Stop Being an Undercover Boss!
If you are truly interested in growing your business, ministry, or other stop being an “undercover boss”. Many of the business people I meet are 1 person companies. They wear 4 different hats. They are the CEO, CFO, CIO, and COO. I think it is time to retire several of those hats so that you can grow your company.
The most important hat you can wear is CEO. Otherwise you are merely an “undercover boss”, and as long as you are working in your company you are not going to be able to lead your company.
I love the show “Undercover Boss” because it demonstrates some important things about the CEO.
First, a CEO’s skills are not mechanical or labor excellent.
Mostly they are poor workers because they have a different set of skills vital to business success. In the book E-Myth the author talks about how a worker who is an excellent worker longs to own his own company, but he can’t stop working for himself to get to the point where he works on building and growing the company. The skills of a CEO are not labor intensive.
Second, a CEO’s responsibilities are different from those of workers and implementers.
A CEO must create a clear message, set goals for growth, and develop the structure and systems necessary for profitability.
What is the message of your company? What are you selling and to whom are you selling? Are you on target? A CEO’s first responsibility is to create a clear message. This clear message should consist of a mission statement, a purpose statement, key values and a vision statement about what the culture of the company will look like. I call the clear message of your company “The Gospel” of your business.
Your Gospel exists within the great mission of your company. Say you have a product like photography. You want everybody that you meet to get their picture taken and that is your mission. Your Gospel would be, “Creating Living Memories!” This statement becomes your Gospel. You are not a Photographer, but an Creationist of memories that are alive in our mind.
Your purpose statement describes to your customer why you exist as a company. It is not in your best interest to make money the main object for why you exist. Your purpose statement should put your target audience first. For example, “Helping families create living memories” would be an excellent purpose statement.
Lastly, you will need to spend time discovering your key values and visioneering the culture for doing business. How are you going to handle customers? What does the process for making a sale of pictures look like? Are their forms to fill out, and if so is it an easy process? Does the way (culture) that you handle customers help them buy your product or not? Once you have visioneered what the culture of doing your business will look like you can articulate your key values. You should have just 3 key values and they should be relevant to your clients and customers. For our faux photography business your 3 key values might be family, fun, and fantastic. We are business that wants to capture the fun of photography, the warmth of your family, and give you a fantastic picture or pictures that will create lasting living memories for you!
Third, A CEO’s skills are in vision casting, and planning.
The CEO must be able to plan and develop a strategy for achieving profitability. As CEO of your company what is your strategy or business plan for being profitable? All business is for this purpose. If you are not going to make money you are just trying to work for yourself and your business may not be that viable to many people. A business exists for the purpose of being profitable. I want to ask you a serious question. Why are you in business? What is your plan and strategy for achieving profitability? How much time have you spent on planning and strategy for the coming year of business? If you are not serious about your business your customers and those who hear your message will dismiss you and your business.
It is time to off load some hats and put on the hat that matters the most! Stop being an undercover boss!
