Life as a business owner provides a host of challenges every day. Ask any business owner about their top issues and you'll usually receive answers related to the following "big three": Team, Time & Money. Team, Time & Money are three vital resources for any business.

" Team - challenges with recruiting, training, motivating and retaining employees.
" Time - not enough of it and the time they do have is often managed poorly.
" Money - need more of it; more revenue, more profit and a much better understanding of the fundamentals surrounding the management of this vital resource.
Getting control over and leveraging these resources can make the difference between business success or failure. In upcoming columns, I will explore each of these in more detail - and discuss several tools and strategies necessary to enable business owners and managers to gain control of the "big three." For now, I'll give an overview of the TEAM.

TEAM
All too often the cry is heard, "why can't I get good people?" or "why can't I get my employees to do their job?" It's a common frustration I hear expressed week after week from owners of all types of businesses. The sad fact is that many business owners are the lowest paid and most overworked employee in their business (when you factor in all the time worked and energy invested in running the business). So how does an owner address this issue? Well, the solution starts with an owner's ability to recognize the following fact: If they don't have a good team, the problem is the OWNER - not the people around them. It's a hard truth to swallow - but it's the reality. The business owner is ultimately responsible for the results (or lack thereof) of his/her team.

An immediate way to address this challenge is by taking a hard look at the systems in their business. Few people in business understand how important systems are. What is a system? It's a pre-determined way to create a consistent, predictable result. Systems are essential if you want a business that runs smoothly and profitably. With good systems in place, it's much easier for the right team members to do a great job and produce great results. In Michael Gerber's book, "The E-Myth Revisited" (a must read for any business owner), he explains how important systems are for any businesses to be successful. The stock example he refers to in the book (one that's pretty obvious, of course) is McDonalds. With a food product that, at best, could only be described as average, McDonalds now grosses more than $18 billion a year - and most of the people running those systems are typical teenagers whose parents can barely motivate them to keep their rooms clean and do their homework. The magic is in their systems!

Systems run a business; people run the systems. Without effective systems, a business owner will likely get variableness in their business vs. consistent, predictable results -and customers do not like inconsistency in dealing with a business. So before you get too fed up with "problem" employees, get the right systems built in your business. Look at the most basic things from answering the phone all the way through to how you make and deliver your product or service. There are five basic steps to setting up any system. They are: flowchart the process, document how it gets done, test the system, establish key performance indicators to measure the system's effectiveness and enable flexibility for the system to change or adapt as your business changes.

With clear systems (procedures, processes, etc), you can then focus on teaching your team how to work within those systems through effective demonstration, shadowing, feedback and measurement. Now, that said, I don't want to overlook nor minimize the importance of having the "right people on the bus." It too is an essential key that I'll address it in an upcoming column. The main point I hope to make here is that before you start blaming all your woes on your people, first take look at your systems.

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