Ever thought about if you may be the sort of person who might be financially successful at owning your very own business? Most people have at one time or more. In fact , I hear folks just about every single day of my working life tell me how much they dream about owning their own business.
The problem is nonetheless , that when permitted to complicated about their dreams, these same folks typically end up sharing their feelings about their present lot in life, their director, their place of work, and their other team members; and, it is through these rantings that I am able to learn the true interior workings of their minds. I can get a pretty solid feel for whether these folks are cut from the entrepreneurial fabric, or not.
Many carry on aimlessly about how their supervisor "doesn't have a clue the easiest way to run the business," or that their "workplace is an absolute train wreck." Their oral spewage overflows of talk of the "dirty loos, high food cost, swiping crew, and low employee morale" - all of which, they deny having any responsibility for, naturally; however if they owned the place, "things would definitely be different", or that's what they say.
Let me just state that I don't believe you can become a successful owner of any kind of business without first having a long and confirmed track record of taking a possession mindset pertaining to the activities that happen around you in your present or previous places of employ. In reality, devising and cultivating an ownership mentality over many years is probably one of the key ingredients to achieving success as an honest to goodness business owner down the line. Part of this perspective is the integration of fervour and strength with the requirement experience of the value of a buck - even if that greenback is not actually yours. This permits one to grow into the giant shoes of having one's own business.
For me, I started my company, ROI, back in July of 1987. At the time, I was working for a cafe chain as a W-2 worker. I worked 50-60 hours each week for them; in the meantime, working every chance I could on my new start-up business. As I got better at doing my "day job", obviously, I invested more time, cash, and effort at growing what I hoped would become my fulltime gig - my very own company.
Many years passed and I continued to take whatever decent W-2 positions that came my way - the entire time learning and growing and saving my money. This permitted me to put food on the table for my young family while I seized each chance to create the bigger and better future that I longed for. Make no mistake about it, I worked long and hard at creating my own "American dream", and I did everything in my power to obtain it.
But , let's be crystal clear. Even though I owned the equity of ROI (which was worth absolutely nothing at the time), in my mind, I also "owned" the eateries that I operated for both my employer and my clients. I "owned" the choices. I "owned" the way I conducted the business. I "owned" the results - just like I owned ROI. What I realized during these first stages of my development and the development of my company is that, in numerous examples, the employees, the bosses, and the district chiefs working for these corporations really received more of the final analysis profits than the equity owners did, themselves.
Equity possession is nothing aside from a legal distinction and, as great and glorious as which will sound, an ownership mindset regarding one's career in the industry of his choice - including those with whom he chooses to impart his blood, sweat, and tears - is, many times, worth noticeably more.
Without any doubt, I made a heap of mistakes along the way; however as time rolled by, I became significantly better at developing this possession mentality in any and each restaurant and bar I came in contact with. Although the equity belonged to others, the ownership mind-set belonged to me. I drove myself to try to become the best operator of diners on the planet. I saw the company or the customer as nothing apart from a backer; anything performance-wise was up to me.
I operated as though the company borrowed cash from the bank for me, so that I could make the business flow with shoppers and money. And, come heck or high water, I was going to drive results and performance to new highs; thus,. Winning my check, my bonus, my benefits, and, better yet my education together with the funding to allow me to grow ROI. It was clearly a "win-win" for all parties involved; in my mind, it was I who had the absolute most to gain or lose, and I was not about to let those golden opportunities pass me by.
I learned that an essential component to maintaining and growing real life equity ownership in any business endeavor is that one must begin with a proactive, day-to-day ownership mindset - prepared and able to become involved in the everyday operations. I learned and believe to this day that great owners don't let go of the driving seat or take their foot off the accelerator pedal of their own business; and she or he who operates the best business while maintaining this hands on approach - irrespective of how massive or successful he or she becomes, wins! Sure, there are exceptions, but very darn few - not sufficient to risk throwing the dice.
Of course, I spent my entire career within the vicinity of the bistro and bar industry, so I decided to create an easy-to-understand formula for those running a restaurant, or multiple cafes, to learn how best to form a sub-structure that would pass the test of time. I call it the "Rule of 56: for one to maintain a strong ownership mentality, one must break single unit restaurants, or large restaurant companies, into parts of 56" - my version of micromanagement.
I surmised that a restaurant has approximately 56 different management functions, i.e.: purchasing, operations, human resources, selling, for example. (the precise list varies dependent on who you ask). If you desire to own the situation, the decisions, and the results, then you are best off choosing which of those functions are the most impactful to the final success of the business; then, in essence, cherry-pick the ones that you wish to handle and delegate the others. By taking on this possession mind-set, you can attain the very best results that others can only wish for.
