How to Get Your Business to Grow Up and Run Itself

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Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, understood that to have his business grow up and run itself, he would need to pay attention to all of the Seven Elements of a Business – so he did.

Kids need to grow up and stand on their own two feet without leaning on you – that is maturity. Your company should do the same thing.

We assume we should wait until we’re big enough before we figure out how to make the business run itself, but – where we start is where we end up. No matter what size your business is, you should be manically focused on getting yourself out from behind the steering wheel from the gitgo. Pay attention to all Seven Elements of a Business, like Kroc did, and watch your business grow up.

Element 1: Vision and Leadership

“I was 52 years old,” recalled Kroc. “I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.” And when he first saw the McDonald’s brothers’ restaurant, he saw what they didn’t, an opportunity to create an international business, not just a restaurant.

“If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business,” said Kroc. What risk is holding you back? Get clarity on your vision to take more risk.

Element 2: Business Development

Kroc had to create the need for his product! Fast food was not an existing market – tough job! He clearly knew his niche, learned how to communicate that niche, and stuck to his knitting – he didn’t get sidetracked trying to make great food. And he didn’t let ego get in the way of making money – a very common disease.

Element 3: Operations/Delivery

Work from the result desired. “I didn’t invent the hamburger,” said Kroc. “I just took it more seriously than anyone else…We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.” He built a small business into an international empire by focusing on the operational details and the desired result.

Element 4: Financial Management

When Kroc was asked “What’s the #1 priority for McDonald’s?”, he responded, “The bottom line!” To Kroc, efficient meant most profitable. He didn’t want the best hamburger in the world, he wanted the one that would make him the most profit per fat molecule.

Element 5: Customer Satisfaction

CONSISTENCY of EXPERIENCE was key, not QUALITY of EXPERIENCE. He didn’t need the best food, just the most consistent presentation of it. And if there was trash in the parking lot, that was “a gross affront to me.” A great customer experience was everything.

Element 6: Employee Satisfaction

“None of us is as good as all of us,” Kroc said. A strong believer in teamwork, Kroc knew his growing company could only grow if he had dedicated people. Kroc treated everyone with respect. Every new employee got a badge with the title “Management Trainee” to let them know they all needed to participate in making McDonalds great. His Suggestion Box was legendary.

Element 7: Community/Family/Self

Kroc was an astute businessman who understood that community involvement was a key part of an effective marketing strategy. This tradition of giving back that Kroc initiated so many years ago remains an integral part of the McDonald’s corporate philosophy. Through community contributions, Kroc also established a corporate tradition of creating a positive presence in society.

What did McDonald’s have going for it? Kroc paid attention to all Seven Elements from the gitgo. As small business owners, we’re usually good at a few of the above, and have big holes in a few. Which are you really good at? Whatever you answered, you’re business probably needs help in the opposite ones.

Your business may not be running itself yet. That’s not the question. Are you setting it up to be able to do that at the earliest possible opportunity? If not, you’ll be babysitting it for years to come, and won’t know why every time you come home, your business is there waiting for you!

Let’s learn how to wean our businesses – pay attention to all Seven Elements of a Business. We deserve an empty nest at some point, with a business that can run itself.

Visionaries Make Money, Dreamers Don’t. Which are you?

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Dreamer – Someone who can describe some future hoped for situation, but has no clear date for when they want to be there, and isn’t actively right now pursuing that vision. A dreamer loves to think about the future and what it could be like, but there is no concrete connection between that future situation and the work that needs to be done today to get there. And a dreamer never puts a date on when they intend to get there. Intentionality is not part of the dreamer’s tool set.

The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a visionary has already taken the three steps required to create real and lasting change:

  1. Make a decision (stop talking about it, stop dreaming, commit)
  2. Put a date on it.
  3. Go public

Visionary – A person who does this has burned their bridges; they’ve put themselves in a position where that future reality is the focus of everything they do. They are actively, right now, every day, doing the things that will get them there. Until you take the three steps that create real and lasting change, and get moving toward that clear objective and date, you’re just dreaming, and playing office.

Conation – the will to succeed that manifests itself in single-minded pursuit of a goal. Conation is one of the 1,000 most obscure words in the English language, but it is central to becoming a visionary.

If you have a clear picture of where you want to go, and WHEN you want to be there, and you’ve let everyone know, you’re much more likely to conate (start acting on that picture and date) and actually get there.

Are you a dreamer or a visionary? Do you know clearly where you’re business is going and exactly when you intend for it to be there? If not, you’re just dreaming about something nice that could happen at some future time, if you only committed to what that was and when you expected to be there.

Seven Words a Business Owner Can Never Afford to Use

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1) Try (the uncommitted’s word)

“We’re going to try to…”

Yoda – “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” Intentionality is a huge key to getting where you want to go. When a business owner uses “try”, their escape route is clearly identified, and they have no intention of seeing things through, especially in the rough times. Great business owners don’t try, they do.

2) But (the victim’s word)

“This could have worked, but outside forces kept us from…”, or “But I don’t know how…”

“But” is the victomology word for business owners. It keeps us from figuring things out and pushing through to victory. Great business owners don’t use “but”. They make lemonade with every lemon they’re given.

3) Can’t (the unbeliever’s word)

We “tried”, but we *can’t*…

Vision is critical. If you don’t have clarity about where you’re going, you won’t believe you can get there. Great business owners are too busy getting where they’re going to give in to “can’t”. They’ll figure it out.

4) Settle [for] (the unmotivated’s word)

“Good enough.”

Great business owners don’t settle. What was the passion that brought you into business in the first place? Why would you allow circumstances to change your commitment to that passion?

Circumstances don’t make us who we are. Our responses do.

5) Goals (the heroic activist’s word)

I have only one set of goals – my Lifetime Goals (things I can never check off as completed). I have no goals for my business, only objectives and waypoints. My business exists to serve me in getting to my Lifetime Goals, so each month, quarter, and year I set objectives and waypoints in my business to use my business to get there. This keeps me from having false victories by beating a quarterly or annual “goal” and or false defeats by not having achieved them. They are merely milestones or waypoints along the way to my Lifetime Goals.

Great business owners don’t get hung up on intermediary milestones – they are completely focused on getting to the end game, their only set of goals, the ones they can never check off – Lifetime Goals.

Conation – the will to succeed that manifests itself in single-minded pursuit of the goal.

6) Later (the thinker’s word)

Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. The #1 indicator of success in early stage businesses is not how great your plan is, or how smart you are, or how much research you’ve done. The #1 indicator of success is Speed of Execution. Later never comes.

Three things changes us when we do them:

  • Make a decision
  • Put a date on it
  • Go Public

Great business owners get an idea, move on it, and figure it out as they go, and they understand the value of going public with their intentions.

7) Alone (the “Rugged Individualist’s [proud loner’s] word)

Everything we do in life, from taking a spouse to joining a bicycling club has the element of “community” in it, except for business ownership. Good luck with that one, you’re on your own.

There isn’t another place in society other than business ownership, where we have fully institutionalized the nonsense myth of the rugged individualist. A friend of mine did a study on leadership and found that the single biggest indicator of success or failure was whether the leader had people close to them who the leader gave the authority and permission to call them on their actions. John Wayne is dead. We should have buried the rugged individualist with him.

Great business owners have Outside Eyes on their business all the time.

Which of these words are you using to run your business? Here’s a way to remember them – “Try” to strike them from your vocabulary, “but” if you “can’t”, you can “settle” for only using a few and make a “goal” of getting rid of the rest “later”, when you’re “alone” and nobody’s watching.