Small Business Today Magazine SEP 2014 ELP ENTERPRISES | Page 23
EDITORIALFEATURE
The Secret is the System
Part 1 of a 2 Part Series
By Howard Partridge
I
n last month’s column, I talked about
“GPS” – getting you from where you
are in your business to where you want
to go. GPS stands for Goals (where
you’re going), Plans (how you’ll get there),
and Systems (the vehicles that will take
you there).
Your business is a vehicle. If you have
more than one business, you have more
than one vehicle. A vehicle is a system or
a set of systems.
My good friend Michael Gerber, the
world’s #1 small business expert according to Inc. Magazine, says “the secret is the
system”. He recognized that all phenomenally successful businesses have effective
systems.
If you have staff, you are probably familiar
with the story of “Somebody, Everybody,
and Nobody”:
Somebody was asked to do something
that was the job of Everybody. Everybody
thought that Somebody was going to do
it but Nobody did it. When Nobody did
it, Everybody asked why Somebody didn’t
do it. Somebody said it was the job of Everybody. Everybody said it was Nobody’s
job, therefore, Nobody did it.
Can you relate to this story? Even if you
don’t have staff, systems are critical to your
business. Here’s why -
•The key to profitable growth
Have you ever seen companies that grow
quickly only to discover that more money
is going out than is coming in? The bigger
you get without systems, the more money is going out the door in reinventing
every day.
Your business is a
vehicle. If you have
more than one
business, you have
more than one
vehicle. A vehicle is a
system or a set of
systems.
•Employees perform better
When your employees don’t have to depend on you to direct their every move
because they have a system to work in,
their performance increases.
• Fewer surprises
Have you noticed that human beings do
weird things? The stuff people come up
with sometimes is mind-boggling. Like the
time one of my clients had an employee
who wrecked a company truck. Instead of
calling the own