How To Work On, Not Just In Your Business

Thanks for reading Expert Advice From Experts, a weekly series where we share other experts' provocative perspectives and strategies on everything related to business. It's one of the many ways our clients at?Centricity ?elevate their market positioning so they can rise above the competitive noise to attract clients willing to pay premium pricing.

"No one ever started a business because they were good at business," observes Peter Santry of Fox Run Advisors .

To get around this issue, Peter recommends incorporating a business operating system to guide how you run your company. In addition to a vision, strategy, and structured accountability, your business operating system includes meeting structures and how to grow your company with controls. Peter advises that having a business operating system allows you to grow your company, institutionalizes accountability, and gives you the time to work on your business not just in it. Listen to the end for a generous gift Peter offers our listeners.

Q: What is the one thing that your?target market is getting wrong?

One of the things I usually ask business owners who I talked to I said, or a group of business owners, I always ask them, "How many of you got into the business you're in because you're good at business?" And inevitably, nobody raises their hand. Because they get into the business, they want to provide a product or service, as you said, they're filling a market niche. But what they don't realize is all the work that goes on behind the scenes to create a business and they don't have a framework, or a operating system, so to speak, to support, the business, the hiring, the firing, the the marketing, all those things that go along with the business side of things. And so the inevitably, oftentimes the ones that make it will get stuck, and they'll start to go sideways, and they'll get caught up in the minutia, the daily grind, and it's not fun for them, and the business starts to level off and they and they start to peak. And and that's that's a real problem I see frequently.

Q: How should your target market be thinking about it?

I think that in order to get out of that sort of leveled phase or or stuckness, they have to really have three things, they have to go back to three things. They need to have a vision, they need to have a strategy, and they need to have structured accountability. And I know those are their sort of big words, but let me simplify it for you. A vision is an agreement on where you're going with whom and why you're going there. You can have a personal vision you can have a family vision, but for business, you need to know where you're going and you need to have a company vision so That's the first thing you need. The second thing you need is a strategy. And if there's been a lot of ink spilled on what is a vision, there's been a bloodbath around strategy. And strategy has really two components, one that people chase, and the other one that they neglect. And the first one is, how do I get a value proposition in front of my client, so that they will buy what I want, I'm selling at a price that they'll buy it at, and that I can make profit on consistently. And everybody follows that one. But the second one that they don't follow, but they need is just as important is the second half, which is, how am I different from my competitors. Because if you don't have a strategy that makes you different, then you're just like everybody else, you're not valuable to your client, you're actually a commodity, and commodities are not valuable, and you can't price differently if you're viewed as the same as everything else. And the third thing you need is structured accountability. And that's different from accountability, which is just showing up for your job and doing what you say you're going to do. Structured accountability in an organization means that everybody knows what everybody else is doing. Everybody knows what, you know what good looks like. And everybody's measured by what they do. And good organizations have that. So if you have all three of those, and to have all three of those, you really need to have an operating system.?To clarify an operating system includes things like the vision, the strategy, structured accountability, as well as meeting structures and how to grow your business with control. There's, there's a lot more to it. But those are the essential things that you really need to start with, to build yourself up to creating an operating system.

Q: What are the benefits of doing it as you suggest?

A recent example, was a staffing company that operates out of Connecticut, New York and Florida, and the owner of that company, hey, they've been growing nicely. And actually, more than I see 20 to 25%, a ,year, for the last three years. And in in 2021, the owner actually got the whole team together, including the people that ran the regions, the New York, Connecticut and Florida regions. And they hashed out a vision. They put together their strategy, how they were different. They held each other accountable for results, they set results for each region and each of the people and then they actually, you know, talked about it frequently. So at their weekly meetings and their monthly meetings. They were held accountable for those results. And what I saw in this instance, was that a nice growing company all of a sudden hockey stick up very quickly, and grew 80% in 2021. And they had a record year because everybody knew exactly what they were supposed to do. They knew exactly how they were measured, and they produced the results because it was all clearly in front of them. So that that's the real recent example where I've seen this thing really, really work.

And it's not one you you enter into lightly because you have to make the changes, right? So and I kind of call them the three promises or results that you can get out of this. And the first is that as as in the staffing company, they will no growth, you know, they're going to grow their people, you're going to grow their leaders, and they're going to grow their profits, that's something we'll definitely see. And this really addresses the emotional thing. Because we have this structured accountability, they will know peace of mind, they're going to know, they're gonna know that everybody's doing knows what they're doing, they're going to be accountable for what they're doing. And they can have the peace of mind that everything is really taken care of so that they can focus more broadly. And that's really the third phase, which is freedom, to allow them to think not in the minutia that they have been stuck in, but rather in a bigger way so they can make the bigger impact of why they got into the business. They can grow their customers grow their employees, grow their market share, and yeah, grow the value of their company. And that those three things really, I think, provide the emotional sort of sort of support for any owner that goes down this path.

Q: What are the 3-to 5 steps your target market should implement?

It really all starts with the people. And so the important piece, that piece is to get the right people in the right seats so that they're doing their God given roles, they're not miscast. And then you take those people that are that they feel they're doing what they should be doing. And they they know it internally, because it fits them. And you put them behind a purpose, not a purpose that's stenciled on an office wall, but one that'll galvanize them. It's why why we're doing what we're doing, what our values are, what we're doing, why we're doing it, other than to make money and then getting to that point. So that's, those are the two things that you make. And then you put in a playbook, where you put in your best processes, or your core processes, and you make them consistent, and you make them most efficient. And then the three of those together, the people the purpose and the playbooks, the profits will flow naturally from it. And that's how you implement the system.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

02:52 You don't get into a business because you are good at business.

04:06 The 3 things you need to keep your business humming.

06:12 Your business operating system.

08:12 The case for incorporating a business operating system into your company.

11:50 Profits flow from people, purpose, and having a playbook.

14:21 Learn about Peter. Email Peter at [email protected] or call him at +1.203.921.5528.

ABOUT PETER SANTRY

Peter Santry is the Founder of Fox Run Advisors LLC, a Leadership Team coaching firm that has helped dozens of companies scale profitably. He has 35-year financial services career helping hundreds of private/mid-sized companies grow profitably and turn themselves around. He built a business on Wall Street that grew from scratch to $500MM in revenues with a team of 53 employees.

His business acumen landed him on multiple boards including corporate, non-profits, education, and trade associations with responsibilities including finance, investments, and employee development.

Happily married to Mimi since 1995 and father of five amazing kids: Peter Jr., Noelle, Connor, Dana, and Hayden. Voracious reader, avid squash player; other interests include skiing, politics, and financial markets.

Fox Run Advisors is an LLC to provide leadership team coaching and advice to entrepreneurial companies who seek to scale and become something special. Services include help with hiring, talent assessment, vision, strategic planning, core processes and playbooks as well as performance and accountability using the Pinnacle Business Guide framework.

ABOUT CENTRICITY

Jay Kingley and Taz Sadhukhan founded Centricity?to help the ex-corporate professional turned consultant go from just paying their bills to 5x'ing their corporate income. Their signature program, The Tipping Point?, is a?client generation advisory program?for those who have an Expertise-As-A-Service business. These independent consultants are great at what they do but struggle to make more money, get more clients, and don't know where their next client will come from. Clients focus on laser-like clarity on their positioning to differentiate them to rise above the competitive landscape and marketing strategies designed for independent solo consultants. Jay and Taz have a combined experience of 50+ years as business owners selling to large multinationals, consumers, and small business owners.