StevenDownward.com

Not Being The Key

OK, I sat down looking to write something out to share with you an experience that I’ve just been going through.  But what I found was that all I could think about was the concept of “Not Being The Key”.  It’s like I’m just feeling that I need to write something more than what I was going to write.  So here goes.

What am I meaning what I say the term “Not Being The Key”?  First off, this concept is going to go a bit in the face for a lot of people in business.  Now that’s not what I’m intending but it’s something that I find most people in business don’t really get.  It’s about the founder, that person that starts a business, not being the key to the business.

When I look around business today, online and off line, I see so many people that have a small business mindset even though they what they want is to have a big business.  They design and build their business around them.

For example, with an online business, marketing is huge.  It’s the life blood for that organization.  Because there is no physical location, they have to market in some fashion in order to get enough people to look at their site and buy their products.

So when an entrepreneur usually get’s started, they don’t want to spend a lot of money so they decide that their going to do a bunch of the work to get things going.  Now I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this.  Usually it’s a great idea.  But the entrepreneur needs to have the design of their business a head of time.

Where are they wanting their business to go?  What are they wanting it to do?  What is the purpose of that business?  How is it going to achieve these things?  What will the entrepreneurs long term role be?  How much do they want to physically do themselves?

These are all things that will make up the architecture of the business. I know for my business, it’s been positioned to weed me out of a lot of the daily activities.  Now the business isn’t fully up to that point yet but that’s the layout I’ve designed for it.

Being “Not Being The Key” means that you’re not the everything for the business.  I know of many businesses where if the entrepreneur isn’t there, the business will flounder, and I’m talking about some big business here.  Businesses that are doing 4 or 5 million dollars per year.

This entrepreneur is actually The Key to the business.  Everything is dependent upon that person showing up and being there day in and day out.

But what I’m talking about here is pre-planning to have you, the entrepreneur, fazed out at some point.

Let me give you an example from my own business as to what I’m talking about.

I have several different websites out there where I market other peoples products, affiliate sites.  I built these sites and I’ve done all the marketing for them.  I put a lot of my own time into these sites.  Now, for me to increase my revenue in this area of my business I need to either add to these sites and do more marketing to them or I need to build more sites.

Here’s the thing, I could either spend the time and do some of these things or I could take some of the revenue that I earn from these sites and pay a skilled person to do this work for me there for freeing up my time.  Then all I need to do is check their quality of work and make sure that what I’m paying for is getting done correctly. This might only be a few hours a week once I get them rocken and rolling.

If I take option two, I’m no longer the key for that revenue to grow.  I can be off doing something else that I would rather be doing and letting another person, or another company, do the work and let them be the key for the revenue to grow.

Let me tell you, I took option two.

So how do you want to structure your business?  What skills are you wanting to really master and become proficient at?

The choice is yours just like it has been for me.

Talk soon

Steven Downward

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Tags: architecture of the business, business architect, business layout, business plan, business structure, business success, bvusiness plan, key man in business, key person in business, key woman in business, not being the key, the plan for a business