Management is a BIG word and encompasses the major oversight of all elements of business to ensure the profitable operation of an enterprise, the proper accounting of income and expenses, and legal and financial compliance with local, state and federal authorities.
While it is not possible to cover all the management issues in this article we can set forth key management concepts to help you think about your business.
MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES Anytime you are starting a new business you will be inundated by tasks and projects requiring a high degree of attention to detail.
Every element of the business must be considered from inbound/outbound communications, inbound/outbound systems supporting sales, production, order fulfillment and customer service.
One way to manage these tasks and projects is by using a management technique known as Management by Objectives (MBO).
Every business operation is unique with different levels of activity depending on the size and scope of the operation.
Management by object is the science of keenly understanding the needs of your business venture and being able to prioritize the most relevant projects and tasks to complete.
This is accomplished by a looking critically at your business based on your business plan and executing specific tasks to complete specific projects by specific deadlines for specific results.
A good manager or leader gets results (.
) The purpose of management is to take and maintain control of a business so there is steady progress towards creating a fully functional "operating system" that is efficient and effective at selling and making money.
This is especially difficult for start up operations because of the sheer volume of activities that must be performed, usually by one person, the entrepreneur.
The goal of MBO is to organize projects and tasks into specific categories, to understand how those categories interact and are dependent on each other.
In other words, a business is a system of systems each working together so that the sum of the parts creates the whole.
Your primary goal in business is to analyze the required business systems, organize them, design them, implement them and fine-tune them over time.
This can only be accomplished by firmly understanding the working details of each of your projects and managing them by the order of the most important objectives, thus, MBO.
CHAOS OR CONTROL Your business, at any stage of operation will be in one of two possible states: Chaos or control.
For most start up operations, chaos is the natural order of things.
What separates success from failure is the ability to gain control quickly and minimize chaos.
One way to approach this in a methodical manner is to systematize everything from the ground up.
Everyone who starts a business wears three hats and plays three roles: the entrepreneur, the technician and the administrator.
The entrepreneur is the dreamer, the technician is the doer and the administrator is the manager.
You think it, you do it and you make sure it gets done right or it will fail or have to be redone, wasting time you do not have to spare.
THE ART OF SYSTEMATIZATION Think systems, systematize everything.
Imagine you own a retail store.
You are your only employee.
You are the CEO, the store manager and the sales clerk.
A customer walks in, you greet them just the way you want, and you take their order just the way you want and the customer leaves satisfied and happy.
Then you take off the sales clerk hat and put on the store manager hat where you dutifully record the sale and update your inventory.
At the end of the day, you go to the back office, put on the administrator hat and review the day's activities and plan for tomorrow.
How long can this last? Wouldn't it be better to make detailed notes, step by step instructions of how to handle customers and have a type written procedures manual?Then you could hire someone and train him or her using the manual you wrote.
Now you don't have to play the role of sales clerk anymore, you hired one!Now that your time is divided between being CEO and store manager, you could write a procedure manual for the store manager.
When it is finished, hire someone to fill the job.
Now your time will be spent being the CEO and guess what?Yep, you will write the procedure manual for that too.
And for the vice president, etc.
Why?The goal of business is to get out of business!Let others run it so you are free!This is how franchises work! When you buy a franchise, you are buying a system of systems documented and operated by standard operating procedures (SOP's).
LETS TALK ABOUT CHAOS OR CONTROL Here's the bottom line, you will either manage your business from the ground up or it will manage you.
Chaos destroys business.
When a customer buys from you, they do so because they like the "selling system" (that's why McDonald's is so famous, the selling system).
If your business is chaos, the selling system won't be the same every time and your customers won't come back.
You have to manage the details and the devil IS in the details, those random, chaotic, unplanned details.
I cannot stress enough the importance of MBO, systems and procedure manuals.
THE GOAL OF BUSINESS Starting and owning a business is hard work and it is always going to be hard work.
One of the keys to success is to understanding the goal of business is to work your way up and out of business.
You want to systematize everything, document everything, and hire people to do the grunt jobs so you can work on the next project level above.
In this way, you work your way up and out of the business.
What would you rather do: work like a slave dog forever or be economically free playing on a beach somewhere in five or ten years? What you do in the beginning of your business when it is young will determine what you will do later.
If you start sloppy, manage sloppy and allow ongoing sloppy operations, it may never be brought under control and failure is most probably on your horizon.
CONCLUSION You will get out your business what you put into it but not necessarily in proportion.
If your management style is weak, if you do not pay attention to detail, if you slack and cut corners not only will you be cheating yourself but you will end up working harder, longer without as much compensation and return on your investment.
If you have not read the entire "Get Smart Before You Start" articles, I suggest you do so now.
You may also want to scope out my other articles because many of them are interrelated with the Get Smart series...
To your success! Copyright © 2006 James W.
Hart, IV All Rights reserved