Building an effective business model

Starting a business is an exciting undertaking. Having a great product or service that meets the needs of your customers is rewarding. But the day-to-day business functioning impacts the overall experience of running a business, determines the level of risk you’re inviting, and eventually impacts your profitability.

If you are operating in a constant state of chaos, you will burnout. You will also make mistakes that will increase your likelihood of incurring costly liability to correct those mistakes. Ultimately, all of that chaos decreases the amount of money you will put in your pocket.

You don’t have to exist in a state of chaos. You can build a model for your business that provides the foundation to execute with efficiency. You can build a model that allows your day-to-day to be streamlined and focused.

FIRST, pay attention to where you spend your time. Really pay attention to it. Don’t give in to the “I’m so busy” trope. You may be busy, but are you busy doing the stuff that really matters to grow your business? Are you busy understanding the legal and compliance requirements necessary to run your business so you don’t incur fines, fees and penalties from improper or illegal operations? Interrogate how you spend your time. For 5 business days, at the end of each day write down what you did that day. Don’t spare any detail. If you spent an hour on hold with customer support, document it. If you stopped and took a little nap, document it.

NEXT, identify (or restate) your business priorities and highlight those activities over the past 5 days that directly impacted your ability to meet those priorities.

THEN, focus on how those business priority impacting activities get done. Do you have processes in place that document how those activities get done? Are those processes as efficient as possible? Could someone else step in and take over and know what to do?

FINALLY, know that how you execute in the day-to-day activities impacts every aspect of your business. If your daily operations are structured and efficient, your output to your customers will be more efficient as well.