If you were to draw a picture that visually represents your role in your business, what would it look like? Are you at the top of a traditional Christmas-tree-like organizational chart, or are you stuck in the middle of your business, like a hub in a bicycle wheel?<\/p>\n
As anyone who has tried to fly United when O\u2019Hare has been hit by a snowstorm knows, a hub-and-spoke model is only as strong as the hub. The moment the hub is overwhelmed, the entire system fails. Acquirers seeking to buy a business generally avoid hub-and-spoke managed businesses because they understand the dangers of buying a company too dependent on the owner. Here\u2019s a list of seven warning signs you\u2019re a hub-and-spoke owner and some suggestions for pulling yourself out of the middle of your business:<\/p>\n
1. You sign all of the checks.\u00a0 <\/strong>Most business owners sign the checks, but what happens if you\u2019re away for a couple of days and an important supplier needs to be paid? Consider giving an employee signing authority for checks up to an amount you\u2019re comfortable with, and then change the mailing address on your bank statements so they are mailed to your home (not the office). That way, you can review all signed checks and make sure the privilege isn\u2019t being abused.<\/p>\n 2. Your mobile phone bill is over $200 a month<\/strong>.\u00a0 If your employees are out of their depth a lot, it will show up in your mobile phone bill because staff will be calling you to coach them through problems. Ask yourself if you\u2019re hiring too many junior employees. Sometimes people with a couple of years of industry experience will be a lot more self-sufficient and only slightly more expensive than the greenhorns. Also consider getting a virtual assistant (VA), who can act as a first line of defense in protecting your time. Contact Tiffiny <\/a>about VA services.<\/p>\n 3. Your revenue is flat compared to last year\u2019s<\/strong>.\u00a0 Flat revenue from one year to the next can be a sign you are a hub in a hub-and-spoke model. Like forcing water through a hose, you have only so much capacity. No matter how efficient you are, every business dependent on its owner reaches capacity at some point. Consider narrowing your product and service line by eliminating technically complex offers that require your personal involvement, and instead focus on selling fewer things to more people.<\/p>\n 4. Your vacations suck<\/strong>.\u00a0 If you spend your vacations dispatching orders from your mobile, it\u2019s time to cut the tether. Start by taking one day off and seeing how your company does without you. Build systems for failure points. Work up to a point where you can take a few weeks off without affecting your business.<\/p>\n 5. You close up every night<\/strong>.\u00a0 If you\u2019re the only one who knows the close-up routine in your business (count the cash, lock the doors, set the alarm), then you are very much a hub. Write an employee manual of basic procedures (close-up routine, e-mail footer to use, voice mail protocol) for your business and give it to new employees on their first day on the job.<\/p>\n 6. You know all of your customers by first name<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s good to have the pulse of your market, but knowing every single customer by first name can be a sign that you\u2019re relying too heavily on your personal relationships being the glue that holds your business together. Consider replacing yourself as a rain maker by hiring a sales team, and as inefficient as it seems, have a trusted employee shadow you when you meet customers so over time your customers get used to dealing with someone else.<\/p>\n 7. You get cc\u2019d on more than five e-mails a day<\/strong>.\u00a0 Employees, customers and suppliers constantly cc\u2019ing you on e-mails can be a sign that they are looking for your tacit approval or that you have not made clear when you want to be involved in their work. Start by asking your employees to stop using the cc line in an e-mail; ask them to add you to the \u201cto\u201d line if you really must be made aware of something \u2013 and only if they need a specific action from you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you were to draw a picture that visually represents your role in your business, what would it look like? Are you at the top of a traditional Christmas-tree-like organizational chart, or are you stuck in the middle of your business, like a hub in a bicycle wheel? As anyone who has tried to fly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,41,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-improvement","category-planning-for-business","category-selling-a-business","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3130,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/3130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}