Karen Brown, franchise consultant and business owner, reviews why having an extensive millinery collection is an essential part of being a small business owner.
I love an excuse to wear a hat – family events, the races, even lunch with the girls; basically any excuse will do.
Over the years I have realised that the ability to wear numerous hats, and carry them off with aplomb (I love that word), is an essential skill for any business owner. Let me explain….
At the start of all the Business Planning workshops I run, I ask the question “As you embark of your business journey, what is the thing most likely to stop you achieving the business success you are hoping for?” and the stark answer is YOU.
Whether you are just starting out on your business journey, kick-starting a plan for growth or preparing a plan to enhance the value of your business ahead of a sale, an essential part of that process should be looking in the mirror and asking yourself “Do I display the right behaviours and do I have the appropriate skills and knowledge to see this through?”
If the answer to that is “no” or “I’m not sure”, that is definitely not the end of the world; it just means that your business plan needs to include an element of self-development for you, as the business owner, in terms of how you are proposing to fill any skills gaps you might have or overcome any blind spots.
Someone recently described themselves to me as the CEO of a small business – Chief Everything Officer and I can’t think of a better way to describe what being a successful business owner is all about.
If you read Michael E. Gerber’s book “The E-Myth Revisited – Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It”, which I recommend to all my Business Planning clients, he advises that three characters are required to run a successful business: the Technician, the Entrepreneur and the Manager.
He believes, and I have a lot of sympathy with this view, that most small businesses fail to work to their full potential is because they are run by a Technician – someone who knows how to do the technical work, sees what needs to be done and does it.
The danger in a business being run by a Technician is that insufficient emphasis is given to the role of the Entrepreneur – the innovator/ideas person who has a big picture vision for the business and is continually thinking about how to do things differently/better in order to grow or the Manager who is the organiser and on top of what needs to happen in terms of people and processes to get the job done.
An Entrepreneur will build a business based on their vision and how they are going to achieve that. A Technician/Manager will focus on what needs to be done to run the business today, often without sufficient thought as to what they are trying to achieve with those actions.
In reality, in any small business, these are not three separate people but distinct parts of a good business owner’s DNA.
Whilst we might be biased towards one, to successfully run our businesses, they must all play an equal role and whilst Gerber acknowledges that we have all three within us, the typical make-up of any small business owner is 70% Technician, 20% Manager and 10% Entrepreneur.
As the owner of a small business I would challenge you to ask yourself “Naturally, which one am I and to what extent?”
Once you know your starting point, the next question to ask is “Who do I know who can help me with the other two to give me time to upskill myself?’
When I started my business, I used my 20-something year old son to be my “entrepreneurial spark” until I got to the point where I could fulfil that role myself. Whatever you need to do to bring all three roles into balance, those skills can be learnt and wasn’t it Arnold Palmer who said “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get”?
To really look after and build the value in your business, you need to be able to wear all three hats: those of Technician, Entrepreneur and Manager. Running a small business is not just a good excuse to wear a hat; the ability to wear the hats and switch between them, often at very short notice, is an essential, everyday skill.
So, what are you going to do today to expand your millinery collection?
