Wear All of Your Owner Hats

When I teach the course on Managing Your Service Board, I make the point that the service manager has to wear a lot of hats - trainer, organizer, parent, friend, coach, mentor, customer service rep, department manager, sales consultant, and more. 

The owner has more hats than that. The owner has primary responsibility for strategy, budgeting, sales, vision, culture, and the success or failure of the entire operation. At the end of the day, the service manager can take all those hats and go somewhere else. But the owner stays through everything, good or bad. 

And just like everybody else, owners enjoy some of those roles and don't enjoy others. I love marketing, for instance, but I hate sales. So, guess what? I don't do as much sales as I should. Like most human weaknesses, I am completely aware of it and behave this way anyway. 

A few years ago, I recorded a webinar called The Seven Stages of Wealth and the Economy. Two of the stages, where most IT professionals spend most of their careers, are re-jiggering the business and working the system. 

Once we find a wonderful combination of products, services, clients, and employees, the best thing we can do is just to work that magic day after day for as long as you can. For many folks, the last four years have been a period of getting everyone working remotely and moved to Office 365. Work it, work it, work it. 

Then, from time to time, you need to re-tool the business. Figure out the next magic combination, then work the new system for the next four or five years. Michel Gerber referred to this behavior as working ON your business. The Hardest Part of moving from "working" the system to re-tooling your business is that you have to work on the next version or iteration of your business today. Because the working stage is working, you are happy and making money. So it can be difficult to spend time on creating a future when you may not be experiencing problems today. 

Here are a few tips to keep in mind about working on tomorrow today: 

1. It's a lot like marketing. You can't start marketing when things slow down. You need to start marketing before things slow down. Both marketing and looking into the future take some time! 

2. The future is just around the corner. It's always just around the corner. And you CAN see it. But you have to lift your head and look around. You won't find the future in your day to day - especially when you're focused completely on "working it" today. 

3. Conferences, classes, webinars, and peer groups all help you gather ideas. And see glimpses of the future. 

4. Humility goes a long ways. Be honest: What do others know that you don't? Well, go learn that! And while you might be the smartest person in the room, pretend you're not - and go find someone who knows more about something than you do. 

I am a big fan of always looking ahead. Sometimes that leads me down the wrong path. More than once, I've moved too fast. But I rarely move too slow. I try to read blogs and listen to podcasts, attend events and webinars, and generally stay informed. Yes, it takes a lot of work. But so does catching up with everyone else. 

 Feedback welcome.