., finance, the construction, all of it. This can work, but there is a maximum that one person can do. A maximum number of people that one person doing everything can help. This business model is neither right nor wrong, it just needs to be the right fit.

I have also been a partner in a small construction company that was doing great. Because we were doing excellent work and were filling a need, we began to grow and GROW…and GROW. This high-speed growth is a common situation that I have experienced and seen happen over and over. It often ends in disaster with unhappy customers and/or going out of business.

This brings me back to Goldilocks and the bears. Being successful in business is less about the size and more about the fit. You need to be intentional about what fits you, not what fits someone else or what someone else tells you should fit.

As Goldilocks grows up she will mature and need bigger bowls and furniture. This growth happens gradually and with intentional purpose. This is why I am working hard to surround myself with quality people that are a good fit. In order for these people to know what is expected of them and how the different positions fit together, there needs to be an intentional plan. This is the piece that is missing in most companies as they go from the small to the big.

As Goldilocks matures hopefully she will make good decisions and take advantage of the Solution Building “Business Framework’, go back to the bears for some experienced advice and to repay them for the food and the chair.

Trying to Spin Too Many Plates at The Same Time Can Make You Dizzy

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The Same Thing Happens When You Try to Run a Business Without a Plan

 

Most of us have seen plate spinning acts done in some form or another. When I was growing up I remember seeing Erich Brenn performing his plate spinning act http://www.edsullivan.com/artists/erich-brenn-plate-spinner on the popular Ed Sullivan Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ed_Sullivan_Show. I remember the running back and forth, trying to keep all the different plates spinning at the same time. It was really pretty amazing.

I’ve concluded that most businesses are being operated in a way that feels a lot like trying to keep all those plates spinning at the same time. Just like the performer who keeps putting more and more spinning plates up on the end of sticks, we keep trying to do more and more.

There is a limit to how much a single individual can do. We can only run back and forth keeping the plates spinning for so long before they start falling and breaking. This means there is a maximum number of people that I can provide my services to by myself.

As I have been looking to serve more people, I have been adding more help in the form of assistants and subcontractors. The difficulty with this is that my business system has been developed and stored in my head for forty years. It’s hard to present a clear plan to others when it’s in my subconscious.

This is why I’ve started the process of sorting through the system in my head and putting it on paper (and in there is a scary place to work). Just like constructing a building can be done with a plan in someone’s head, it’s much easier to share the plan and the work when it’s drawn out for others to see.

 

Most business systems are going to be very similar. They are going to consist of the same basic areas of operation.

Sales/Marketing:

  • Prospecting for customers
  • Follow up on leads
  • Meet with prospective customers
  • Pricing and Proposals
  • Sales Reports
  • Advertising/Promotions
  • Marketing and Sales Planning
  • Customer Relations
  • Market Research
  • Public Relations
  • Product Development

 

Production/Operations:

  • Project Management
  • Project Assignments and Scheduling
  • Productivity Monitoring and Control
  • Quality Control and Documentation
  • Production Team Prep. & Development
  • Communicate with Team Members
  • Project Troubleshooting
  • Inventory Planning and Control
  • Purchasing and Vendor Relations
  • Customer Service
  • Equipment Maintenance and Repair
  • Facilities Maintenance & Repair

 

Administration/Finance:

  • Computer Systems
  • Team Member Records
  • Team Member Policies and Benefits
  • Office Support
  • Office Maintenance
  • Information Archiving and Distribution
  • Data Processing
  • Communications
  • Contract Preparation
  • Budgeting
  • Invoicing
  • Cash Flow Forecasting
  • Financial Reports
  • General Bookkeeping
  • Accounts Payable
  • Taxes
  • Banking

As you can see here, even just the basics are a lot of plates to keep spinning and there are a lot more to spin than just these. All of those plates going around and around are making my head spin.

I plan to share my adventure as I get this system out of my head and on to paper, so that I can get those spinning plate neatly organized.

Keep following along if you would like to know how to organize your plates.

 

Building Your Business Is Critical to The Survival of The Business

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Just Like the Construction of a Building – You Need a Blueprint for Your Company

 

If you own your business and aren’t being intentional about the organizational operation of your company, it is likely that you won’t make it past your 5th year. This is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/bdm_chart3.htm. Just think about the number of businesses that you have seen come and go.

Whether you are a solopreneur or you have a team. It doesn’t matter if you have been in business for 30 years or just starting out. Regardless of the kind of work you do, the organizational plan is just as important as the work you do…maybe more.

I know in my 40 years of being in business I have learned some lessons the hard way. Let me tell you, the tuition for ‘The School of Hard Knocks’ is expensive. There were times when I got behind on taxes to pay bills and times that I got behind on bills so that I could pay taxes. Neither of these is a very good business plan. One of my SHK professors once told me, “that when you steal from Peter to pay Paul, you make Peter a Paul bearer”. If you want to avoid the need for a pallbearer for your business…you need a plan.

It is common for people to start a business without a plan. Generally, someone has learned a trade or a craft and for whatever reason they decide to go into business on their own. Most of the time they have given little, if any, thought to business structure. They show up every day working hard and then…surprise, you owe some taxes and haven’t saved any money to pay them. They needed a plan, a blueprint for building the business.

Being in the construction business I see a lot of similarities in constructing a sound building and a constructing profitable business.

  • Both need to start with design plans – the thing that gives you a clear direction of what you want the outcome to be.
  • Both need an architect – the person that can see the vision of what the finished product will be.
  • Both need a good solid foundation – the thing that will support you when the storms come.
  • Both need good framework – the thing that holds everything together.

     

  • Both need a builder – the person that reads and understands the plans and puts all the different pieces together correctly.
  • Both need the proper tools – these are what allow the pieces to be shaped and fastened together in the right places in the right order.
  • Both need a good team – these are the different people with the different skills and knowledge needed.

It doesn’t matter if you have been in business for years or are just starting, YOU NEED A PLAN. If you would like to minimize the time you spend attending ‘The School of Hard Knocks’, then keep following our blog. We are working on some Business Building Solutions for just this purpose.

 

What areas of building your business would some ‘higher education’ be helpful.