Scalability

For the person who is serious about growing his business, figuring out how to make the systems and procedures of his company handle as much as possible (instead of him personally) is a major key to "scaling" the business. 

To do that I first work with the owner to help him understand what's really driving his economic engine, what information he's using to make decisions, where the "magic" of his company is, and what can and can't be delegated.

Some things absolutely can't be delegated.  We figure that out, too, but generally, more can be delegated than he thinks.

Many clients when I met them were doing well as long as they were "on the job" 24-7 to keep everything going.  Life became a lot more fun for them once they put in place the systems and infrastructure that allowed the business to run without as much of their personal oversight.

I help my clients establish the necessary systems and infrastructure to allow them to:

• Grow past what they can do personally or all alone
• Have internal accounting systems that give them useful information
• "Have a Life" apart from the business

 Agile entrepreneurs use accounting systems for a lot more than just figuring the income and expenses or generating reports for banks and investors.  When done correctly, the books, along with the procedures, forms etc. (i.e., the “systems”) provide the decision-makers with crucial information and insight well beyond basic information about sales, expenses, money in the bank, previous year comparisons, etc.

Many of the successful entrepreneurs that I know (before they developed their internal reporting systems) had come up with their own intuitive “offbeat” observations that correlated to their desired results for seemingly unknown reasons.  One client I know used to always look at how many lines on the company phone switchboard were lit up; another paid attention to how many empty shipping pallets were stacked out back.  Neither one was quite sure why that information was so useful to them; they just knew it was.

In both cases I was able to help them figure out what those intuitive observations really signified, why it was so valuable and how to adapt the reporting processes to put that information front and center.  

Once that happened, it was a lot easier for them to bring their talent, experience and judgment to bear in making decisions and even (when they felt like it) articulate the business reasons behind those decisions to wives, employees, partners, investors, etc.

They were also able to get all of the information they needed on an anytime/anywhere basis – something that can't be done when you're dependent on walking out back to see how big the stack of shipping pallets is.

As far as the reports my clients typically need are concerned, I have found that no single report is generally adequate, so together we work to create systems and reports capable of presenting the company information from enough perspectives to provide an actionable orientation/big picture.

If you need this kind of information and systems for your business, take a look at the kind of entrepreneurs who I generally work with, and if you think things are a good fit, then head on over to the New Business page.