There is a Latin phrase, omne trium perfectum, which means that everything that comes in threes is perfect, or every set of three is complete. It is a principle known as the Rule of Three, which suggests that events or characters introduced in threes are more humorous, satisfying or effective in executing a story and engaging the audience. The audience is also more likely to remember the information conveyed. This is because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm by creating a pattern from the smallest amount of information possible. It makes the author or speaker appear knowledgeable, easy to understand and catchy.
That rule can be applied to business, too. To help you get into gear for the year ahead, here are my Business Rules of Three – three things to change about your business in 2018.
Move from practitioner to business owner
Plumbers, electricians and builders go to trade school and undertake both practical and theoretical lessons as part of their training. Software developers, chefs, lawyers, hairdressers and doctors – they all learn the skills to do their jobs both capably and competently.
Then they finish their education or apprenticeship and get their first job, and discover that they know less than they thought. So they continue learning. After a few years, they’re an expert. However, throughout this period, they are only learning to become an effective practitioner and not a successful business owner.
Running a business is a separate job and a skill too, and therefore it requires time and investment to learn and develop business skills to become capable and competent to do that job well. Unfortunately, business skills are not part of a plumbing, hairdressing or electrical apprenticeship, or part of the curriculum for lawyers, doctors or accountants.
(Contrary to popular belief, accounting courses do not equip you with the skills to run a business.)
If you look at most business startups, they either evolve from what was once the business owner’s hobby, or they are a result of someone wanting to work for themselves. Think of web designers or bookkeepers. These people are experts in their fields and have skills, but what often happens when they go out on their own, ill-prepared, is that they work hard and build up a customer and client base, then they get even busier, and later you hear that they’ve either gone out of business and/or their family life or relationships have broken down.
Were these people incompetent or unskilled at what they did? No. Their mistake was that they did not work on their businesses. It’s human nature to spend more time doing what you enjoy and what you do best. So self-employed small business owners gravitate to what they like doing, rather than mastering the business skills they lack. The result is that they spend way too much energy in their business and not on their business.
You’re running a business now, not just working. Stop being a worker and start being a director. You need to skill up and learn how to run a successful business.
Remember that every business is a family business
One of the nice things about working for yourself is the flexibility it gives you with regard to the hours you work. This reason alone is why lots of people head off and start their own businesses – myself included. “I’ll be able to take the kids to basketball practice,” or “I can have the whole summer off and we’ll head off camping.” Sound familiar?
As the business grows, you start working harder – before the family wakes and after they have gone to bed. You take work calls while you’re driving to basketball practice. Your family are supportive, as they hope you are living your dream.
Father’s Day breakfast comes along, and you go to school with your children. (You can do this because you run your own business, right?) After the breakfast, you are invited to see the children’s work in their classroom. Your eldest daughter has written a poem about Dad, and one verse goes: “Daddy – talk, talk, talk on the phone all day.”
You’ve got the message. And isn’t this the complete opposite of what you wanted when you started your own business? You have been isolating yourself and not engaging with your family. Before you know it, you’re not running a business – the business is running you.
Business can destroy your family life and your family. You might be happy working 24/7, but they won’t be. Every business is a family business – but it is only a business and not your entire life. A business can have a profoundly negative impact on your life if you let it. It can also serve you and your family well as long as you start working more on the strategy and less on the tactical aspects of your business.
If you have a family and you work for yourself, then you have a family business – so you must be fair to your family and make time for them away from your business.
Systemize your business
If you had a dollar for every time you’ve heard people say they were either too busy to have a holiday, or they couldn’t leave their business to others to run while they were away, or it wouldn’t be a holiday because they would be tethered to their emails and phone calls and disengaged from their families, you’d be able to go on holiday yourself and still make money.
How do you overcome this? Systemize your business. Systemizing is the process of documenting everything you do in your business – from answering the phone and opening the mail to pricing work and after-care service.
Without systems and processes in place, your business will become all-absorbing, with endless tasks to complete.
Systems and processes allow others to share the load. These people then become what a studio recording is to Taylor Swift. A Taylor Swift song can be played by millions of people all at the same time. It sounds the same every time it is played, and Taylor Swift collects a royalty every time the recording is played. Create a recording – a system – of your business, your talents, your way of doing something, and then, like a song, replicate it, market it, distribute it and manage the revenue.
Stephen Barnes is the principal of management consultancy Byronvale Advisors. He has spent more than 20 years advising clients, from new business startups to publicly listed companies, across a wide array of industries. He is also the author of Run Your Business Better: Essential Information Every Business Owner Should Know and Use. To find out more, visit byronvaleadvisors.com.