Why is the number 56 so significant? Because, in addition to breaking each bistro down into 56 parts, I also believe that one cannot manage any enormous bistro company for any time period and with any sort of consistency by having responsibility of more than 56 different restaurant locations; and, those 56 locations are best managed when distributed among 8 direct reports with oversight of 7 locations each. I've seen rare examples when doing otherwise was successful even then, performance had been stunted significantly.
I created and used these rules of the road throughout the 1990's. While everyone else appeared to be evangelizing personal empowerment, I was teaching, coaching and inspiring micromanagement. I discovered with micromanagement I could control performance which proved to be a critical essential part to the successfulness of any entrepreneurial endeavor. In fact , it has been this "secret formula", if you will , which has driven my complete career, with countless of others with whom I have cheerfully shared it for over 25 years now. Usually, when I see failing ownerships - either in equity or in mindset, I can point at the lacking of one or two elements to this formula as the contributory factor to their failure - even in their simplest form.
After you become great at handling a few elements, you are then able to take on 1 or 2 more, and so on. As a result, while you master the management of every one of the 56 components of the cafe, your ownership mentality and control expands; and, with it, you are certainly most liable to boost your earnings, too.
So that the key is knowing yourself and what you are personally great at, then meshing it with what is critically critical for the successfulness of the business in the industry which you are in - whether your name is on the entity paperwork, the bank loan, or the insurance policies or not.
Without question, for several years now I have had a much higher level of possession mindset for their eateries and bars than do my clients - the owners and managers, themselves. Naturally, this approach requires that I am getting in the muck of the daily operations, selling, human resources, and monetary performance linked with each business - which many aren't pleased to do, quite candidly, these are the parts of the business that I love the most anyway, so it's a "win-win" for me.
Over the more than 25 years that I've been doing this, I have entered into numerous handshake deals (at least 56, I am sure) where I have supplied numerous hours of my work and experience, and, for that matter, my hard-earned money, to people who needed it to get their restaurant startup off the ground or their restaurant back on course. Each. Time I'd say a similar thing, "after I am long gone and after all is said and done, and after you make this bistro into a glowing monetary success, I need you to stroke me a check for my part of ownership." Sadly , to date, I have not received a single check in the mail; that does not detour me, because I "own" those restaurants - all 56 parts of them.
It's with this ownership mind-set that I begin each and every day as I focus upon my restaurants, my customers, my folk, and my money performance. For me, there's no other way to do business: I may as well own it, or forget about it. And I will not be forgetting ' it any time soon.
The problem is nonetheless , that when permitted to complicated about their dreams, these same folks typically end up sharing their feelings about their present lot in life, their director, their place of work, and their other team members; and, it is through these rantings that I am able to learn the true interior workings of their minds. I can get a pretty solid feel for whether these folks are cut from the entrepreneurial fabric, or not.
Many carry on aimlessly about how their supervisor "doesn't have a clue the easiest way to run the business," or that their "workplace is an absolute train wreck." Their oral spewage overflows of talk of the "dirty loos, high food cost, swiping crew, and low employee morale" - all of which, they deny having any responsibility for, naturally; however if they owned the place, "things would definitely be different", or that's what they say.
Let me just state that I don't believe you can become a successful owner of any kind of business without first having a long and confirmed track record of taking a possession mindset pertaining to the activities that happen around you in your present or previous places of employ. In reality, devising and cultivating an ownership mentality over many years is probably one of the key ingredients to achieving success as an honest to goodness business owner down the line. Part of this perspective is the integration of fervour and strength with the requirement experience of the value of a buck - even if that greenback is not actually yours. This permits one to grow into the giant shoes of having one's own business.
For me, I started my company, ROI, back in July of 1987. At the time, I was working for a cafe chain as a W-2 worker. I worked 50-60 hours each week for them; in the meantime, working every chance I could on my new start-up business. As I got better at doing my "day job", obviously, I invested more time, cash, and effort at growing what I hoped would become my fulltime gig - my very own company.
Many years passed and I continued to take whatever decent W-2 positions that came my way - the entire time learning and growing and saving my money. This permitted me to put food on the table for my young family while I seized each chance to create the bigger and better future that I longed for. Make no mistake about it, I worked long and hard at creating my own "American dream", and I did everything in my power to obtain it.
But , let's be crystal clear. Even though I owned the equity of ROI (which was worth absolutely nothing at the time), in my mind, I also "owned" the eateries that I operated for both my employer and my clients. I "owned" the choices. I "owned" the way I conducted the business. I "owned" the results - just like I owned ROI. What I realized during these first stages of my development and the development of my company is that, in numerous examples, the employees, the bosses, and the district chiefs working for these corporations really received more of the final analysis profits than the equity owners did, themselves.
Equity possession is nothing aside from a legal distinction and, as great and glorious as which will sound, an ownership mindset regarding one's career in the industry of his choice - including those with whom he chooses to impart his blood, sweat, and tears - is, many times, worth noticeably more.
