Design a Business of Value
We began the conversation last week with the merging of E-Myth Benchmark and Henderson Business Group. The relationship between our two organizations began several years ago, as two companies serving similar clients in similar marketplaces, with completely different but complimentary services. We held joint seminars in several cities in the Midwest, and it was during these seminars, and successful transitions of clients designing and growing their businesses through one organization, then selling it through the other, that a real synergy began to develop. E-Myth Benchmark has always believed and coached to the principals of Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited, including the core belief that your business should be a vehicle to give you more life, not take the life out of you. More “life” is the simple expression of more satisfaction, more money, more time, more freedom. It is the dream that business owners start out with, but struggle to realize.
As we began to work on the “selling” side of business in transition, and ultimately acquired assets of the Henderson Business Group and developed the brokerage model within the organization, we began to see the long term impact of designing and building a business of value. More importantly, we began to see the disappointing impact when “design” is hit and miss and full of unintended consequences, “growth” is moderate at best and non-existent at worst, and a “business” has not been created at all, but rather a “job” consuming the time, energy and life of its owner. There is no clearer time to see the results of years of hard work than the moment the business owner says, “OK, that’s it, I have done what I am going to and it’s time to sell.” It is then time to ask the pointed questions: “Done what?” “What have you actually built?” “What is it worth?” “What is the value to be realized?” If some of you are hearing a squealing sound, it is a business owner stopping dead in their tracks, because the rubber just met the road.
With this added perspective, more than any time in our company history, we saw that the overwhelming majority of businesses are in some sense broken. They either don’t work at all as businesses (as opposed to jobs), or they do not give the owner the value he or she first dreamt of and hoped to create over the years. One simple undeniable fact is common to all of these businesses: they are perfectly designed to get the result they keep getting. And guess who designed them? You, the business owner, did. You did it based on what you know, based on your own personal experience, based on your best guesses. So, if you are going to get a different result, you have to redesign your business, which means first redesigning how you even think about it!
Let us be clear, designing a business of value is not easy. It takes time, dedication, and a desire to want different results. Most often, designing a business of value starts with challenging the way you think about business, but more importantly the way you think about your business. It requires a hard look at WHY things are not running as smoothly as you would like them to and creative solutions to fix the root causes of frustrations in the business. Many business owners are not able to design a business of value, because they are simply trying to survive or have hit a wall. They are putting out fires, dealing with employee issues, and struggling to maintain a work life balance. It’s not all bad. There is pride and joy in watching the results of what you have created, but it’s also not living up to your full expectations.
There are no magic pills. No one is going to come and sprinkle pixy dust on your business and instantly transform the results. But, at Benchmark Business Group we offer you solutions with proven results. We assure you that there is a way to design a business of value that will not only make your immediate future better-more time, more money, more satisfaction, and more freedom-but that will also help market and eventually sell your business when the time is right. We have literally guided business owners to that result thousands of times. The best news: you don’t have to take our word for it. Read what your fellow business owners say: Business Coaching, Financial Services Coaching, Buy/Sell Your Business.
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