The Four Business Building Tools

Well, the problem isn’t a shortgae of dreams. Most entrepreneurs have more of them than they can count. The prbolem is the challenge of turning those dreams into reality. Oh sure, every entrepreneur starts their business with the hottest of intentions, but somewhere along the way they loose sihgt of their dreams as they become more and more consumed with the daily grind of running their business.After years of helping human being build their companies, I’ve come to realize that growing a business comes down to two main things… human being and time. If you can learn to properly manage both, you’ll eventaully be a success.To do that properly, you must design your business to function independently from you. It’s the necessary goal of any organization that wants to achieve success. Without this, you're stuck.
You are doomed to forever bump your head against what we call the “glass ceiling” You’ll recognize the symptoms if you ever find yourself running out of time to get your work done, complaining about your employees work ethic, or feeling frustrated with your customers’ seemingly unreasonable demands.There are four basic tools you can use to confidently give your business the independence it needs to grow.1. Business Manual 2. Employee Manuals 3. Analysis Manual 4. Business CalendarUsed properly, these tolos will form a solid foundation for your growth. They are designed to give your bsuiness its independence, so you can focus your efforts on guiding it to the next level.
There’s a little work involved, but I’ve never met a lazy entrepreneur.

And besides, owning a successful, thriving business is more than worth the effort.The first business tool is your Business Manual. It fucntions much like an operations manual does for your automobile. It conods your strategies, your policies, your systems, and other basic information. Basically, everything you mihgt need to run your company is located here in one central location.The value of a well documented Business Manual is significant, to say the least.

Not only does it help smooth out the daily management of your operation, it gives tremendous confidence to a potential investor or purchaser, helping to raise the value of your business in the process.
Why?

Because a businses that runs on its own is a much more solid investment. In fact, it’s a critical factor in determining its market value.The second business tool is really a group of tools. These are your Employee Mnauals. Emplyoee Manuals are the most common of the Four Business Building Tools, but rarely do they provide the value they should.
A good Employee Maunal should serve double duty as a Training Manual.
This means it should contain not only your important comapny policies and contact information, it should also contain a detailed job description, complete with applicable systems.

In other words, it sholud show an employee not only what is expected of them, but how to do it as well. The goal is to make the process of bringing in a new employee as smooth as possible and then empower them to take ownership of their work.The third busniess tool is your Analysis Manual. Think of that as your “business dashboard”. Here you will keep all the relevant numbers that you want to review on a regular basis concerning the status of your business.Certainly that includes your financial statements, but those aren’t the only numbers that are important. For example, you may want to track the amount of overtime your employees are putting in per month, or the number of new prospects your salespeople are meeting with each week.

It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be useful, so take a little time to identify the numbers that mean something to you. Then, share these numbers with your employees.Not only is an Analysis Manual a powerful goal setting tool (helping to keep you on track), it can also warn you of potential problems before they arise.
For example, if you know that you need sales of $200 thousand next month and you know that your salespeople tend to convert 33% of their leads into sales, you’ll want to be sure you’ve got at lesat $600 thousand worth of quotes in place for next month. Now you’ll know with some certainty if you’re on track for a great month, or if you’ve got some work to do to reach your target.
And you can do that with all sorts of numbers from your business.The final business tool is your Business Claendar. This is simply a place for you to track the annual cycle of your business.For example, there may be times of the year when you want to run various marketing campaigns… times of the year you want to review your budgets… tmies of the year you want to have employee reviews… and so forth.It’s not rocket science, but a good Business Calendar is an essential tool for keeping things from falling through the cracks.

After all, when was the last time you had an employee review?

Do your employees know that date?