Without any doubt, I made a heap of mistakes along the way; however as time rolled by, I became significantly better at developing this possession mentality in any and each restaurant and bar I came in contact with. Although the equity belonged to others, the ownership mind-set belonged to me. I drove myself to try to become the best operator of diners on the planet. I saw the company or the customer as nothing apart from a backer; anything performance-wise was up to me.
I operated as though the company borrowed cash from the bank for me, so that I could make the business flow with shoppers and money. And, come heck or high water, I was going to drive results and performance to new highs; thus,. Winning my check, my bonus, my benefits, and, better yet my education together with the funding to allow me to grow ROI. It was clearly a "win-win" for all parties involved; in my mind, it was I who had the absolute most to gain or lose, and I was not about to let those golden opportunities pass me by.
I learned that an essential component to maintaining and growing real life equity ownership in any business endeavor is that one must begin with a proactive, day-to-day ownership mindset - prepared and able to become involved in the everyday operations. I learned and believe to this day that great owners don't let go of the driving seat or take their foot off the accelerator pedal of their own business; and she or he who operates the best business while maintaining this hands on approach - irrespective of how massive or successful he or she becomes, wins! Sure, there are exceptions, but very darn few - not sufficient to risk throwing the dice.
Of course, I spent my entire career within the vicinity of the bistro and bar industry, so I decided to create an easy-to-understand formula for those running a restaurant, or multiple cafes, to learn how best to form a sub-structure that would pass the test of time. I call it the "Rule of 56: for one to maintain a strong ownership mentality, one must break single unit restaurants, or large restaurant companies, into parts of 56" - my version of micromanagement.
I surmised that a restaurant has approximately 56 different management functions, i.e.: purchasing, operations, human resources, selling, for example. (the precise list varies dependent on who you ask). If you desire to own the situation, the decisions, and the results, then you are best off choosing which of those functions are the most impactful to the final success of the business; then, in essence, cherry-pick the ones that you wish to handle and delegate the others. By taking on this possession mind-set, you can attain the very best results that others can only wish for.
Why is the number 56 so significant? Because, in addition to breaking each bistro down into 56 parts, I also believe that one cannot manage any enormous bistro company for any time period and with any sort of consistency by having responsibility of more than 56 different restaurant locations; and, those 56 locations are best managed when distributed among 8 direct reports with oversight of 7 locations each. I've seen rare examples when doing otherwise was successful even then, performance had been stunted significantly.
I created and used these rules of the road throughout the 1990's. While everyone else appeared to be evangelizing personal empowerment, I was teaching, coaching and inspiring micromanagement. I discovered with micromanagement I could control performance which proved to be a critical essential part to the successfulness of any entrepreneurial endeavor. In fact , it has been this "secret formula", if you will , which has driven my complete career, with countless of others with whom I have cheerfully shared it for over 25 years now. Usually, when I see failing ownerships - either in equity or in mindset, I can point at the lacking of one or two elements to this formula as the contributory factor to their failure - even in their simplest form.
After you become great at handling a few elements, you are then able to take on 1 or 2 more, and so on. As a result, while you master the management of every one of the 56 components of the cafe, your ownership mentality and control expands; and, with it, you are certainly most liable to boost your earnings, too.
So that the key is knowing yourself and what you are personally great at, then meshing it with what is critically critical for the successfulness of the business in the industry which you are in - whether your name is on the entity paperwork, the bank loan, or the insurance policies or not.
Without question, for several years now I have had a much higher level of possession mindset for their eateries and bars than do my clients - the owners and managers, themselves. Naturally, this approach requires that I am getting in the muck of the daily operations, selling, human resources, and monetary performance linked with each business - which many aren't pleased to do, quite candidly, these are the parts of the business that I love the most anyway, so it's a "win-win" for me.
Over the more than 25 years that I've been doing this, I have entered into numerous handshake deals (at least 56, I am sure) where I have supplied numerous hours of my work and experience, and, for that matter, my hard-earned money, to people who needed it to get their restaurant startup off the ground or their restaurant back on course. Each. Time I'd say a similar thing, "after I am long gone and after all is said and done, and after you make this bistro into a glowing monetary success, I need you to stroke me a check for my part of ownership." Sadly , to date, I have not received a single check in the mail; that does not detour me, because I "own" those restaurants - all 56 parts of them.
It's with this ownership mind-set that I begin each and every day as I focus upon my restaurants, my customers, my folk, and my money performance. For me, there's no other way to do business: I may as well own it, or forget about it. And I will not be forgetting ' it any time soon.
About the Author:
Johnthan Bansel is a part-time MBA student, majoring in finance. He has been working with banks in restructuring corporate loans and debt, coping with fusion and acquisitions too. Sometimes, his work requires him to travel, and writing comes naturally for him, hence he started writing articles of all sorts, from tiny short stories to lengthly essay since one year ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment